A former University of Cincinnati football player says athletes who were coached by Tommy Tuberville deserve some kind of "reparations."
Zach Edwards, a Middletown High School grad who was named All-American Athletic Conference Honorable Mention in 2015 while playing safety at UC, tweeted about the Alabama senator Thursday.
Edwards quote-tweeted a Rolling Stone Politics article about Tuberville's recent comments regarding white nationalists in the United States military.
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"Okay hear me out, there needs to be some type of reparations for those who had to play under this man," Edwards wrote. "I don’t think y’all understand…"
In the comments, a Twitter user asked for a "story time about (the) terrible Tommy Tuberville era."
"Where would one begin," Edwards replied. "Haha but yeah definitely a different time."
Edwards played safety for the Bearcats from 2013 to 2016, becoming a starter his freshman year. He previously served as defensive backs coach for Middletown High School's football team, according to News 5 (WLWT-TV).
Tuberville was the head football coach at UC from 2013 to 2016, stepping down after a bumpy 4-8 season that included an incident in which he confronted a heckling fan. The Republican is serving his first term as a U.S. senator and was elected into office in 2020 after campaigning on his support for then-President Donald Trump.
Tuberville's comments Monday about white nationalists sparked reactions this week. During an interview aired on WBHM-FM (90.3), a public radio station in Birmingham, the senator suggested military recruitment numbers are down because of efforts to prevent white nationalists from joining.
"We are losing in the military so fast," he said. "Our readiness in terms of recruitment. And why? I’ll tell you why, because the Democrats are attacking our military, saying we need to get out the white extremists, the white nationalists, people that don’t believe in our agenda, as Joe Biden’s agenda."
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When asked if white nationalists should be allowed in the military, the senator replied, "Well, they call them that. I call them Americans."
After criticism from Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, Tuberville clarified his comments Thursday.
“There’s a lot of good people who are Trump supporters in the military,” he told reporters, according to Roll Call. “But for some reason my Democrat colleagues want to portray everybody who’s a Trump supporter as a white nationalist. That is not true.”
Tuberville's college football coaching career spanned 40 years, including stints as an assistant coach and defensive coordinator at the University of Miami and Texas A&M, as well as head coaching stops at Ole Miss, Auburn University and Texas Tech University.
The Enquirer left a voicemail for Tuberville's Washington, D.C. office requesting comment.
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