“I guess you could say not too many males will say they look up to a woman nowadays,” University of Alabama star running back Najee Harris said at a Rose Bowl press conference. “But I really look up to her for what she does outside of sports.”
He was talking about Megan Rapinoe, an athlete he has admired for some time.
“She’s from California, first of all, and she listens to Nipsey,” Harris said off the bat. “Nipsey Hussle is like one of my favorite rappers too.”
Then the Tide’s senior back spoke about some of the other reasons he looks up to the US Women’s National Team star.
“She’s a feminist,” he said. She stands up for “how the women in the world get treated unfairly, how they get paid different.”
I, for one, can’t think of the last time I heard a male athlete talk about feminism at a press conference.
“It can be scary for her to be a woman in what they would say is a man’s world,” Harris continued. “And her just listening, standing up, not listening to all the naysayers out there and really just standing up for what she believes in. It’s motivating and it’s inspirational.”
Rapinoe responded to the college athlete with a tweet of her own.
This isn’t the first time Harris has publicly supported Rapinoe. Last season, he celebrated a touchdown with her signature move. And a few weeks ago, against LSU, the running back broke out the Rapinoe cele again.
And in August, Harris stood up for others too when he helped lead Alabama athletes in a march to protest systemic racism.
On Friday, at the Rose Bowl (in Dallas), he’ll get another chance to pose in the end zone.