In its inaugural year of competition, Talladega became the first HBCU program to win an NCAA-sanctioned meet, and freshman gymnast Kyrstin Johnson won the USA Gymnastics national championship in the vault.

Johnson and fellow Talladega freshmen gymnasts Alexa Chuy and Kiora Peart-Williams, who described the program’s end as “absolutely gutting,” and Derrin Moore, founder of Brown Girls Do Gymnastics, sat down with Andscape reporters Mia Berry and Ari Chambers. They discuss their fundraising efforts to try to save the program, their initial response to learning their program will be shut down and why Talladega has been special for them.

When Tyson arrives Howard’s campus, she grabs a truck to drive some of her players to an off-campus facility for early morning practice.

Some mornings Tyson’s 10-year-old daughter, Skylar Talley, tags along, but other mornings she prefers to stay behind at Howard’s Burr Gymnasium. 

Once workouts are over Tyson takes Skylar to school. After school Skylar meets her basketball trainer for a practice session, then Tyson spends an hour or two at the end of the day bonding with her daughter.

This is Tyson’s daily schedule during the year as she juggles her softball team and Skylar’s basketball needs. The schedule shifts if Tyson or Skylar have a game.

“We’re typically doing homework on the go, dinner on the go, and then coming home and just trying to decompress. We have about 20 minutes of not doing nothing,” Tyson told Andscape about her workday. “It’s a little hectic, but we’re typically doing basketball before school. I’m doing softball during the day.”

Tyson’s softball team broke a program record for most wins in a season, finishing 32-12 overall, and Skylar has tak​​en notice of her mother’s success.

“I get to learn how you’re supposed to treat the coach and stuff like that,” Skylar said. “Being a coach’s kid, if I really wanted to coach, I get to see how to be a coach. [I learned] you have to work hard to do what you want to do.”

The late nights, early mornings and daily grind Tyson and her daughter experience are commonplace for female coaches who have to balance motherhood and their careers. In honor of Mother’s Day, Andscape spoke with several female coaches from historically Black colleges and universities about finding a work-life balance, managing family time and creating support systems. 

These interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

TORI TYSON 

Tyson began coaching when Skylar was 18 months old. She spent time as an assistant coach at Bethune-Cookman University before taking over Howard’s softball team in 2018. Tyson balances her softball workouts and practices with Skylar’s basketball workouts and practices. 

How was it starting out coaching while having an infant daughter?

I think because I came into it with Skylar, which is different. Like, a lot of people coach first and then they get pregnant. … It’s been, like, trial and error, but the village at Bethune-Cookman is the reason why I fell in love with HBCUs. I always tell everyone, if that had not been my first experience, I don’t think I’d still be coaching.

When I first got the job at Bethune-Cookman I drove out there, got a hotel, and they had, like, a 6 a.m. workout. I didn’t want nobody to feel like giving me a job was gonna be a burden. So from the beginning my pride is like, ‘I need to show that I can do this.’ So I showed up that morning. I think that really set a statement, though, for even myself, [about] the standard that if I can make it happen, I was gonna make it happen whether I was tired or not. Skylar is going to be here. So Skylar and I were both there that morning.

When we first get into coaching, we’re trying to keep our kid out of the way, right? That’s our mindset. But for me, as I got more mature … it’s a package deal. So, I can’t hide my daughter from what’s going on here. She’s a major part of it. … So that was the standard I kept everywhere I went after that. I remember having to say to a couple of coaches, ‘If you want me at my best because I’m a good pitching coach, then I need to feel like I’m not failing as a mom.’

How do you balance that mother-daughter relationship while you’re both pursuing your passions?

The hardest part about being a single mom that people don’t realize is that there is no good cop or bad cop. You’re the only cop, and you have to figure out a way to deliver that message where they can learn it and receive it.

Softball is my space, and I’m letting basketball be hers. … I want to be Skylar’s mom before anything, not Skylar’s agent, not Skylar’s trainer, and Skylar wants her mom. There’s nothing wrong with a kid learning how to communicate their needs.

