Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence & Girlfriend Marissa Mowry’s Coronavirus Charity Allowed To Resume Following NCAA Violation Controversy

Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence and his girlfriend Marissa Mowry initially started a GoFundMe charity page in order to raise money for coronavirus (COVID-19)victims on Monday afternoon before it was taken down after raising just over $2,000 because a Clemson official said the university’s compliance department asked to shut it down to comply with NCAA rules.

The NCAA, however, clarified things on Tuesday afternoon saying they made an exception amid the coronavirus pandemic to rules that disallow student athletes from “using name, image and likeness for crowd funding efforts.” This permits Lawrence and Mowry’s charity to resume as soon as possible.

“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.”

Lawrence praised the NCAA’s decision on his Instagram story late Tuesday night.

“Shoutout to the NCAA. Thank y’all so much for granting a waiver,” Lawrence 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 also helped illuminate the situation after outrage poured in when the charity page was taken down.

“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.”

Lawrence continued, “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.”

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Mowry also urged her followers on Instagram to donate to the cause on Tuesday.