In his weekly Monday presser, Wyoming football head coach Jay Sawvel was asked by a reporter how he and the team have dealt with all the online hate they received after losing their season opener at Arizona State.
What Sawvel had to say in response is less than pleasing to hear.
“I had one email that said that they hope that I got shot,” Sawvel admitted.
“You know, when you get to that point and you look at it, and you just tell people, hey, just ignore this part,” he added.
Unfortunately, receiving these kinds of threats and messages online isn’t an unusual thing for student-athletes and coaches, especially after a team performs below their given expectations. Even during Craig Bohl’s successful ten year tenure there were several athletes receiving similar death threats as the one sent to Sawvel.
“That’s every school in the country, in today’s day and age with social media and everything else, the level of consternation, the level of attack that comes when people don’t do well,” Sawvel said.
Starting quarterback Evan Svoboda was also on the receiving end of a whirlwind of online hate, after the junior signal caller went 6/15 for 42 yards and two interceptions. Sawvel notes that Svoboda isn’t taking anything personally and is just rolling with the punches. Being the starting quarterback of any program in the nation comes along with the hate unique to the position when you perform poorly, just as much as it comes with the praise when you do well.
“It’s part of the nature of it, and he understands it. He’s in a good space,” Sawvel said of his starting quarterback.
Despite the cruel and hateful nature of these threats and hate messages, the Cowboys aren’t taking them much into consideration. To them, it’s just more outside noise that doesn’t define who they are.
“I think the biggest thing that you can say from a mental health standpoint, it’s about the fact that do the people who are around you every day still believe in you? Okay, if the people who are around you every day still believe in you, then you’re going to be just fine,” Sawvel said.
