Mycah Clay and Abayomi Awoyomi, two members of WU BLAC, pose on the track. (Elle Su | Student Life)

In the wake of the death of George Floyd at the knee of a Minneapolis police officer in the summer of 2020, millions of people in the United States and around the globe took to the streets to protest police brutality and systemic injustices against Black people.

On the Washington University campus, Black student-athletes drew on this moment of racial reckoning to call attention to the need to improve the experiences of other Black student-athletes by creating the Washington University Black Letterwinning Athletes Coalition (WU BLAC). The organization was launched by taking inspiration from similar student groups on campuses nationwide.

Three years later, they have seen some progress. They’re also still working towards some of the same goals that they started with. 

Other University Athletic Association (UAA) conference teams have their own organizations dedicated to supporting Black student-athletes. In 2020 — the same year WU BLAC was founded — students at the University of Chicago founded their own chapter of the Black Letterwinning Athletes Coalition. In January 2021, student-athletes at both Case Western Reserve University and Carnegie Mellon University founded the Black and Latinx Athlete Coalition (BLAC). 

“We have huge social unrest and all of these things with Black Lives Matter, and I’m sure that fueled wanting to get something going in the Athletic Department,” then-junior basketball player Samantha Weaver said in a Student Life article published in November 2020. “But I think there’s always been a sentiment to have something like this.”

With the broader goal of bringing Black student-athletes together and fighting the reality of “going into a practice or a game setting each time and being the only person in that space that looks like you,” WU BLAC had several demands for the Athletic Department. None were as paramount as increasing diversity in coaching positions: hiring more Black coaches that Black student-athletes could relate to.

Three years after its founding, WU BLAC is still fighting for that demand.

“We need more Black staff,” senior Mycah Clay, Events Chair for WU BLAC and sprinter on the track and field team, said. “Coaches… play multiple roles depending on how invested you are in your sport. But outside of just instructing you on how to excel in your sport, they’re also a form of support. When you feel like at times, your white coaches might not understand certain aspects of your identity that are impacting … your mindset going into a certain meet, game, or match — it would definitely help if we had more people that look like us within higher positions.”

For Clay, having more Black staff is not only about having coaches who understand her identity; it is also about lifting the burden often placed on WashU Black student-athletes.

“I think it’d definitely be really beneficial to have more Black staff so that we’re not forced to constantly be the spokespeople of every Black athlete at WashU. We want those people within those higher positions to carry some of the burdens, for lack of better words,” Clay said. 

Charis Riebe is a junior hurdler on the WashU women’s track and field team and WU BLAC’s co-president this school year. In a statement to Student Life, she emphasized the benefits she has received from WU BLAC as a member of the group.

“To me, WU BLAC is a much-needed community to empower Black athletes on campus,” Riebe wrote. “It is not always easy being a person of color at a predominantly-white institution, and being a part of a sports team comes with additional challenges. WU BLAC provides Black athletes on campus with a space to grow personally, academically, athletically, and professionally, and I am honored to be a part of it.”

Since the organization’s inception in 2020, there have been notable changes within the University’s Athletics Department as a means of accommodating WU BLAC’s demands. Members of WU BLAC have been allowed to sit on interview panels of candidates applying for WashU coaching positions. Beyond allowing Black student-athletes to sit in on interviews, the department has continued to support WU BLAC’s mission through Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) training for staff in conjunction with the Center of Diversity and Inclusion and the Academy of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. 

“For the WU BLAC inaugural executive team, we provided an executive coach to discuss leadership, structure, and insight for the academic year 2019-2020. The Athletic Department hosted events for students of color,” Azama wrote in a statement for Student Life. 

In his statement, Azama elaborated how he has focused on utilizing university resources to train his staff team and has been working on the issue of mental health by employing resources provided by Habif.

“As we continue to make DEI work a priority, we will seek opportunities to further partner with the Academy for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to ensure that all students, staff, faculty, and student-athletes alike feel welcome and safe in our athletic and rec spaces,” Azama wrote. “We utilize University resources to train staff during our monthly department meetings. As a department, we rely on Habif to hire and provide mental health professionals. However, as we continue to identify mental health resources both on and off campus, we can bring awareness of these concerns from student-athletes of color.”

Azama explained how the Athletic Department has been working with coaches and other athletics staff members to provide them with opportunities to learn more about the unique experiences of student-athletes of color on campus. 

“For the academic year of 2022-23, the department, in partnership with the CDI,  held a Latinx panel in the fall and a Black Student-Athlete panel discussion in February which had significant attendance from student-athletes, staff, and both head and assistant coaches,” Azama wrote. “We offered and strongly encouraged all staff, including coaches, to attend both panels. By attending these discussion panels, coaches were provided unique insight on the experiences of students of color on this campus.” 

Clay acknowledged the steps that the Athletic Department has done to support Black student-athletes at WashU. She also believes that the department could be doing more.

“I think that including student leaders in recruiting faculty is integral to authentic and sustainable change. Given that these athletes are the ones who will be interacting with said individuals, it’s important that they be included in some aspect of the recruitment process,” she said. “However, I don’t think that’s where the administration should stop.” 

Specifically, Clay believes that more could be done through microaggression training for white coaches and hiring more Black staff outside the coaching positions.

“Hiring x amount of Black staff does not automatically solve the difficulties Black athletes face in predominantly-white spaces. While this is definitely a step in the right direction, existing coaches and staff should also be expected to understand all of their athletes and not just leave it up to those who share the same color,” Clay said. “Examples of this could be microaggression training and attending student diversity events. Sports psychologists would definitely lighten the load of the coaches as well as provide student-athletes with the support and tools they need.”

