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FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- Acknowledging that its been a combination of tough to watch but great to see [the Patriots] win, quarterback Tom Brady said viewing the teams opening two victories on television has sparked an appreciation for the clubs approach.I was hoping to gain a little different perspective, and I think I have, Brady said during his weekly Westwood One radio interview prior to Monday Night Football.Its amazing the way our team responds to adversity and the way our coaches prepare us for all these different situations that we face. Im just proud of the guys for how hard theyre working. You can see it on TV, and obviously its really paying off. Its great to be a fan of the Patriots and its really great to be a player on the Patriots. I definitely have gained that perspective, and hopefully we get to 3-0 on Thursday night.The Patriots host the Houston Texans on Thursday, which is a quick turnaround with quarterback Jimmy Garoppolos status is in question after he suffered a sprained AC joint in his right, throwing shoulder Sunday. Garoppolo left in the second quarter after throwing three touchdown passes in a 31-24 victory over the Miami Dolphins.Its tough ... I feel for him, Brady said on the program. He made a great play to escape the pocket and made a great throw on the run on a third-down play. The linebacker [Kiko Alonso] hit him and landed on top of him. You see that quite a bit in the NFL. Its a tough injury, especially your throwing shoulder ... I know hell be back out there as soon as he can. ... Who knows? Jimmy may be out there [Thursday]. Well see how it plays out.Brady had been impressed with what he saw from Garoppolo up to that point.Its been a great start. Hes a very hard worker, and Im just proud of the way that hes led the team, Brady said. To be 2-0 at this point when two of the other [division] teams are 0-2, its really great for our team. Hes done a really great job.If Garoppolo doesnt play Thursday, rookie Jacoby Brissett would take over. The third-round pick from NC State (91st overall) has caught Bradys eye quickly.Jacoby has done a great job taking advantage of his opportunity as well, Brady told host Jim Gray. He went in there [Sunday] and showed a lot of poise. He has a great demeanor about him. I love working with him. He shows up to work every day working hard. Hes very competitive, and I know our coaching staff will have him prepared and ready to go for Thursday night if hes called upon.Meanwhile, its possible that receiver Julian Edelman could be the teams emergency quarterback, which led Brady to joke about his best pal.He still talks about that touchdown pass he threw against Baltimore [in the playoffs] a few years ago. Hes kind of batting 1.000 right now, Brady cracked.Edelman played quarterback at Kent State before switching to receiver after the Patriots selected him in the seventh round of the 2009 draft. By his fifth NFL season, he had emerged as one of Bradys go-to targets.If he was ever thrust into the top spot at quarterback, Brady, turning serious, expressed confidence.Coach Belichick always has the team prepared for any situation. He thinks these things through, and obviously the game just happened [Sunday], so a lot of things could happen between now and Thursday night, but Julian has kind of been in that role, he said.Hes played the position and, God forbid anything happened to Jacoby, if hes the only guy out there at quarterback, if thats the case, then Id expect Julian to go in there and the coaches to be comfortable with the plays that theyre calling for him.As for Brady himself, he confirmed that he worked out with former teammate Wes Welker on Sunday morning, saying, It was fun to be out there on the field with him. We got out there and broke a pretty good sweat.In addition, Brady said hes been trying to replicate what hed normally do during the course of the week and feels hes in a decent place. He added that he looks forward to the next couple weeks going fast.While serving a four-game suspension as part of the NFLs Deflategate penalties has kept him away from the Patriots, it did bring Brady back to his alma mater on Saturday as he was honored at Michigan. Brady played catch with coach Jim Harbaugh on the field before the Wolverines victory over Colorado.They were so warm and embracing; I have a lot of love for the people there, he said. Coach Harbaugh has done such a great job with the university and the team, and bringing so much excitement back. ... It was a really cool experience being back in the Big House. Ive never had a chance to go back in the fall, so to have an opportunity to do it was really special. I had my son there with me, so it was such a memorable day and such a memorable experience for me and Jack. Wholesale Jordan 8 . 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Cheap Jordan 8 Shoes Free Shipping .ca looks back at the stories and moments that made the year memorable. With more than 700 hate incidents reported since the recent presidential election, a significant part of America stands tense and fearful. It is at times like these that we expect our educational leaders at institutions of higher education to share wisdom and help calm the storm. But if you look at who is in the leadership positions there, they are overwhelmingly white and male.The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida continues to research and report on racial and gender equality in sports. Today, we are releasing our report -- Collegiate Athletic Leadership Still Dominated by White Men: Assessing Diversity Among Campus and Conference Leaders for Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) Schools in the 2016-17 Academic Year -- assessing the racial and gender makeup of key leadership positions.In the 2016-17 report, 88 percent of our presidents, 86 percent of our athletic directors, 89 percent of faculty athletics representatives and 100 percent of our conference commissioners were white. In those positions, 76, 79, 63 and 90 percent were white men, respectively. Overall, whites held 341 (88 percent) of the 388 campus leadership positions reported in this study, which was a slight decrease from 89 percent in 2015.As we release this annual report, I think of hearing from one of our graduates, an African-American woman who is so talented and smart that we wanted to hire her at the NCAS. She shared with me that someone at the post office yelled, Heil Hitler. I was alone with that man and the two postmen behind the counter. They laughed and proceeded to tell me that they couldnt mail my letter and every post office was out of stamps for me.As we release