The voices of Minnesota sports remember the upheaval of five years ago

On May 25, 2020, outside Cup Foods on Chicago Avenue, Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on the neck of George Floyd.

Chauvin would be convicted of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Three other officers on the scene — Thomas Lane, Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng — would be convicted in state and federal court of charges related to Floyd’s death.

Floyd’s death would trigger national protests, as well as riots and looting in Minneapolis.

This did not begin as a sports story, but local sports teams and figures reacted.

The Vikings and the National Football League etched slogans like “End Racism” in their end zones, and players wore that and similar phrases on the back of their helmets. Twins star Byron Buxton was among the team’s players who knelt during the national anthem to protest Floyd’s death and other extrajudicial killings of people of color.

The Twins commemorated Floyd on their outfield wall. The Lynx and general manager/head coach Cheryl Reeve, who regularly speak out against injustices, expressed their dismay verbally and on printed T-shirts.

The site where Chauvin killed Floyd is known today as George Floyd Square. Five years later, the Minnesota Star Tribune interviewed local athletes, executives and team employees to ask whether their memories of Floyd’s death linger, and whether it changed anything.

Here are their voices:

Former welterweight boxing champion Jamal James and his mentor Sankara Frazier live blocks away from Cup Foods.

James developed his skills at the old Circle of Discipline Gym, a short walk from George Floyd Square.

Frazier, the founder, executive director and coach of Circle of Discipline, also used the gym as a refuge and training ground for young people. Medaria Arradondo, who was Minneapolis police chief during Floyd’s death, used to work out in the gym.

Sankara Frazier: “I met George Floyd at a fight. I was messing around with him, because he couldn’t walk, his knees were really bad, and I said, `Come on down to the gym, we’ll take care of you.’

“We’re at the fights and Chauvin was downstairs, doing security. I had talked to Chauvin before. Everybody used to stop by the Circle, including the old MPD chief, [William] McManus. So, I mean, where it happened, that’s our street, our community. I’ve been there since I was a kid, and we were there to instill the right mentality, that we can do for ourselves. I’m a revolutionary in that way.

“This was tragic, but it wasn’t new. I went to school with Eric Benford, and he was shot [while unarmed, by a police officer, in 1976] out in Eagan. They blasted him right there at a gas station. Then there was Philando Castile over in St. Paul [who was shot to death in 2016 by a police officer during a traffic stop]. That was super flagrant to me. What’s there to think about? George Floyd was killed while a bunch of people just stood there and watched.”

Jamal James: “I was right around the corner. I was staying with Pops [Frazier] at the time, and the house I bought is right there, too. I run past Chicago Avenue all the time. When I saw what happened, it was shocking — but it wasn’t. Because we’ve seen so many unjustified killings from police officers. This one just happened to be videotaped.

“The response was warranted. I don’t condone rioting and stealing, but when these things continue to happen within our communities to people who look like us, people are going to get fed up. No matter what penalty you give Chauvin, George Floyd is still dead. It really makes me wonder what kind of culture they push within the police system.

“I’ve got a brother who was a police officer. I believe we need police officers. I talk to Black officers and they’re highly upset about it, but very few of them will talk about it loudly, or to the press. It’s a cultural thing. They don’t want their co-workers looking at them sideways.”

Alan Page was a Hall of Fame defensive tackle for the Vikings and a Minnesota Supreme Court justice. He spoke via Zoom from his longtime home in Minneapolis.

“Nothing has fundamentally changed. I think there are some efforts, as I understand it, to bring about change, but change is slow, and change is hard, and people have a tendency to resist change, no matter how good it might be.

“In the days after, we have Humvees roaming our neighborhood. It was almost surreal.

“It got people talking and focused and out in the streets. But how does that translate into something being different? What happened to George Floyd has been happening to people forever. Maybe there’s no answer to it.”

Lynx star Napheesa Collier is one of the world’s best basketball players, the 2024 Minnesota Star Tribune’s Sportsperson of the Year, as well as the co-founder of the new three-on-three women’s basketball league, Unrivaled.

“I remember how vivid it was, because of the video. Shortly after that, we had a team meeting. It was such a horrific event, and the fact that you could see what happened with your own eyes meant that it had a different impact than just hearing about something that happened.

“I think some good has happened. What happened to George Floyd and Breonna Taylor [a medical worker who was shot in her home by Louisville police in 2020] became the basis for our 2020 season. I think that was a pivotal point for ‘the W,’ in terms of our social justice efforts and the way that we use our voices to speak out against things like this. So I feel it changed our community within the WNBA, and empowered us to see what our voices could do.”

The championship Lynx teams also took a stand against police brutality and extrajudicial killings. Coach Reeve regularly wears T-shirts on the sideline during games that champion social justice.

