By John Brice
Special Contributor
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — The lineup would have drawn a crowd anywhere.
Renowned entrepreneur and super-agent Rich Paul. Former longtime NBA veteran Matt Barnes. Former Hewlett-Packard and current NBA Chief Diversity Equity and Inclusion Officer Lesley Slaton Brown, herself a former NCAA collegiate athlete at Boise State.
And a stately Los Angeles setting certainly didn’t hurt.
Yet for Notre Dame’s Tyrah Taylor, attending the Black Student-Athlete Sports Summit for a second consecutive year carried much greater depth. Double-digit Fighting Irish student-athletes from a multitude of campus programs attended the multi-day event.
“Notre Dame is a PWI (Predominately White Institution), and being in a space with Black athletes made me feel seen and validated,” said Taylor, a Chicago native who just wrapped her second year as a sprinter for Notre Dame’s track and field program. “It really helped to talk about my experiences, just being around people that understand the dedication, sacrifice and what being a student-athlete entails.
“It was a comforting environment, and these two events allowed me to meet a lot of people that I’m still in contact with.”
Unable to attend in 2022, Charity McDowell nonetheless had circled the 2023 Black Student-Athlete Sports Summit on her calendar months ago and discussed the potential opportunity to attend with Notre Dame Executive Associate Athletic Director for Culture and Engagement, JP Abercrumbie.
“I’m in ‘Together Irish,’ and JP had actually told me about the Summit,” McDowell, a rising senior from Indianapolis on the Irish volleyball team, said. “So it had been on our radar for sure, especially after I couldn’t go last year because I was studying abroad in South Africa. The whole thing was amazing, having three days of sessions and student-athletes from all over the country.
“I had looked it up to see what it was all about last year when I couldn’t go, and I thought, ‘This is for me for sure because the whole thing is [geared toward] making sure Black student-athletes are prepared for careers after college and not just using their athletic ability, but developing skills to be set up and prepared afterward.
“It was something about which I’m very passionate. I’m big on education and making sure what we need career-wise is at the forefront. Such a small percentage of college athletes go pro in our sports. I want to make sure we take full advantage of being at an institution like Notre Dame.”
A former track stand-out at Temple who graduated Cum Laude from the Philadelphia institution’s Honors Program, Abercrumbie has played a seminal role in the summit – even prior to her arrival at Notre Dame.
Now that the Summit has more than doubled in size across the past two years and closed in on a decade of its existence, Abercrumbie has envisioned greater development for the event – both nationally and at Notre Dame.
“We so often talk about how student-athletes are so much more than just athletes, especially if being Black is a salient part of their identity,” said Abercrumbie, who helped to organize and host the ’22 event at Rice University – even as she transitioned from the Owls’ athletics department to her role at Notre Dame. “I think about my own student-athlete experience. Being able to foster growth in new generations of student-athletes is something I feel privileged to help.
“As we continue to debrief these experiences, one of the things to continue to assess is how we meet the needs of our Black student-athletes, and what does that look like? Are there resources that exist that can be better utilized, and are there greater resources to provide? If so, how do we create those spaces and integrate that into the campus community?”
Both McDowell and Taylor utilized their experiences at the recent Summit to compare notes with fellow student-athletes from collegiate programs throughout the United States, and they particularly discussed shared commonalities and differences with ACC participants.
They learned, for example, that multiple other ACC programs have Black student-athlete organizations on their campus – something they wouldn’t mind seeing developed at Notre Dame.
Additionally, they forged personal and professional relationships that were cemented in Los Angeles to help throughout the duration of their collegiate careers and beyond.
“I really enjoyed that aspect of meeting more people,” Taylor said. “At Notre Dame, we have people from all over the country, but we all share the experience that is Notre Dame. Connecting with people from all across the country is so valuable, and to gain that wide variety of personalities, experiences and outlooks on life was so important.
“My parents always told me 90 percent in life is who you know, not what you know. This event shed light on where I am currently, what I can do and what future endeavors I might pursue. It’s extremely valuable not being in such a bubble in Chicago or Notre Dame, to branch out a little bit.”
Irish football coach Marcus Freeman, whose mother is Korean and father is Black, starred at Ohio State and had a brief NFL career. Freeman pointed to the melting pot that is a football locker room but also touched on the importance of an event like the Summit as minority initiatives grow throughout sports.
“My dad is a little bit older, and he’s a part of the ‘Silent Generation’; They just don’t talk about those things,” Freeman said. “He was in the Vietnam War, and they just don’t talk about it. So, when you grow up in a locker room, you very rarely see color. What does that mean? When you grow up in a locker room, which I have since the age of 6, you’re really valued based off your performance. Your value comes from what you do within your sport. And it’s not any different in high school than it is in college. We were all a team; Black, White, Asian, it didn’t matter. You judged people based off could you count on them or could you not.”
Freeman began to experience a personal enlightenment three years ago.
“I think you hung out with people you were comfortable with, and it was probably not until I got older, and really it came to fruition during the James Blake (tragedy) and in 2020 when guys were at home and protesting,” Freeman said. “That brought up a lot of facts from the past. I remember being at Cincinnati, and the Black kids wanted to have a statement. Maybe the White guys didn’t always agree with the statement. I remember saying, ‘We need to have a conversation, have guys speak and talk to each other and have a dialogue.’ Not in their own silos. Let’s talk about it.
“Now, as I continue to be put in a leadership position, you see how important it is. How important it is to have a Black Student-Athlete Summit to offer the opportunity for our players to go be a part of that, to learn about their history and the history of African-Americans in sports. It’s great to have those opportunities, and it’s always great to educate. We have to continue to learn about our past to understand why we’re in the position that we’re in now. I think that’s what this is all about. Giving opportunities for people to learn from the past.”
Having experienced just such an opportunity for herself, McDowell hesitated none when she advocated future Fighting Irish student-athletes attend the Summit.
“I would tell them to definitely go, one for the networking with a lot of people who doing great things in their fields, but also just the experience overall,” said McDowell, working this summer with a non-profit in her hometown to help foster community engagement for homeless programs and other civic entities.
“It was very cool for me to be in a room where you’re not the minority when you’re used to being one of the only African-Americans in the room. To learn and hear their experiences and struggles and to know you’re not the only one going through these experiences.”