Skylar told me, ‘You are not my coach, you’re their coach. You’re my mom,’ and it humbled me. … I spend so much time away during the day. Coaching, it doesn’t end. So sometimes on that drive, I got recruits on the call. I got admin things I gotta handle, I got a player calling, and I got a parent calling. Skylar will let me know in her own way, ‘Hey, like, I need to cuddle tonight.’ She needs her mom time. I’m trying to make sure I’m more intentional about just being her mom with the time we do have.

How has motherhood helped improve your coaching?

Parents think the world of their kid. I can always understand it on one hand, because I don’t play behind Skylar. So I try to be intentional [and] I want to coach in a way I want Skylar to be coached. I want Skylar to be pushed. I don’t want somebody to pull Skylar from adversity rather tell her to lean into it. But … when she falls, I also want to know that they’re going to pick her up.

I’m always reminded that I’m dealing with somebody’s daughter, so there’s emotions that come with that. … I’m not one of those coaches that doesn’t deal with parents – I know that we’re basically co-parenting.

COURTNEY SIMMONS

Grambling State University women’s basketball coach Courtney Simmons just finished her first season leading the Tigers. Simmons is the mother of 2-year-old twin daughters named Carli and Courtlyn. Her 82-year-old grandmother, Jeanette Harrison, is her main support system and watches the girls while Simmons is at work.

How do you manage traveling during the season with two toddlers?

So when it comes to, like, road games or going recruiting where I’m going overnight or a long distance, I’m taking my twins and I’m taking my grandmother. That is a non-negotiable for me. That is how I can be my best self, knowing that they’re there. That’s my comfort knowing that, OK, when I’m done in Coach Simmons’ world, I can turn around and be Mommy right in the same breath. And so, knowing that they’re at the games and, you know, they’re watching their mom do something special – for me, that’s all the instant gratification that I need.

I’m not going anywhere without them. They’ve been traveling since they were 3 months old. … I keep a running log on my phone of all the different cities and states and just things that we’ve done with them. … They’re great in the car. They’re great on the bus. They’re used to just being in that car seat because they’re traveling. 

How has your grandmother’s support made coaching at Grambling State easier?

I think mothers in the business, in any business, and if you are in a position of power, I think you’re only going to be as good as the people around you. So I was able to literally just focus on basketball during the season because my house was taken care of.

I feel a lot of pressure to make sure that I’m considerate to [her grandmother] because it’s not easy being trapped in a house at the age of 82 with 2-year-olds all day long. … She’s literally put her whole life on hold to move up to Ruston, Louisiana, to help me with the girls.

What are some of the lessons you’ve learned from your grandmother that has helped you with motherhood?

I think the biggest thing that I’ve learned is sacrifice. My grandmother, she’s uprooted her life and has dedicated her last years on earth to helping me build a foundation with my children. … [Also] just making sure that I understand it’s no longer about me, but also I’m not losing myself in motherhood because it’s easy to do when you’re just so wrapped up in [being a] mom and working.

What advice would you give others on how to manage being a mother and a head coach?

Give yourself some grace – progress, not perfection. And I think the biggest thing with women, with Black women, we’re always having to be, ‘Oh, I’m a strong Black woman.’ Well, sometimes I want to be a princess. I don’t want to be a Power Ranger all the time. Sometimes I want to sit down somewhere, but we have been [told] by our mothers that we have to be, you know, you don’t get a day off. And I think finding a way to be at peace … and having a softer version of you is what we need to strive for.

Our mental health is important, too. Black women don’t know what depression looks like, but it’s a real thing. ’Cause you’re always just so used to, ‘I gotta go,’ and in a lot of cases a lot of mothers are taking on the role of mother, father, teacher, doctor or whatever. … You’re going to make mistakes, and it’s OK … because nobody is perfect. … I don’t always have the answers, but I’m going to try.

REGINA SMITH

Regina Smith just finished her first season as the acrobatics and tumbling coach at Morgan State University. Smith has a 13-year-old son named Langdon and a 9-year-old daughter named Olivia. After taking an eight-year hiatus from coaching following the birth of her daughter, Smith is back to coaching collegiately. Smith and her husband Jeurell juggle Smith’s meets along with their children’s extracurricular activities.

How did you find out you were becoming a mother?

