Nov 10, 2015 10:43 AM EST By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

Racial unrest had been ongoing at the University of Missouri (UM), but it did not come to the nation's attention until the school's football team got involved.

Jonathan Butler, a graduate student at UM, had been on a hunger strike demanding Tim Wolfe's resignation as the school system's president for a week. Butler and other protestors were fed up with Wolfe's apparent dismissal of racist incidents on campus.

Michael Sam, a former defensive end on UM's football team, told reporters Monday he was on campus a few days earlier to meet Butler and support him.

Saturday night, black players on the Missouri Tigers pledged to play any football until Butler ended his hunger strike. A day later, UM head football coach Gary Pinkel stated the whole team would take that stand. Whether or not every player was on board, it sent a message louder and clearer than before.

As The Associated Press pointed out, the Tigers boycotting Saturday's football game would have cost UM $1 million, per their contract with Brigham Young University. The day after Pinkel's statement, Wolfe decided to resign.

"These black football players understood that they have the power," Shaun Harper, executive director for the Study of Race and Equity in Education at the University of Pennsylvania, told The AP. "That is so rare. I don't know another class of black people on a university campus that has as much power as these guys, who generate millions of dollars for their institutions and billions of dollars for their athletic conferences. Not in our modern history have we seen black students collectively flex their muscle in this way."

For Pinkel's part, standing with his team was a show of respect for his players rather than a display of his own personal beliefs.

"What [Wolfe's] position was, that wasn't what I was involved with," he told reporters at a news conference, according to SB Nation. "It had nothing to do with it. It simply had to do with my players came to me and said, 'This guy's dying. Will you support me, Coach?'"

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