this annual report, I watch with horror the increasing number of hate incidents and overall unrest in our country. Throughout my life, I have seen incredible advances in the rights of women and people of color, but the recent climate has led me to wonder what the future holds for the next generation.Those who are parents are genuinely fearful for their childrens safety. How could they not be? Each year, as I conduct research for this report, I am hopeful the results will show increased representation for women and people of color in the leadership roles at the FBS schools. If there were more women and people of color in the decision-making positions at our colleges and universities, they would be helping to address the issues that are continuing to boil up on the surface.The NCAA met and deliberated about the shockingly poor record of hiring practices in college sport and decided to adopt the Pledge and Commitment to Promoting Diversity and Gender Equity in Intercollegiate Athletics in September 2016. It is a strong call and has been signed by many presidents. The criticism is that the pledge is not binding and there are no sanctions for not improving the hiring record of a university athletics department. We can hope that the pledge and the strong backing of President Mark Emmert will lead to change.But I think we need what I have called The Eddie Robinson Rule, patterned after the NFLs Rooney Rule, with built-in sanctions to stop more years of overwhelmingly white men leading us in higher education. We need people of color and women in the candidate pool for all leadership positions on our campuses.As a child of the civil rights movement, I grew up in a family fighting for equal opportunity and the human rights due to every human being. However, at this moment, division and animosity appear to dominate our country.I have personally experienced the power sport has to unite people of all cultures and backgrounds. I believe colleges and universities must take advantage of the power they have to foster camaraderie and continue to fight for equality. Student-athletes have a major role to play in standing up for justice so the establishment cannot block its path.We release this report not to add to the contentious nature of these issues but to inform America of the continued pattern of under-representation of women and people of color in our society. The FBS D-1 Leadership reports main objective is to challenge all colleges and universities to mirror the diversity of their students and student-athletes in their campus leadership positions.dddddddddddd.Women and people of color who seek leadership positions in American higher education and college sports face enormous odds. This years report presents 19 women as presidents, and nine as athletic directors. Among people of color, there are 15 who are presidents and 16 who are football head coaches out of 128 FBS institutions. That number is about to go down as it is being reported that Charlie Strong, the coach at the university of Texas, is being fired. As we move toward college football playoffs, bowl games and the national championship, these poor numbers stand in stark contrast to our college football student-athletes, which are comprised of 58.7 percent people of color.In the DeVos Sport Business Management Program that I chair, and at the National Consortium for Academics and Sport, which I helped found more than 30 years ago, we always talk about using the power of sport to heal communities. The most recent example was after the nightmare of the Pulse Nightclub shootings, when the Tampa Bay Rays, Orlando City Soccer and, most recently, the Orlando Magic dedicated games to the victims and first responders. I am proud that it was our DeVos alumni who prepared the production of those events at all three sites. The City of Orlando and its sports teams took the despair and did something about it.I spent 50 years of my life working to bring people together. My wife, Ann, and I have done that together for the past 30 years. Bridging gaps. Talking about love conquering hate and love leading to forgiveness. Yet the morning after the 2016 presidential election, I did not know what to do. I felt helpless.But as the day went on, I heard from more than 15 former students and spoke to a dozen current students. Among them were women, African-Americans, Latinos and Muslims. Gays and lesbians. My family had been texting back and forth all day. The path became more clear. We need to do what we do best and work relentlessly with even more determination than in the past to fight against injustice and discrimination.Through the NCAS, we have been doing diversity and inclusion training for nearly three decades. For many of those years, we did a pretraining survey, and the biggest distinction between the opinions of white men, white women, black women and black men was that white men and women overwhelmingly felt that affirmative action discriminated against them. However, black men and women, by between 70 to 80 percent, felt that affirmative action did not discriminate against white men or women.The surveys we did after our training showed significantly different opinions in all four groups. White men and women felt less threatened by affirmative action, and black men and women were more sympathetic to the apprehension that white people had shown about the effects of affirmative action. Bridges were built. Bridges were and are possible now.We cannot sit on the sidelines. To use a sports analogy, we need to be in the game for social justice. I ask our student-athlete leaders, professional athletes and coaches to continue doing that if they already are, and perhaps add more emphasis. If you are not already involved, take this as an opportunity to pick an issue you are passionate about and help a local group advance that cause.We can do something about social justice in America. Our childrens future is at stake. We can all fight for that, no matter whom you voted for in the election. We need our leaders in higher education to help show the way, but that leadership needs to look more like America. We have a lot of work to do.Richard E. Lapchick is the chair of the DeVos Sport Business Management Graduate Program in the College of Business Administration at the University of Central Florida. Lapchick also directs UCFs Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, is the author of 16 books and the annual racial and gender report card, and is the president of the National Consortium for Academics and Sport. He has been a regular commentator for ESPN.com on issues of diversity in sport. Follow him on Twitter @richardlapchick and on Facebook at facebook.com/richard.lapchick. ' ' '