I was told by a few doctors that I had a diagnosis of PCOS, polycystic ovary syndrome, which [means it] is basically hard to have fertility just due to the cysts that grow on your ovaries. Three different doctors told me that I wasn’t producing a special hormone that would allow me to have children. I remember in the spring one of my girlfriends asked me to fast, and I was like, ‘I’m not fasting from the food. I love you, but I’m not doing that.’ She was like, ‘Please just give me one week.’ So I remember giving her one week of fasting from food, and I remember praying and just telling God, ‘When you’re ready let me have children.’ Lo and behold, within those two weeks, I was pregnant.

How has being at an HBCU provided you with a family environment for your children?

My kids grew up in Ohio, and they didn’t get to see a lot of people of color that look like them in the area that we lived in. So I think being able to be at an HBCU, where they get to be cultured and get to see themselves as their best selves, gave them a lot of positivity that they, too, can be somebody. They have plenty of opportunities to see themselves in young students here on campus, and that was one of the biggest things that gravitated me toward Morgan State.

How has being a mother helped you as a coach?

I will say this: Before I had kids, I was known as a mean coach. Since I’ve had kids, I’ve learned to be a lot softer and have more grace and empathy to put myself in their positions. [Now I] really think about how I can better set them up in future years because it’s not just about the moment right now, where I think a lot of the times in my past coaching career I was in the moment and not thinking about longevity.

How were you able to find a good work-life balance?

One of the biggest things that I learned is when my son was younger I didn’t have a good work-life balance. … I felt like I didn’t get to see a lot of his younger years because I was just on the road a lot. Now, as I’ve gotten older, one of the biggest things I said was I was gonna focus on a good work-life balance for my family and putting my family first. If my child is sick, I will take the day off.

My brother passed in 2017 unexpectedly [and] I learned that life is not always promised. You don’t always get to live to see the next day, so I don’t ever want to have regrets with not having that time with my children. I don’t want to take it for granted. … That experience has taught me that my family matters most to me, and I am replaceable here at Morgan, just like any other coach is replaceable, but you can’t get those years back with your family, your kids. 

LAWANDA PEARSON

Clark Atlanta University softball coach Lawanda Pearson has coached at the HBCU for two decades. Pearson has a 28-year-old daughter named Tessence and a 13-year-old daughter named Kylee. Her youngest sister, Misty Taylor, helps her balance coaching and motherhood.

Who’s a part of your support system? How does your support system help you while you’re coaching?

My baby sister is like a million dollars to me. She is always there. When my daughter has to be picked up from school, she goes and picks her up. If she has a practice or something, she would take her to practice. She acts like a mother to them. … My sister, we’re basically 16 years apart, so we’re just like my two daughters, who are 15 years apart. But my sister has been there to help support me through every day when I didn’t have to worry about certain things. If I needed to go to the school and if I was in a meeting, she would handle it.

As a mother how do you balance softball and your daughters’ cheer schedules?

It never was difficult for me. I always made time for their events. And lucky for me, softball was not really going on when [Tessence] was cheering for the football season and basketball season. So we wouldn’t have fall practice if they had a game, and if she was cheering, I would adjust my practice knowing that I had to be at an event for her later.

I never wanted to neglect my children for my job. And I didn’t. I had one athletic director who opposed my daughter coming to the school for practice, so he was trying to get HR to implement a policy where you couldn’t take your child to work. But by the time that got pushed through, my daughter was already heading to middle school. I pretty much could make my own schedule with coaching, so I would get my daughters’ schedules and arrange my fall schedule around their schedules. 

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned about balancing motherhood and coaching?

Always keep God first. That was the most important to me. … Always understand how important my family is, and then, you know, my career and winning, in that order. I think that that helped sustain me for as many years as I’ve been here.

President Glenda Glover and athletic director Mikki Allen announced the hiring Thursday. They first announced the HBCU’s plans in June 2023 during the NHL draft in Nashville hoping to start play this year at the club level and eventually field Division I men’s and women’s teams.

“I firmly believe that one day TSU will be recognized not only as a powerhouse on the ice but also as a program whose student-athletes leave a profound legacy on the world, enriched by the lessons learned at TSU,” Abercrombie said in a statement.

He is an inaugural member of the NHL Coaches’ Association’s BIPOC Coaches Program that supports coaches of color developing skills, leadership strategies, communication, networking and offering career advancement opportunities.

