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Clemson star quarterback Trevor Lawrence and his girlfriend Marissa Mowry, who is a soccer player at Anderson University, are trying to make a difference amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Lawrence and Mowry started a GoFundMe fundraising page for coronavirus victims on Monday afternoon, but it was immediately shut down after raising more than $2,000. According to The State, a Clemson official said the university’s compliance department asked for the page to be taken down to satisfy NCAA rules.
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However, late on Tuesday afternoon, the NCAA announced that it was making an exception during the coronavirus outbreak to rules that prohibit student-athletes from “using name, image and likeness for crowd funding efforts.”
Lawrence and Mowry were allowed to revive the GoFundMe page but it has yet to be revived as of Wednesday morning.
“The NCAA did not ask Clemson student-athlete Trevor Lawrence to take down his fundraiser for COVID-19 patients and their families,” the NCAA said in a statement. “We continue to work with member schools so they have the flexibility to ensure that student-athletes and communities impacted by this illness are supported, and we applaud Trevor for his efforts.”
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Clemson also released a statement on the situation.
Lawrence responded by taking his thoughts to his Instagram Stories late on Tuesday night.
“Shoutout to the NCAA. Thank y’all so much for granting a waiver,” he said. “They’re allowing us to continue to raise money for what we were doing originally. So we’re gonna take some time and kind of think about how we’re going to restart it back up. We’re going to take the night and maybe some of tomorrow or whatever to figure out exactly how we want to do it to be as efficient and to help as many people as possible.”
Lawrence clarified that the NCAA wasn’t “necessarily” doing “anything bad,” amid the outrage over his original fundraiser getting shutdown.
“They weren’t trying to stop us from helping raise money for this cause,” he said. “It was more of just their rules that are in place that our compliance department was following just to make sure that we were in the clear as Clemson, as an organization, that we were doing things the right way.”
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Lawrence added: “I just wanted to thank the NCAA, really. Everyone’s made them out to be the bad guy, but it was more so the rules that were already in place. They’ve done a really good job of responding and actually allowing us to do it.”
Mowry was asking for COVID-19 relief donations Tuesday, urging her Instagram followers to help out.
“If you want to donate to specific organizations that will help fight the impact COVID-19 has had, use the link in my bio to donate to: No Kid Hungry or donate to Meals on Wheels.Thank y’all in advance for the impact you all will make!” she wrote.
