By: Hailey Lindblom
On Monday, October 26th in the OPRF room guest speaker Andrew Maraniss came to talk to the students and faculty members of CUC about race in college sports. Maraniss was a Journalism major at Vanderbilt; during his time there he learned about race in one of his classes. He then had the brilliant idea to write about race in sports at his school. The primary subject for his paper was his classmate, Perry Wallace.
Wallace was an all-star athlete who had scholarships to multiple schools. His main sport was basketball, but he also played football. Wallace was of African-American descent, and throughout his life he had to deal with racism. When he was looking at colleges, many were just starting to open their doors for the people of color which saw a lot of backlash from the Caucasian community.
Wallace’s family and community members were not happy with his decision to go to Vanderbilt, but he was adamant on attending because he felt it was the right thing to do and he wanted to make a difference. The coaches were very pleased with his decision to attend their school, but they had a lot of parents and faculty members on their backs explaining how they could not understand why they let him attend this school in the first place.
Wallace was mistreated during his four years in college. He explained that he was treated in three different ways, which were: well, poorly, and not at all. To better explain this, Maraniss said that when Wallace was treated well, that meant that he was being left alone and no one would bother him. His example was when Wallace attended a predominately white church; the members of the church (which was on campus) would leave him sit in the back all alone. As for poor treatment, when Wallace returned to the church the members became angry and started to threaten the pastor if he did not stop attending, that they would be taking their money and start going to a new church. Lastly, for not at all, one day the pastor approached Wallace and told him that he was no longer able to attended the church and he could not return.
As Maraniss explained more of Wallace’s story, the audience’s reactions were unbelievable. Ranging from sad to disgust; the spectators were at a loss. After Maraniss finished, a few of the spectators sat down to discuss how they felt.
Senior Marisia Robinson-Banister had this to say: “I can’t believe everything that he had to go through just to play the sport he loves. As I was listening, I couldn’t help to think what if I was him? Could I or would I still be playing the sport I love?”
Many were also asking questions at the end, but the most interesting question that was brought up was the one about racism today and what Wallace thought about the movements such as: Black Lives Matter.
Maraniss answered by saying, “Wallace is happy with the movements he is upset that it has taken this long for people to start making a difference.”
Overall, the viewers were pleased with the speaker and they left with a new idea in their heads about racism and the privileges that they have.
To hear more about Wallace’s story, you can purchase the book Strong Inside: Perry Wallace and the Collision of Race and Sports in the South, written by Maraniss.
