Student Union
- By Zohra Moradi
Afghan Biker Climbs Mountain for Education’s Uphill Battle
Farid Noori was teaching online from the United States to high school students in Kabul, Afghanistan, when a bomb attack started.
“At that very moment,” Noori said, “I had an online, remote class on Afghanistan’s environment with some of the school’s students. One of my students got injured. As days went by, the death toll climbed to 100, mostly schoolgirls, making this one of the deadliest attacks in Kabul’s history.”
At least 90 students were killed and 275 others were injured May 8 at Sayed Ul Shuhada high school, mostly girls and mostly Hazara, an ethnic minority often the target of Islamic fighters. Boys have class in the morning, and girls in the afternoon. The attack occurred around 4 p.m. as the girls were leaving school.
For Noori, who came to the U.S. for school, the attack was profound because it was an attempt to stymie advanced education.
Educated, competed in Vermont
Noori moved from Afghanistan on a high school scholarship in 2011 and graduated from Middlebury College in Vermont with a degree in economics. He discovered mountain biking while in high school and raced for Middlebury. Currently, he is a master’s candidate in business administration at the Sam M. Walton College of Business in Arkansas.
“It was an attack on education and Afghanistan’s future generation, particularly Afghan girls, attempting to stop them from going to school,” he said.
After the attack, there was national and international condemnation and heightened concern about the future for Afghan girls. Attempts were made to memorialize the victims, and the country came together in support and sympathy.
But the attack soon slipped from collective memory, a familiar pattern after repeated incidents of terrorism, he said. But society cannot afford to forget about this tragedy, he added.
“It was an attack on our brightest. And if, as ordinary citizens, we show that such barbaric acts of terrorism cannot be tolerated, that in response to such cruelties, we will double, triple our collective efforts to invest in the education of our children, then we will be sending a strong message to the terrorists behind this attack that our will and dedication to the future of our children is stronger than theirs,” he said.
More than violence
Noori said he wants Americans to know there’s more to Afghanistan than violence. To draw attention to Afghanistan, the education of its youth and its natural beauty, he rode 186 kilometers and 21 times up Appalachian Gap in Vermont on July 27.
“It felt like [it was] a right of passage doing this ride because, you know, the challenge. I had a lot of time to think about them and that was the most incredible feeling, and it motivated me to push harder,” Noori said.
It took 11 hours, 3 minutes to finish, raising nearly $9,000 of his $25,000 goal, crowdfunding under the title “Start Some Good, Education Will Prevail.”
“An incredible day, the last four hours of which was in pouring cold rain," Noori said. "But the amazing show of support from strangers and friends, and some who joined the ride, made the day go faster and easier.”
“It was a show of solidarity that meant a lot,” he said, thinking about those girls.
Symbol of overcoming challenges
Noori uses Naw Shakh, the tallest mountain in Afghanistan and the 52nd-tallest mountain in the world, which has been largely inaccessible to climbers because of Afghanistan’s political turmoil, as a symbol of overcoming challenges. He said it could become a tourism destination.
Noori has also encouraged biking in Afghanistan to empower Afghan youth “with the joy of riding and competing on mountain bikes." He said the sport connects people across borders who share a love of cycling, and he founded an organization — Mountain Bike Afghanistan — to foster that interest.
“We use the bike as a tool to bring joy and hope into the lives of Afghan youth and promote gender equality,” he said. “We believe the bike is the most effective tool for the emancipation of Afghan women and normalizing their freedom of movement in Afghan society. We organize events and provide equipment to get more Afghan women on bikes.”
In 2018, Noori and his team in Afghanistan launched the annual Hindu Kush Mountain Bike Challenge in response to the growing popularity of mountain biking among Afghan youth.
They kickstarted Afghanistan's first official cross-country mountain bike race and kindled a culture of racing and community gathering. Hindu Kush is 805 kilometers of mountain range that stretches through Afghanistan into northern Pakistan and Tajikistan and is part of the Himalaya range of the world’s biggest, most challenging mountains, including the tallest, Mount Everest.