The issue of microaggressions is important to WU BLAC as it was an essential aspect of their foundation. Specifically, in the wake of WU BLAC’s initial operation on the WashU campus during the Fall of 2020, several Black student-athletes alumni wrote a letter of support to the organization. The letter was signed by nearly 250 recent alumni of WashU athletic programs. As part of the written letter that was sent to the administration, alumni shared anonymous stories of their experiences with racism at WashU. The stories shared ranged from unchecked microaggressions and stereotypes to active and overt racism in the WashU athletic community. Specific experiences that were listed by former WashU athletes included coaches and captains “joking about lynching and speaking negatively of protests for racial justice or avoiding rap music in the weight room because it was too ‘urban.’” Others had stories with more broad charges, reporting how athletic trainers would ignore their physical conditions and how pushback against microaggressions was met with few changes.

“In my own experience and upon reflecting with friends, we find that we do not have the opportunity to be mediocre,” Riebe wrote. “Our place is always in question, whether we only got into WashU because of our race or as a student-athlete, we are pressured to be the best because we are Black, and society expects that of us. I am not always seen as an individual, but rather lumped in with a group. My actions affect the expectations and treatment of other Black athletes and students and vice-versa. There is a sense of otherness, and I don’t always feel a part of the team or campus community.”

Despite the sense of judgment that she feels, Riebe wrote that she is proud of her identity and knows that she deserves her place here at WashU.

“I also think my identity is a celebration. I have the opportunity to attend a top university and run on a nationally ranked team, and I should not be afraid or ashamed to take up space,”  Riebe wrote. “I worked hard to get here and excel, and I will do what I need to do to make the most of my experience at WashU.”

The fight for Black student-athletes to feel a sense of belonging in the WashU athletic community is not new. In 1976, StudLife covered a story in which 13 Black students quit the Washington University football team, alleging ineptitude on the coaching staff, from favoritism for certain players to miscommunication. One player noted the favoritism was racially motivated.

Today, almost 50 years later since that incident, student-athletes and coaches continue to develop perspectives on what equitable treatment looks like.

Larry Kindbom was a longtime WashU football coach before he announced his retirement in 2019 after leading the football team for 31 years. He returned to the sidelines for his 34th season this past fall season as an assistant coach under the former player and current head coach, Aaron Keen.

“[During my time as head coach], I liked the fact that students [were] more than players,” Kindbom said. “I’ve always felt that sports don’t reflect society. I like to think that sports lead society because of intentionally getting people to work together as a team to collaborate and still have competition in the collaboration.”

During his 31-year tenure as a WashU football head coach, Coach Kindbom got to coach a host ofWashU football players, and many of them were Black. Notably, he coached Brandon Roberts, a former WashU linebacker who was also a member of the University’s John B. Ervin Scholars Program and winner of the National Football Foundation’s Vincent DePaul Draddy Trophy in 2002. The award, nicknamed the “Academic Heisman,“ goes to an American college football player with the best combination of academics, community service, and on-field performance.

When asked about being aware of the experiences of Black student-athletes on campus, Kindbom explained that he came in with a team-first outlook. 

“I never felt that my job was to change the culture. My job is to go out there and put together a successful team,” Kindbom said. “[I went to get] people that wanted to be part of that. So I didn’t necessarily look at a Black athlete, I just looked at an athlete that happened to be Black. Then that brought out a different culture which I thought the more diverse our cultures could be, the more our kids will learn to embrace differences.”

Beyond pushing a mission of teamwork and pursuing excellence, Kindbom also noted that his mission as a WashU coach was to train the leaders of tomorrow.

 “[Guys like Roberts are] now changing the world, and football was supposed to be something that they did right,” Kindbom said. “But … I think some of the things that they left this program with [helped their career growth]. That shows you what excellence is. That’s how I have perceived my mission here as a coach. My job is to get them someplace they couldn’t get by themselves.”

Riebe found that race factored into many facets of her experience as a student-athlete on track and field, explaining that she personally struggled with the colorblind approach that some coaches still hold. 

“It is hard to be a Black female athlete with predominantly white and male coaches. There is a power dynamic, and many times I have been dismissed as the angry Black girl with an attitude. I remember after the murder of George Floyd how performative the conversations and actions initiated by coaches felt,” Riebe said. “They do not understand what it means to be Black in America, and there is honestly no way they ever will.”

Riebe continued to write that “many coaches also try to be colorblind, dismissing someone’s Black identity and saying they only see them as a person and athlete.”

 “However, who I am is greatly influenced by my Black identity, and for there to be an attempt at separating the two shows a lack of understanding. Representation is important. It is important to have Black coaches to see someone who looks like me in a leadership role, and who will understand my background in ways non-Black coaches can’t,” Riebe concluded.

On the issue of hiring more Black coaches, Azama echoed the philosophy of emphasizing a competitive application process with the aim of hiring the right people for the job, regardless of their racial background.

“Varsity Athletics and Recreations make it a best practice to conduct national searches for all positions available,” Azama wrote. “We encourage all to apply and will offer the opportunity to the most qualified candidate regardless of their protected class.”

Azama noted “there is always more to be done,” and the Athletic Department is “committed to that end.”

And, as they have done for the past three years, WU BLAC will continue to advocate for the betterment of present and future Black student-athletes at WashU.  

“It is important that we work to elevate the Black student-athlete experience,” Riebe said. “Realistically, the views and actions of every coach and athlete cannot be changed, however, steps can be taken to ensure Black athletes feel equipped and welcomed. The past year we have received a lot of support from the Athletic Department, and they have shown a commitment to helping our group grow, for which we are thankful. We hope to keep this momentum going to empower the next generations of Black student-athletes who will follow.”