Athletes have caught a lot of flak for their political activism as of late. Taking a knee during the anthem and wearing politically charged clothing during games have left a bad taste in the mouths of many across the country. However, not every athlete is carrying their message into the stadium or arena. Meet Daniel Weldon, a University of Florida linebacker, who is choosing a more tactful approach to his political activism.
Weldon, a walk-on redshirt junior, recently announced that he is running for the position of second vice chair for the Florida Federation of College Republicans, an organization that oversees College Republican chapters and focuses on getting out the vote of conservative college students while fighting for free speech on campus.
Weldon is a second-generation Gator and conservative activist. His father was a national champion swimmer at the University of Florida and his mother, a graduate of the accounting program, also worked on President George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign.
Like plenty of open right-wingers on college campuses before him, Weldon has had friends sever ties over his political beliefs.
“Unfortunately I have lost a lot of friends; I have received major pushback on campus,” Weldon told Red Alert Politics. “I’ve been the joke of several memes on a Facebook page [Swampy UF Memes For Top Ten Public Teens].”
He does have at least one fan among the faculty, Prof. Roger Austin, who instructed Weldon in his state and local politics class in the fall semester.
“Danny was a great student, always had a smile on his face, a great sense of humor, and always something relevant and interesting to say regarding whatever we were discussing in our class, and in a day and age where some literally try to criminalize political differences, he was never like that and could always politely articulate his point of view,” said Austin. “In a class that happened to have a lot more Democrats and liberals than Republicans and conservatives, he never hesitated to state his conservative point of view but always in a positive and confident way, not in a ‘my way or the highway’ or ‘I’m better than you’ or provocative or proselytizing way.”
Weldon’s interactions with his teammates echo more of the same sentiment, as their main focus is on winning games, not being divided over politics.
“I know I’ve had some talks with some of my friends on the team about race and whatnot. We talked about a couple of situations like the kneeling [during the national anthem],” Weldon said. “We’re all focused on just being kind of brothers. For the most part we’re focused on winning and trying to be the best team that we possibly can.”
His work founding the University of Florida chapter of the Young Americans for Freedom has turned up positive results, including booking the first conservative speaker to come to Gainesville, Fla., in a decade: Ben Shapiro.
Weldon’s even converting some supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. He attributes such a radical shift to simply exposing students to points of view they’ve never seen in their bubble.
“There’s so many people who don’t really realize on a college campus they have never heard from the conservative opinion, until you really bring it to their attention,” Weldon explained. “We’ve seen a lot of Bernie Sanders supporters become conservatives because they’re trying to frustrate the system. … When you get more into the actual beliefs and the politics behind it, a lot of times the wanting to have fixed the problems in our government turns out to be more about having a smaller government than having a giant government.”
Between balancing a busy football schedule and changing hearts and minds one student at a time, Weldon says that there are some nights he only gets a few hours of sleep, but it’s well worth it. Politically, he has molded his ideas and philosophies after President Ronald Reagan, historically, and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., in the modern era. He calls Rubio, a University of Florida grad, “an incredible politician” and “incredible statesman.” Weldon traveled to Indiana as part of Students for Rubio during the 2016 election. Despite his support of Rubio in the primary, Weldon supports President Trump and says he has been pleased with the performance of the current administration, especially in terms of reducing the size of government.
Weldon’s election is coming up on Saturday. In a battleground state looking to stay red this fall, Weldon is looking to hit the ground running immediately with helping start a state activism day for the state federation.
After graduation, Weldon, originally a business student, looks to attend law school. He has plenty of credentials for a solid start to a political career, including being named to the SEC Academic Honor Roll last fall and winning the Citizen of the Month honor at the Bob Graham Center at the University of Florida. He’s able and determined to keep his home state in the hands of the GOP.
“We can engage new people on what the Republican Party stands for and what our platform really is and hopefully create a dialogue on campus, that way we can really get more people to turn out,” Weldon said of the day of action.