Abercrombie spent the 2022-23 season with Toronto in the NHL, working on the coaching staff for the Maple Leafs, the team’s AHL affiliate and its ECHL affiliate. He worked with video coaches to create scouting and player analysis packages and with players on the ice.

He was a guest coach through the NHL’s BIPOC program with San Jose during the Sharks’ training camp in 2023. He was part of Boston’s scouting mentorship program in 2021-22 and Arizona in 2021 as a coaching intern.

The native of Washington has been a senior instructor working with NCAA and NHL prospects at the Townshend Hockey School run by Graeme Townshend, the first Jamaican-born player in the NHL.

Abercrombie also was an inaugural member of the Washington Capitals’ Black Hockey Committee and a co-creator and lead instructor of the Rising Stars Academy for players of color.

“Today is a historic moment for Tennessee State University Athletics, as we welcome our first-ever hockey head coach and marks a significant step in our plans to start the program,” Allen said.

Abercrombie became one of four Black coaches in NCAA men’s hockey in 2019 on the staff at Division III Stevenson. He was a sprinter at Hampton in college until an injury ended his track career. After Hampton, he had brief stints in the New Zealand Ice Hockey League and in the Federal Hockey League with the Steele City Warriors, and the Brewster Bulldogs.

In 2023, the club team became the first from a historically Black college or university to compete in the College Rugby Association of America Division II women’s national championship game. The team finished in second place, despite grappling all season with a lack of funding and limited access to safe practice spaces – issues they are still facing as this year’s playoffs begin.

Because the group is considered a club team at Howard, without an official title under the university’s athletic department, the team has not been given a practice space on campus, transportation to off-site practice facilities or athletic department funding. Any funding the club receives from the university comes from Howard’s Division of Student Affairs. With the help of one of their sponsors, Voice in Sport, an advocacy group for women in sports, the club team has been lobbying the administration for more resources.

“Because of our successes and where we’re trying to go, I think if the administration uses that same seriousness it has for other sports for our sport and realizes that it’s not just for fun, that’ll help make everyone else realize that this is real,” co-head coach Leandria Ates told Andscape. “And with that, I think everyone will start to respect us as well.”

In response to questions from Andscape, Monica Lewis, Howard’s assistant vice president of strategic communications, provided the following statement: 

“Howard University is committed to ensuring that all student-athletes have a rewarding and enriching experience during their matriculation. We are extremely proud of the many accomplishments our Athletics program has made in recent years but especially pleased to see the growth and success of team sports where students of color – especially women – have traditionally been underrepresented, including golf, swimming, tennis, volleyball, soccer and softball.

“Students who have excelled in those sports during their youth clearly see that opportunities to pursue their athletic endeavors on the collegiate level exist here, and we will continue to work towards providing students with interests in other sports ample opportunities to compete, through additional collegiate teams where feasible or through our robust intramurals program that is available to all students enrolled at the university.”

The club was formed in 2020. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, in-person activities didn’t begin until fall 2021.

At the time, members were required to pay for their uniforms and player dues.

“It’s kind of hard to ask people to spend their own money and then to play in their free time when they really don’t have to, because we aren’t giving out scholarships or anything,” chief financial officer and founding member Gabby Mays said. “We’re simply playing because we want to.”

By Year Two, the club team managed to gain partnerships and sponsors, including former rugby player Paul Sheehy, the owner of Sheehy Auto Stores and a former pro rugby player; Old Glory D.C., a pro rugby team Sheehy co-founded in the Washington metropolitan area; and Young Glory, a nonprofit focused on helping local rugby initiatives. The sponsors took over paying for all uniform costs, and Mays hopes the team eventually will become fully functioning with no cost to players.

Through the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation, the club team books practice areas as close to Howard’s main campus as possible. Since a shuttle isn’t readily available to them, unless an away game is scheduled, members carpool to practice and often are forced to miss it altogether.

On more than one occasion, club team members have heard gunshots during practice.

“I don’t want them [team members] to worry about silly things like having money for gas to get people to and from practice, shootings at practice, or any of these ridiculous things,” team president and co-founder Takunda Rusike said. 

