DU Players Endorse Republican Governor Candidate


(above) DU players William Wrenn & Adam Murray endorse Bill Walker for Alaska's Governors race

Imagine our surprise when Puck Daddy featured two DU players in a video yesterday. Needless to say UAA Fan Blog, college hockey's answer to "The Communist Manifesto," is not going to be impressed with this.

13 comments:

Suze said...

It took you THIS long to comment on this commercial? Sheesh. Yet with it.

Puck Swami said...

Good to see that this kind of thing is permissable by the NCAA, provided the disclaimer is in and nobody gets paid.

Congrats to the players for excercising their rights as citizens to endorse whomever they please.

dggoddard said...

Bill Walton protested the Vietnam War and Lew Alcindor/Kareem Abdul-Jabbar championed Civil Rights in college. So politics & college sports is nothing new. Also its great that these players have a "cause."

That being said, wearing the DU jersey, to schlep for a candidate blurs the line for me. Wearing a DU sweatshirt, T-shirt or tie would have been more appropriate.

Donald Dunlop said...

Swami,
I'm a bit taken aback that apparently UA_ and DU allow their student-athletes to wear their jerseys while endorsing a political candidate. Happy of course to note here that Tyler Currier is wearing a hoodie instead and representing himself as a private citizen versus a member of the UAA team.

So are DU and UA_ tacitly (<--- that's a college word) endorsing this particular candidate? What is DU's interest in the gubernatorial race of a state that is a solid 4000 miles away?

I certainly don't want to blame the athletes here for poor judgement; after all their pre-frontal cortex's are not fully developed as yet. But this Bill Walker cat (and his PR firm) certainly have shown a lack of judgement in this case.

I happily concur with your in support of the right for these students to express themselves as to voting preferences. However, doing so in the uniform of their college seems quite inappropriate.

Let's hope that some civil minded liberal citizen doesn't take offense lest the colleges involved face some penalty; if indeed as I suspect an endorsement by the respective university could easily be misconstrued.

puck swami said...

Yea - I wasn't wild about them wearing their DU jerseys, either.

That's why they have the disclaimer in there (see the Puck Daddy Blog if you missed it).

If I was running for governor, I'd also try to find athletes that at least stayed in the state for college, too.

puck swami said...

It also turns out that one of Walker's sons, Jordan is a junior at DU...

http://www.billwalkerforgovernor.com/about-4/my-life-story/

Donald Dunlop said...

Swams,
Thanks for clarifying that. I certainly didn't notice the "disclaimer". Wonder why I didn't?

Could it be that PR folks aren't really interested in disclosure? Oh well, that's another discussion ... god damn Edward Bernays

Jordan said...

CC uses authentic DU jerseys on their jumbotron in a way that certainly would not be sanctioned...

Anonymous said...

Itsa sign folks...
http://www.borowitzreport.com/2010/04/11/palin-bachmann-seek-two-additional-horsemen/

S11r9...

dggoddard said...

I guess its a good idea for the defensemen and goalies to be conservative and the forwards to take chances and be liberal.

Anonymous said...

But will Murray be able to go to his left?

dggoddard said...

Murray's going to need to work both sides of the aisle.

Anonymous said...

Suze, he would have posted it earlier but he sustained a major knee injury earlier in the year while posting up in Alaska during DU's series. Apparently Dunlop took a real chop shot to his knee while both DG and Dunlop were gunning for the last nachos in the arena. This cheap shot and subsequent injury really slowed down DG's reporting all season long.

Word on the street is that because of this injury he's forgiving his final years of eligibility writing for DU and taking a pro offer with the Ottawa Daily News. Again, this is just rumor, but really tragic if true.