NEW YORK -- Liberty guard Brittany Boyd sat on the bench with her head bowed in prayer during the national anthem before a WNBA playoff game.Hours earlier, college football players for Michigan and Michigan State, along with a group of students at North Carolina, raised their fists during the playing of the Star Spangled Banner on Saturday.Since 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the anthem before NFL preseason games, citing racial injustice and police brutality, his movement has slowly spread across fields and courts in the U.S. On Saturday, college and professional athletes joined together to follow his lead after a week punctuated by riots in Charlotte, North Carolina , and the killing of an unarmed black man in Tulsa, Oklahoma .This wasnt the first time Boyd sat during the anthem. She said she also did it at the last few games.I dont want to stand up. I choose not to stand up and I sit down and pray, the second-year guard said. Colin and his message about social injustice going on in this country today is something I believe needs change.The Berkeley, California, native had a Kaepernick jersey hanging in her locker and wore it to the arena Saturday night.Her New York teammates stood, arms locked with their heads bowed before their WNBA playoff game with Phoenix. Mercury players Mistie Bass and Kelsey Bone kneeled, just as they had done during their first-round playoff game. Bass was inspired that younger athletes were joining an effort that until this weekend had been mostly led by the pros.I think it shows that the younger generations are about this and they did it together, she said. They are understanding what is going on in our society. Its perfect because they are so caught up in their phones. To see them standing up for social injustices and wanting things to be right in their communities I think is awesome.Three Michigan State players -- Delton Williams, Kenney Lyke and Gabe Sherrod -- held their right fists in the air while standing on the sideline before the No. 8 Spartans hosted No. 11 Wisconsin.Whether somebody salutes, puts the hand over their heart or does something else, everybody has a choice to make, Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio added after the Spartans 30-6 loss. Our young people are in college, and I can promise you one thing, that when the flag is presented in some respect, I guess it becomes much more important now. Its not just, oh by the way, well just stand for `The Star-Spangled Banner.All I can do is try and lead the best way I can, and be positive and accepting to our football team and our players, the coach added.Several players for No. 4 Michigan also had their fists up before facing Penn State in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Among them were Khalid Hill, Mike McCray, Devin Bush, Elysee Mbem-Bosse and Jourdan Lewis.Most college conferences play the anthem before the teams take the field. The Big Ten is among the exceptions.The University of Michigan is 6 miles from Eastern Michigan University, where chanting students marched on the field Friday night after the schools 27-24 victory over Wyoming. The students were protesting racist graffiti on the campus earlier in the week.We have great respect for our students engaged in the constructive efforts underway to address the issues we face, Eastern Michigan President James Smith said in a statement.Before North Carolina hosted Pittsburgh, students wearing black shirts remained seated with fists raised. Roughly 100 black and white students wearing the shirts participated, as well as at least two UNC band members who took a knee, one while raising a fist. Chapel Hill is about 140 miles northeast of Charlotte.Nebraska players Michael Rose-Ivey, Daishon Neal and Mohamed Barry also kneeled before the No. 20 Cornhuskers game at Northwestern.Not everyone has supported the protests. The 49ers quarterback and some of the other athletes have gotten some backlash from fans and Kaepernick said he even got some death threats .Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh was Kaepernicks coach for four seasons in San Francisco. Last month, Harbaugh said he supported Kaepernicks motivation to speak out but took exception to his method.After Saturdays game, Harbaugh said he had been thinking a lot about the issue the past couple of weeks and that he supports his players.This is something thats not going away. Its going to keep happening, Harbaugh said after the Wolverines 49-10 victory. Its not something thats going to keep them out of heaven. So Im not going to worry about it. As long as it doesnt keep them out of heaven for supporting their minds, I support it.Kaepernick was at a high school football game on Friday night. He spoke to players from Castlemont High School and joined them on the sideline before the game. A photo by former NFL linebacker Kirk Morrison on Twitter shows Kaepernick kneeling while the rest of the team laid on their backs with their hands up during the anthem.Saturdays gestures came a day after it was announced that Tommie Smith and John Carlos will join the U.S. Olympic team at the White House for a meeting with President Barack Obama. The raised-fist salutes by the American sprinters on the medal stand at the 1968 Olympics became a political flash point.---AP Sports Writers Joe Reedy, Noah Trister and Aaron Beard contributed to this story. Cheap Custom Rockies Jersey . 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RIO DE JANEIRO -- The man named to head Irelands Olympic committee after its president was arrested in a ticket-scalping case during the Rio Games is also suspected of participating in the scheme but left Brazil before he could be questioned, police said Tuesday.Authorities said William OBrien, who took responsibility for the Irish committee after Patrick Hickey was detained last week, departed from Brazil one day before authorities obtained a warrant to seize his passport and mobile devices in a Sunday raid.There are a lot of messages mentioning William OBrien along with Patrick Hickey, Aloysio Falcao, one of the investigators in the case, said after a news conference.Falcao said Brazilian investigators will be requesting help from the Irish government.Hickey, president of the Olympic Council of Ireland and a member of the International Olympic Committees executive board, is being held in Rios Bangu prison complex as the investigation expands.Charged with conspiracy, ticket scalping and ambush marketing, Hickey is accused of plotting with other members of the Ireland committee and two companies to sell tickets above face value in a scheme that authorities say could have netted about $3 million in profits. More than 1,000 tickets have been seized in the investigation.Authorities say the Irish company Pro 10 Sports Management was created to facilitate the transfer of tickets between that ccountrys committee and an unauthorized vendor called THG Sports that would sell them for high fees disguised as hospitality services.dddddddddddd. THG Sports was accused of a similar scheme in the World Cup.Investigators determined last week that the choice of Pro 10 as the authorized ticket reseller for Ireland was a joint decision by the Irish committee.On Sunday, hours before the Rio Games closing ceremony, police executed search warrants at the Olympic Village to seize passports and other items from three members of the Ireland committee, including Ireland team leader Kevin Kilty, chief executive Stephen Martin and secretary-general Dermot Henihan. Police confiscated 228 tickets for the ceremony from Kiltys room.Henihan appeared at police headquarters Tuesday to answer questions. Investigators said they had ruled out his involvement in the alleged scheme, saying there was no evidence.Kilty and Martin had been expected to also testify Tuesday, but officials said their lawyers had asked for a postponement to have more time to review documents in the case.The investigation has been unfolding since the Olympics began Aug. 5, when the head of THG Sports was arrested with tickets allocated to the Olympic Council of Ireland.The council declined to comment Tuesday. ' ' '