As a club team, the players also don’t have any rights to Howard’s Greene Stadium, which has left them susceptible to double bookings in the past. However, this season, the team has been able to hold home games at the stadium more regularly.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Equity in Athletics Data Analysis provides statistics for the intramural sports at Howard. According to the analysis, as of June 2023, women made up nearly 73% of Howard’s undergraduate population. Of the university’s 9,019 undergraduates, 6,570 were female and 2,449 were male.

The data also shows Howard women’s teams award less athletically-related student aid than their male counterparts. The men’s teams awarded $5,381,237 and the women’s teams awarded $4,457,881. Men’s teams also had higher recruiting expenses, which totaled $61,590, and the women’s teams’ corresponding expenses totaled $32,170.

In early February, players went to Capitol Hill, where Rusike spoke in support of Title IX, the landmark gender equity legislation of 1972, and the Fair Play For Women Act, which seeks to strengthen Title IX by further addressing gender discrimination in sports.

“I think as Black women, it was very important for us to be there [on Capitol Hill], especially because we play a majority white sport, and then also being at Howard, a majority women school,” said Chenelle Cates, a founding member of the rugby club. “And seeing the women’s sports teams not have equal play or equal funding compared to the men’s team is absolutely crazy.”

In 2023, Champion Women, an advocacy group for women in sports, filed an administrative class complaint on behalf of the women’s club and intramural sports at Howard against former university president Wayne A.I. Frederick and current director of athletics Kery Davis, alleging “unequal athletic participation opportunities, unequal athletic scholarship dollars, and unequal athletic benefits and treatment, including recruitment funding.”

It is not the first time Howard has faced a Title IX dispute. In 1993, Sanya Tyler, then coach of the women’s basketball team, was awarded $1.1 million in damages after a jury found that the university discriminated against her in not offering the same salary and resources that it gave to the men’s basketball coach.

The founding seniors of Howard’s women’s rugby club team believe they have gone through similar obstacles for their program to thrive, and they are still working to create a brighter future for their successors. 

Rusike stressed the importance of the club team eventually becoming an official team at Howard, and becoming part of the NCAA and the National Intercollegiate Rugby Association.

“The ultimate goal is for us to be the first NCAA Division I [HBCU] women’s rugby team and program — that is what we’re working toward,” Rusike said. “And even in postgrad, myself and the other founding members who are seniors plan on starting the alumni association so we can continue to work through this effort to finish what we started.”

When James and Walker traveled home during school breaks, they occasionally would visit local skating rinks to brush up on their skills. After James returned from winter break during her sophomore year, she decided to team up with Walker in hopes of creating an ice skating program at Howard. That way, current and future students wouldn’t have to decide between ice skating or attending the historically Black university.

They started the paperwork to create the program in January 2023 and by July it became a recognized student organization on campus. James and Walker co-founded the Howard University Ice Skating Organization, the first intercollegiate figure skating team at an HBCU, and began reaching out to other students to gauge their interest.

“We had a lot of people interested [and] a lot of people that used to skate before and wanted to come back to the sport,” James said.

The club team is split into two divisions, those learning to skate and those who want to skate competitively. The learning-to-skate division has around 30 members currently and the competitive team has roughly 14.

James and Walker partnered with the Diversify Ice Foundation, a nonprofit that aims to promote minority ice skaters by helping remove systemic barriers that prohibit many from entering the sport. The nonprofit helps the team find rink time to practice and provides coaching. The Diversify Ice team consists of four coaches, Joel Savary, Denise Viera, Megan Williams-Stewart and Jordan McCreary Graham, who have been working with the Howard ice skaters.

The club debuted at the University of Delaware’s Blue Hen Ice Classic in late February, becoming the first HBCU program to participate in an intercollegiate competition, and drew the attention of Vice President Kamala Harris, a Howard alumna.

Savary, the founder of Diversify Ice, encourages the skaters to be themselves and helps them choreograph routines to popular songs from artists such as rapper Kendrick Lamar.

He hopes seeing a majority-Black team will help change the way people view ice skating.

