Slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s college football allegiances were well-known: He was an Oregon Ducks fan. And on Saturday, after getting a conference win against Northwestern in Evanston, Illinois, less than 20 miles from Kirk’s hometown of Arlington Heights, Ducks coach Dan Lanning delivered a stirring message of unity while extending condolences to Kirk’s family.
Lanning began by pointing to the unity and camaraderie within his own Oregon Ducks locker room, and how that could serve as a model for our public discourse.
“I think the U.S. could learn a lot from our locker room. I think the people of this world could learn a lot from our locker room,” Lanning said after Oregon’s win at Northwestern on Sept. 13. “You walk into that locker room and you’ve got guys of different races, guys of different backgrounds, different religions, and you’ve got a team that loves each other. Like tons of differences. Where they come from, what they deal with, and ultimately, you have a team that loves each other.
“I think we’re missing some of that in our country.”
Lanning said he didn’t know Kirk was a Ducks fan, and that he “hurt” when thinking about the pain his wife and family are enduring. He also condemned the evil that led to Kirk’s assassination, as well as the many school shootings that have occurred throughout the country.
“I recently found out Charlie Kirk was an Oregon fan, right? I didn’t know that. I hurt for his wife, Erika, and their kids. That sort of evil should never exist in our country, and that’s what it is — evil. I remember having to explain that to my family, right? I remember sitting down with my kids and explaining what happened, and they’re talking about people talking about it at school. And it’s just sad, right?” Lanning said.
“But it’s just as sad — every day it seems like we deal with some sort of violence that’s going on in our country, whether it’s school kids in Colorado or kids in Minnesota at churches. I mean, life matters, and I think we’ve lost sight of that. But I just wish the world could learn a little bit of something from our locker room, because we’ve got a bunch of people with differences, and what you’ve got in there is a bunch of people there.”
Lanning also addressed the political division in the country by letting those who disagree with him know that he loves them.
“Just know this — I love you. I absolutely love you, right? And life matters. And there’s no way that Charlie should experience, that his family should experience, there’s no way that that evil should exist in this world.”
The Ducks coach then implored “both sides” of the political world to embrace “common sense” reforms that would protect children in schools and make it harder for “sick people” to get guns.
“And we have to continue to identify and point it out and make sure that it’s absolutely evil. There’s no reason in the world that our kids, that we should be worried about sending our kids to school. It’s our most valuable commodity in the world. They should be protected. And the reality is, there’s just not a lot of common sense on both sides.
“Common sense says, ‘Oh, it’s mental health, right?’ Common sense says, ‘Oh, it’s guns.’ You know what? It’s both. Let’s have some common sense. Our kids should be the most protected thing in the world, right? They should have armed guards at every school, because there’s sick people, there’s sick people in this world, right? And on top of that, sick people need help, and it should be really hard for a sick person to have a gun.”
Kirk, 31, was murdered by an assassin’s bullet as he spoke at an event at Utah Valley University on Wednesday. The founder of Turning Point USA (TPUSA) and husband and father of two died from his wounds at a local Utah hospital.
Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old Utah resident, is under arrest after reportedly confessing to shooting Kirk.
