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One year later: Penn State’s Jonathan Sutherland shares experience after being targeted with offensive letter
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It’s been just over a year since Penn State safety Jonathan Sutherland was targeted with a racist letter from a PSU alum.
On Friday, the Big Ten Network’s YouTube Channel released a video where Sutherland was able to reflect on that experience and all that’s happened in the year since.
“The tone kind of changed in the letter when it went from my play on the field to personal things about me,” Sutherland said, referencing the letter that criticized him for his hair and other parts of his appearance.
"The tone kind of changed in the letter when it went from my play on the field to personal things about me."
– Jonathan Sutherland (@jay_suth) of @PennStateFball shared his experience one year after receiving hate mail about his hair.
Full feature ➡️ https://t.co/eKqnKY3KEX pic.twitter.com/JBDvL7tE2z
— Penn State On BTN (@PennStateOnBTN) October 23, 2020
“The way we grow, maturity-wise, emotionally, physically, etc, is by going through hardships,” Sutherland said. “Overcoming hardships. Learning from them. And the moment we start to run away from adversity, we don’t learn anything from it … So tackling it head on, for me, was crucial. It was imperative that I did that.”
Here’s the full feature, which runs just over five minutes:
Earlier this offseason, Penn State announced Sutherland will wear No. 0 — a special honor — for the Nittany Lions in 2020. Sutherland has also been named a team captain.
In his career, Sutherland has 61 total tackles, 2.5 tackles for loss and a forced fumble.
Penn State’s season kicks off against Indiana on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET.
Spenser is the news manager at Saturday Road and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.