How Oregon's Football Coach Reacted to Charlie Kirk's Assassination. It Was Spot-on.

Oregon football coach Dan Lanning nailed what the Charlie Kirk assassination was to the country. It was evil. It represented a failure to listen, where division for some had become so deep that murder and domestic terrorism were viewed as a legitimate means to settle disputes. The irony was that Kirk’s message was the opposite of that; failure to communicate is when things fall apart. It’s why he went on college campuses to debate, have conversations, and hold Q&A sessions. Sure, not all went smoothly; some leftie students eager to duke it out with him were downright disrespectful, but that’s life. At least, they’re talking. If being yelled at was the worst that could happen, then so be it. At least not one was getting killed, right?

Lanning added that he wished America acted like the players in his locker room. All his players come from different backgrounds, creeds, and walks of life. On a football team, there’s no time to be huffy because someone is Christian, pro-life, or pro-gun control. The coach, who addressed this matter in a post-game presser after his Ducks rolled Northwestern this weekend, added, “I hurt for his wife, Erika, and their kids. That sort of evil should never exist in our country. That’s what it is, evil.”

Oregon head football coach, Dan Lanning, on Ducks super fan Charlie Kirk: “I hurt for his wife, Erika, and their kids. That sort of evil should never exist in our country. That’s what it is, evil.”

“Life matters, and I think we’ve lost sight of that.”

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“Life matters, and I think we’ve lost sight of that,” he added. “If you disagree with me, if you hate me, if you don’t like me, just know this: I love you. I absolutely love you, and life matters.”

Kirk, who was assassinated on September 10, was an Oregon Ducks fan (via Fox News):

"You walk in that locker room, you've got guys of different races, guys of different backgrounds, different religions, and you got a team that loves each other. Tons of differences. Where they come from, what they deal with, and ultimately you've got a team that loves each other, and I think we’re missing some of that in our country," Lanning said.
Lanning has been outspoken about gun violence before, and he made his voice heard again on Saturday, condemning the "evil" that led to Kirk's assassination as well as children's shooting deaths.
"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 people there."