Players
from HBCUs have a long and storied history in the NBA, with luminaries like Willis
Reed (Grambling State), Earl Monroe (Winston-Salem State) and Sam Jones (North
Carolina Central), named to the league’s 75th anniversary team. Philadelphia forward
Robert Covington (Tennessee State) is the only current NBA player from an HBCU
and he wasn’t part of Sunday’s All-Star Game.
But
the on-court action in Indianapolis included a key figure from historically Black
colleges.
Derrick Collins (Xavier-Louisiana), in his 23rd season as an NBA referee, was part of the officiating crew as the East outscored the West, 211-186. Unlike Covington, Collins has company within his NBA ranks: Nine of 74 officials attended HBCUs, ranging in seniority from Tom Washington (Norfolk State), in his 33rd season, to Matt Myers (Hampton), in his sixth season.
My
daughters will testify that I don’t play regarding “Lift Every Voice and Sing,”
aka, “The Black National Anthem.”
They
were young schoolgirls when I began drilling them on the
lyrics over and over – ad nauseum by their
account – until they could sing the song from memory with nary a flub. Of course
they had to know all three verses. Whenever we’re somewhere where the audience
sings the BNA, I’m that person who keeps going awhile longer if we stop after
the first verse.
Stony the road we trod! Bitter the chast’ning rod! Felt in the days when hope unborn had died!
When Rajah Caruth says he needs a new ride, he sounds like many
HBCU students making their way through school. But unlike his peers at
Winston-Salem State, Caruth routinely tops 100 mph and makes news when he gets a replacement vehicle.
He was a rookie full-time racer in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck
Series last year, but his team ceased operations after the season. Caruth’s prospects
for 2024 were unsure until last week, when Spire Motorsports picked him to
drive the No. 71 Chevrolet Silverado this season.
“It was pretty special because of all the uncertainty this winter and trying to figure out the best situation,” Caruth told theGrio. “I felt really thankful to have things get close and then come together pretty quickly. I have a lot of gratitude and I’m just ready for the season to get started.”
Players from HBCUs get a little extra shine when they reach
the Super Bowl, where legends like Jerry Rice, Doug Williams and L.C. Greenwood
put their names in the record book after collegiate exploits at Mississippi
Valley State, Grambling State and Arkansas Pine-Bluff.
This year’s big game features cornerback Joshua Williams (Fayetteville
State), playing in his second straight Super Bowl with Kansas City, and
defensive tackle Javon Hargrave (South Carolina State), also playing in his
second straight Super Bowl – with San Francisco this year and Philadelphia last
year.
Paul “Tank” Younger doesn’t live in Super Bowl lore, mainly because he retired in 1958, before the league’s inaugural lollapalooza in 1966. But his name rings as loudly as any Black player you ever heard, whether from an HBCU (like most did before the 1960s) or from the predominantly white institutions that continue to draw the most top-level talent.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell must be tired of questions
about the league’s hiring record for Black personnel besides the padded and
helmeted employees. I suspect many NFL owners, executives and fans feel
likewise, sick of queries about employment decisions off the field – where jobs
don’t require physical strength to complement your mental prowess.
But if Goodell and league stakeholders are weary of the
discussion, they can imagine how we feel!
We’re supposed to accept the drip drops of progress and believe the system is based on merit? Hateful DEI assailants have swallowed the Kool-Aid but we can’t keep it down. Our stomachs reject such drivel and spit it out.
While he may be best-known for his Madea character, Tyler Perry is much more. He is a producer, filmmaker, playwriter, director, actor and philanthropist. But most of all, Tyler Perry is a master marketer.
Long before he became a household name and billionaire media mogul, he recognized the importance of marketing productions that featured Black actors for Black audiences.
In the documentary “Maxine’s Baby: The Tyler Perry Story,” released on Prime Video in November, we saw how masterful Perry is. He took such marketing to new levels.
Barbara Eubanks, B.A. ’96, is accustomed to curious looks from passersby as her cohorts walk around Paris. She understands why Black high school students from the United States stand out during their week-long dives into culture and international travel.
At one café, in April 2022, a woman was intrigued by the students and struck up a conversation with one of them. “She was just curious who we were, and why we were there,” says Eubanks, owner of Going Global With Barbara (GGWB). “One thing led to another, and we found out she’d actually been the chair of the department I’d majored in [Hilary Silver, sociology] at George Washington University. It was a pretty serendipitous, full-circle moment.”
With early dreams of traveling the globe, Eubanks, a native of Pittsburgh’s Hill District, joined the military right after high school. “The recruiter said ‘Join the Navy and see the world,” she recalls. “So, I was all in. Honestly, it was one of the few options being promoted to students of color.”
WASHINGTON – When the motorcoach pulled up to Capital One
Arena on Sunday afternoon, some fans expected the Phoenix Suns to disembark. Instead,
the Virginia Union men’s basketball team ambled out in maroon sweatsuits and assembled
themselves near a side entrance.
The Panthers were making the first of two visits to an NBA
arena this month. On Sunday, they were special guests of the Washington Wizards;
on Feb. 17, Virginia Union will play in the NBA HBCU Classic as part of the All-Star Game festivities
in Indianapolis. The team has grown accustomed to high-profile events, having
played in the HBCU Tip-Off – hosted by NBA star Chris Paul –
the last three seasons.
VUU head coach Jay Butler appreciates the visibility that big games provide and the subsequent rise in interest.
By
the time Jackson State University was founded in 1877, more than three dozen similar institutions already existed. By the
time Deion Sanders became Jackson State’s head football coach, in 2020, the
U.S. Department of Education had identified more
than 100 such institutions – Historically
Black Colleges and Universities.
HBCUs
have produced some of the NFL’s greatest
players, particularly from the 1950s and into
the 1970s, when most Black athletes were prohibited from attending primarily
white schools to play football. Legendary NFL halfback Walter Payton played at Jackson
State in the Southwestern Athletic Conference. Other NFL Hall of Famers from
SWAC schools include Jerry Rice (Mississippi Valley State), Buck Buchannon
(Grambling State) Mel Blount (Southern) and Michael Strahan (Texas Southern), to
name a few.
But as segregation was coming to an end, top Black high school players increasingly attended primarily white institutions, causing HBCU football to fade in prominence. Sanders immediately upset the status quo in December 2021 by signing Travis Hunter, the nation’s No. 1 recruit, who was slated to play at Sanders’ alma mater, Florida State. That was the initial wave of unprecedented media attention on Jackson State and “Coach Prime,” with heightened interest in HBCUs and racial reckoning still rippling through the nation after George Floyd’s murder in 2020.
With all due respect to other NFL quarterbacks – including whoever
goes second – the pecking order is clear aside from their family and friends. The
rest of us won’t hesitate making Patrick Mahomes our first pick at QB if we’re choosing
squads on the playground.
That’s nothing against anyone else, including Baltimore’s
Lamar Jackson, the presumptive MVP who led and followed the Ravens to defeat
against Kansas City on Sunday.
I was rooting for Jackson to get over the hump and reach his
first Super Bowl (ditto for the Detroit Lions later that heartbreaking evening),
and I expected Baltimore to win. The Ravens produced an all-time great regular season, crushing playoff
teams like the Lions, San Francisco 49ers, Miami Dolphins and Houston Texans, while
Jackson escaped injury for a change. It was his time.
But it’s Mahomes’ clock and he’s still winding up.
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