“They were the first ones to speak out,” Collier said. “Cheryl is very vocal about her activism, and standing up for what she believes in. That has always been something I’ve been proud to be a part of, because she’s a strong female character who isn’t afraid to speak out.”

Former Minneapolis police officer Tony Adams is the head of security for the Timberwolves. Charles Adams, his nephew, also worked for the MPD and is now head of security for the Twins.

Tony Adams remembers feeling devastated by the video.

Charles Adams remembers getting shot at.

Tony Adams was nearing the end of his 30 years working for the department. A former college basketball player, he grew up in north Minneapolis and worked extensively with the MPD’s Police Activities League (PAL), an outreach program aimed at involving underprivileged children in sports and activities.

Tony Adams: “Our older generation was always talking about how bad the Plymouth riots turned out, but what we saw in the protests and riots after George Floyd took it to a whole different level.”

Charles Adams, who worked for the MPD for 20 years, coaches the North High football team. He joined the Twins in October 2020.

“There was definitely trauma,” Charles Adams said. “There were also opportunities to help people grow, and organizations grow, and I’ve definitely seen that. Being in this organization gave me a chance to help people realize how things were in both the community and the police department; it gave me a good perspective on how I could encourage people to support both sides.”

After Floyd’s death, Charles Adams watched the Third Precinct building burn down.

“I was right there, across the street,” he said. “I was on the front lines of the unrest. There were times I didn’t think I was going to make it home. That was the traumatic piece for me, actually asking myself if I was going to make it home.

“I got out of the squad car to pull up to the pawnshop that was on fire, and me and my partner got shot at. We were on the team that was protecting the firefighters. So for two hours you’re standing there getting shot at. To this day, we still don’t know what direction the shots came from. We reported to work at 4 or 5 p.m. and got home about 4 or 5 in the morning. My wife and kids were still up, worried. My wife still reminds me that I smelled like I had been barbecuing all day. They all hugged me and cried because they thought they had seen me for the last time.”

LaTroy Hawkins pitched for the Twins and is one of their television analysts. He played for 11 teams over 21 seasons, forming fan groups in each city so he could get to know the locals.

He and his wife, who live near Dallas, established a home for domestic violence survivors.

“My brother sent me the video of George Floyd being murdered,” Hawkins said. “I was appalled by the lack of empathy from the other police officers. I understand the ‘locker-room’ mentality, the brotherhood between police officers. But I also know that in a brotherhood, my brother would tell me when I’m wrong. I understand that he’s your superior officer, but where’s your humanity?

“My grandparents always told me that ignorance is curable, but stupidity is forever, and there are a lot of stupid people out there, people saying that because George Floyd had a history, or had drugs in his system, that he should be killed in the street like a dog. Who cares what his rap sheet was like? He’s still a human. We’ve got a justice system for that.”

Lea B. Olsen played basketball for the University of Minnesota and now works as a broadcaster on Timberwolves and Lynx games. She also is a keynote speaker and was the host and emcee when St. Catherine University hosted South Carolina coach Dawn Staley in 2024.

“It felt like a really dark day in Minneapolis. For someone who grew up here, I watched a neighborhood I grew up in just disappear, get burned down. That, combined with COVID, made that one of the darkest eras of my adult life.”

Wayne Petersen is the Wild’s senior director of community relations and hockey partnerships.

“The George Floyd murder definitely changed the way a lot of organizations, not just the Wild or the NHL, conduct business,” he said. “Some teams, some players are more supportive of certain causes and issues than they probably were before George Floyd’s murder.

“How it impacted us an organization the most is that we came out with our new mission and beliefs. The NHL has always had the program and slogan ‘Hockey is for everyone.’ The Minnesota Wild really took that to a whole new level. We’re really trying to get better in recruiting new kids of color into the game, and into the industry.”

At the end of her playing career, Rebekkah Brunson held the record for most rebounds in history of the WNBA. She is the only player in league history to win five championship rings.

Now a Lynx assistant coach and Timberwolves TV analyst, Brunson tried to view the reaction to Floyd’s death in a positive light.

“What I recall, after the initial trauma, was people actually coming together and trying to put forth some type of effort to make change,” Brunson said. “You had people from the community coming together to talk to the mayor, the chief of police, trying to create real change. That was a great thing to see — people fighting for calm, for justice, but also to bring their community back together. It seemed like, at that moment, this all wasn’t going to be for nothing.”

And now?

“I don’t know if I do believe that anything changed,” Brunson said. “I think there were some steps taken, but it’s sad, the time we live in now, seeing so many steps backwards in our society. We fought so hard for a little bit of progress, and it felt like progress, but it wasn’t really factual. The idea of harmony was slowly ripped away. At this point, I can’t say we made any progress at all.”