Another one getting it done off the field
Follow
By HOWARD MANN
The overwhelming majority of student-athletes at Howard and other HBCUs – just like the preponderance of their peers at predominantly white colleges and universities – will never cash a single paycheck for playing sports.
That’s why it’s vitally important to offer them a quality education and encourage them to take their academics as seriously as their athletics. They just might end up in a state legislature and broadcast booth, like former Howard quarterback Jay Walker.
Or they could work their way through the business side of sports. They could go from law school to a sports agency to an NFL team to NFL headquarters, before being picked to run a FBS athletic program.
Like former Stanford athlete Ray Anderson.
Currently completing his eighth season as the NFL’s executive vice president of football operation, Anderson will start his new gig – Arizona State’s vice president for athletics – after the Super Bowl. He joins a very short list.
According to the most recent report from The Insitute for Diversity & Ethics in Sport, of the 120 athletic directors at FBS schools, only nine were African-American as October 2012.
Unlike the others, Anderson doesn’t have any prior experience as an administrator at the collegiate level. But Arizona State president Michael Crow had a ready explanation for the hire during Anderson’s introductory press conference on Jan. 9.
“I have no doubt Ray can be a significant contributor to whatever we need to do to advance whatever resouces we need to move Sun Devil athletics forward,” Crow said. “Here we have a person that has demonstrated that he can learn, adapt, solve problems and move forward in any circumstances he encounters.”
That could be a motto for our Howard students, athletes and non-athletes alike:
“Learn, adapt, solve and advance – regardless.”
