Crosses Removed: Football Team's Memorial Targeted
A grieving football team has been forced to remove the cross decals they put on their helmets to honor two team members who were tragically killed.
A lawyer sent a letter to Arkansas State University saying the crosses violated the so-called separation of church and state. Then the Freedom from Religion Foundation joined in, pressuring ASU as it has in numerous religious rights cases around the country.
One of the young men being remembered by the football team was Markel Owens, a former player at ASU who was killed in a robbery. The other was the team's equipment manager, Barry Weyer, Jr., who died in a car crash in June.
Weyer's parents feel crushed by the removal of the crosses, calling it "a slap in the face."
"I don't have my baby here and he lived at that football stadium," his mother, Michelle Weyer, said. She says her son was so dedicated to the team that he would get up at 4:30 a.m. just to set up the equipment at ASU before driving back home at 7:30 to attend school.
The Red Wolf football team wanted to honor Weyer and Owens, and since both were Christians, the team decided to put on the crosses.
"The players volunteered. It wasn't a forced issue; it wasn't a mandatory thing. The players knew Barry Don and Markel were Christian boys so they volunteered to wear crosses," Barry Weyer, Sr. said.
The crosses were positioned on the back of the helmets, and they included both of the young men's initials.
But the Freedom from Religion Foundation said the crosses were on government property and therefore unconstitutional.
"We disagree with the means of honoring those students. Surely it would be far better to add a name on the helmet instead of a generic Christian cross, which to everybody who sees it seems to say, 'I'm a Christian; we're a Christian team,' and not anything that honors these teammates that passed away," a lawyer for the anti-church organization told KAIT TV in Jonesboro, Arkansas.
After the legal concerns were raised, the school looked for an alternative, which meant cutting off the top and bottom of the cross, just leaving the horizontal line with the young men's initials.