“Everyone concerned with peace and stability in Afghanistan has a responsibility to do more to show ongoing support to victims of such tragedies” as the attack on Sayed Ul Shuhada, Noori concluded.
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College athletes push for voter turnout while largely avoiding controversy as election nears
Lily Meskers faced an unexpected choice in the lead-up to the first major election she can vote in.
The 19-year-old University of Montana sprinter was among college athletes in the state who received an inquiry from Montana Together asking if she was interested in a name, image and likeness deal to support Sen. Jon Tester, a three-term Democrat seeking re-election. The group, which is not affiliated with the Tester campaign, offered from $400 to $2,400 to athletes willing to produce video endorsements.
Meskers, who is from Colorado but registered to vote in Montana, decided against the deal because she disagrees with Tester's votes on legislation involving transgender athletes in sports.
"I was like, OK, I believe that this is a political move to try to gain back some voters that he might have lost," Meskers said. "And me being a female student-athlete myself, I was not going to give my endorsement to someone who I felt didn't have the same support for me."
Professional athletes such as LeBron James, Colin Kaepernick and Stephen Curry have taken high-profile stances on hot-button topics and political campaigns in recent years, but college athletes are far less outspoken — even if money is available, according to experts in the NIL field. Being outwardly political can reflect on their school or endanger potential endorsement deals from brands that don't want controversy. It can certainly establish a public image for an athlete — for better or for worse — or lead to tensions with teammates and coaches who might not feel the same way.
There are examples of political activism by college athletes: A Texas Tech kicker revealed his support for former President Donald Trump on a shirt under his uniform at a game last week and a handful of Nebraska athletes a few days ago teamed up in a campaign ad against an abortion measure on the Tuesday's ballot.
Still, such steps are considered rare.
"It can be viewed as risky and there may be people telling them just don't even take that chance because they haven't made it yet," said Lauren Walsh, who started a sports branding agency 15 years ago. She said there is often too much to lose for themselves, their handlers and in some cases, their families.
"And these individuals still have to figure out what they're going to do with the rest of their lives, even those that do end up getting drafted," she added.
College coaches are not always as reticent. Auburn men's basketball coach Bruce Pearl has used social media to make it clear he does not support Kamala Harris, Trump's Democratic opponent in next week's presidential election. Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy once caused a stir with a star player for wearing a shirt promoting a far-right news outlet.
Blake Lawrence, co-founder of the NIL platform Opendorse, noted that this is the first presidential election in the NIL era, which began in July 2021. He said athletes are flocking to opportunities to help increase voter turnout in the 18-to-24 age demographic, adding that one of his company's partners has had 86 athletes post social media messages encouraging turnout through the first half of the week.
He said athletes are shying away from endorsing specific candidates or causes that are considered partisan.
"Student-athletes are, for the most part, still developing their confidence in endorsing any type of product or service," he said. "So if they are hesitant to put their weight behind supporting a local restaurant or an e-commerce product, then they are certainly going to be hesitant to use their social channels in a political way."
Giving athletes a voice
Many college athletes have opted to focus on drumming up turnout in a non-partisan manner or simply using their platforms to take stands that are not directly political in nature. Some of those efforts can be found in battleground states.
A progressive group called NextGen America said it had signed players in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Virginia to encourage voting among young people. Another organization, The Team, said it prepped 27 college athletes in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona and Michigan to lead volunteer voter participation opportunities for students. The organization also said it got more than 625 coaches to sign a nonpartisan pledge to get their athletes registered to vote.
The Team's executive director is Joe Kennedy, a former coach who coordinated championship visits and other sporting events at the White House during President Barack Obama's administration. In early October, it hosted a Zoom event during which panelists such as NCAA President Charlie Baker and WNBA players Nneka Ogwumike and Natasha Cloud gave college athletes advice about using their platforms on campus.
