Syracuse Basketball: Already, Alan Griffin is a leader for the Orange

Syracuse basketball junior wing Alan Griffin has yet to play in an official game, but his leadership qualities are admirable.

Syracuse basketball junior wing Alan Griffin is undeniably talented on the court, but what he’s saying off of the court is equally as impressive.

The 6-foot-5 forward from Ossining, N.Y., recently secured an NCAA waiver for immediate eligibility after transferring to the Orange from Illinois, a huge boost to the ‘Cuse’s outlook for this coming season, assuming one is played amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Griffin is expected to help replace the void left by former Syracuse basketball star forward Elijah Hughes, who moved on to the professional ranks after a 2019-20 campaign in which he led the Atlantic Coast Conference in scoring.

There’s a sense of strengthened optimism among many Orange basketball fanatics, myself included, about the 2020-21 term with Griffin able to officially suit up.

However, in a Zoom call on Friday with members of the media, Griffin, an articulate young man, had no interest in discussing the ‘Cuse and its hoops prospects in 2020-21. He had something much more important that he wanted to talk about with reporters, and I’m glad that I got to hear him speak.

In the wake of the Jacob Blake shooting, and many more like it in the United States in 2020 as well as in past years, Griffin understandably has social injustice and systemic racism on his mind.

He says that he wants to use his platform as a student-athlete on a nationally known college basketball squad to discuss what’s going on in the world these days.

As it pertains to Blake, Griffin says, “It’s not right. I feel like we’re all one. … We’re all human.” And you can’t put one life in front of another one, Griffin adds.

Griffin says that he and his Syracuse basketball colleagues have had conversations regarding these critically important and sensitive issues. Talking as a team, he says, “makes us stronger as a unit. … We’re a family.”

As the U.S. presidential election, which will take place on Nov. 3, inches closer, Griffin stressed that people need to register to vote – and then actually vote.

At the end of the Zoom call, a spokesman for the Syracuse basketball squad did note that players have met with head coach Jim Boeheim to make sure that they have registered to vote.

With all of the protests, unrest, senseless violence and divisiveness going on in our country, as well as a pandemic, a big topic of conversation is whether professional sports should get played at this juncture. For Griffin, he doesn’t think major sports should go on until the situation is resolved.

Growing up, Griffin says that he didn’t personally see a lot of systemic racism, but, more recently, he’s witnessed way too many examples of it on social media. He says that it’s “disturbing” and “sickening” and should bother everyone, regardless of their skin color.

“We need change,” Griffin says. “We need actions.”