In its early days, The Team seized upon momentum from the record turnout seen in the 2020 election. The NCAA that year said Division I athletes could have Election Day off from practice and play to vote. Lisa Kay Solomon, founder of the All Vote No Play campaign, said even if the athletes don't immediately take stands on controversial issues, it's important for them to learn how.
"It is a lot to ask our young people to feel capable and confident on skills they've never had a chance to practice," Solomon said. "We have to model what it means to practice taking risks, practice standing up for yourself, practice pausing to think about what are the values that you care about — not what social media is feeding into your brain, but what do you care about and how do you express that? And how do you do it in a way that honors the kind of future that you want to be a part of?"
Shut up and play?
Two years ago, Tennessee-Martin quarterback Dresser Winn said he would support a candidate in a local district attorney general race in what experts said was very likely the first political NIL deal by a college athlete.
There have been very few since.
The public criticism and fallout for athletes who speak out on politics or social issue can be sharp. Kaepernick, the Super Bowl-winning quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, hasn't played in an NFL game since January 2017, not long after he began kneeling during the national anthem at games.
Meskers, the Montana sprinter, said political endorsements through NIL deals could create problems for athletes and their schools.
"I just think that NIL is going to run into a lot of trouble and a lot of struggles if they continue to let athletes do political endorsements," she said. "I just think it's messy. But I stand by NIL as a whole. I think it's really hard as a student athlete to create a financial income and support yourself."
Walsh said it's easier for wealthy and veteran stars like James and Ogwumike to take stands. James, the Los Angeles Lakers star, started More Than a Vote — an organization with a mission to "educate, energize and protect Black voters" — in 2020. He has passed the leadership to Ogwumike, who just finished her 13th year in the WNBA and also is the president of the Women's National Basketball Players Association. More than a Vote is focused on women's rights and reproductive freedom this year.
"They have very established brands," Walsh said. "They know who they are and they know what their political stance is. They know that they have a really strong following that -- there's always going to be haters, but they're also always going to have that strong following of people who listen to everything that they have to say."
Andra Gillespie, an associate professor at Emory University who teaches African American politics, also said it is rare that a college athlete would make a significant impact with a political stand simply because they tend to have a more regional platform than national. Even celebrities like Taylor Swift and Eminem are better at increasing turnout than championing candidates.
"They are certainly very beneficial in helping to drive up turnout among their fans," Gillespie said. "The data is less conclusive about whether or not they're persuasive – are they the ones who are going to persuade you to vote for a particular candidate?"
Athletes as influencers
Still, campaigns know young voters are critical this election cycle, and athletes offer an effective and familiar voice to reach them.
Political and social topics are not often broached, but this week six Nebraska athletes — five softball players and a volleyball player — appeared in an ad paid for by the group Protect Women and Children involving two initiatives about abortion laws on Tuesday's ballot.
The female athletes backed Initiative 434, which would amend the state constitution to prohibit abortions after the first trimester, with exceptions. Star softball player Jordy Bahl said on social media that the athletes were not paid.
A University of Montana spokesperson said two athletes initially agreed to take part in the NIL deal backing Tester. The school said one withdrew and the other declined to be interviewed.
For Meskers, deciding against the offer boiled down to Tester twice voting against proposals to bar federal funds from going to schools that allow transgender athletes to play women's sports, a prominent GOP campaign topic. Tester's campaign said the proposals were amendments to government spending packages, and he didn't want to play a role in derailing them as government shutdowns loomed.
"As a former public school teacher and school board member, Jon Tester believes these decisions should be made at the local level," a Tester spokesperson said. "He has never voted to allow men to compete against women."
Meskers said she believes using influence as college athletes is good and she is in favor of NIL. She just doesn't think the two should mix specifically for supporting candidates.
"I think especially as student athletes, we do have such a big voice and we do have a platform to use," she said. "So I think if you're encouraging people to do their civic duties and get up and go (vote), I think that's a great thing."