“It’s just getting over these preconceived notions, getting over these hurdles that are on the ice, making the sport more transparent because once we are out there, skaters of color, they are amazing,” Savary said. “They can do everything they put their minds to, so it really is about not only breaking down those barriers within the sport but also changing the thoughts around figure skating within the Black community.”

Andscape spoke with James and Walker to discuss the formation of their club team, the impact the figure skating program has had on the Howard community and the future of the program.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Why was it so important for you to include a learn-to-skate team within the program? 

James: I wanted figure skating to be more inclusive than it is now ’cause it’s very exclusive, unfortunately. So having that ‘learn skate’ portion was one of [the] big things for Cheyenne and I to do so we can have people have a new passion, start something [new].

Walker: That was definitely one of our biggest things is recognizing that you can start skating at any age. You can be in the sport at any time, and you don’t have to feel like you have to be the best of the best, considered [an] athlete, to be considered like a figure skater. It was very important and also not only limiting it to just girls and young women, letting it be open to the whole campus community, because the sport is open to so many different people.

When did you know this would be the first HBCU with an ice skating program? 

James: Well, we didn’t at first, but I remember one of the U.S. Figure Skating, like, directors of the collegiate sport. She was like, ‘Oh, I think this might be the first HBCU to do it. Like, you guys might be making history here,’ and I was like, ‘Wait, really?’ So I don’t know, it didn’t really hit us until, you know, all this stuff came out.

What has it meant to the two of you to get back to that love of skating at your HBCU?

James: It just feels really great because it’s something that I’ve grown up with and something I’ve always loved. It’s kind of like a release from all the stress from school. It just feels good to be back into something.

Walker: I definitely feel like in college it is very hard to get lost in the environment not having skating. I feel like coming back to skating is where I felt the most grounded more recently. So having that opportunity to come back to it has made me feel like my college career has been [what] I set out to do, what I want to do. Especially as a senior looking back, I’m just happy that I was able to meet Maya, and everyone was able to start this now so people who come up after us will have the opportunity. They don’t have to wait all the way into their senior year or junior year to start to skate. They can start it from their freshman year.

How was the first team practice?

James: It was really exciting, and it was kind of crazy to see because our very first practice or gathering was, like, it was at 6 [or] 7 in the morning on a Saturday. We had rented a bus for everybody. It was just cool to see that everybody was just so excited and dedicated to come out on a Saturday morning. 

Walker: The energy was definitely up, especially for us to be early in the morning. We’re college students – no one wants to be up earlier than 9 a.m. But it was definitely a great time just seeing how people were falling but not giving up. They were getting right back up, laughing at it all and just being open to new opportunities.

What was it like competing during the program’s first meet?

James: It was very, I keep saying exciting, but it was also very emotional ’cause it took a long time. Well, it took a decent amount of time to get to where we’re at, and just the fact that we’re finally being included into this aspect of collegiate figure skating, and everybody was just so welcoming. All the other universities were just like, ‘Oh, so proud of you guys.’ So it was just a really great environment.

Walker: I just got back to the skating community really fully this school year. So it’s easy to say that you’re diversifying the space, but then to walk in and actually see that diversity in action is definitely something because we really were the only people there. And just to see, like, how welcoming it was, how we didn’t feel, like, ostracized or anything. I really enjoyed the competition as a whole because we think of it as very competitive. … It was more open, very much like we’re here doing this together.

This is just for fun to help us develop our skills. And I think that was really important, like, for me especially, just being my first time and I know some other people’s first time competing individually. Although we’re competing for our team [we’re] going on the ice by ourselves, not as a team.

What has the public support meant to the figure skating program?

James: It feels really good ’cause all the work that we’ve put in, all the, you know, trials and tribulations that really paid off and to see everyone that supports us and seeing how much it was needed [for the] Howard community.

Walker: I agree with Maya. It’s been a little bit surreal because I’m in my reflective era right now. I’m graduating … so I’ve just been going over my time at Howard and just in general, how much of an impact it’s had on our campus community in just a small amount of time. Even walking on the Yard and seeing people like, ‘Oh, my gosh, can I come to learn this skate?’ Things like that where you just would never expect as many people to be interested or we didn’t even expect this much attention.

How do you think having a program at an HBCU helps the next generation of Black girls who want to go into figure skating?

James: I know it’s really heartwarming because growing up I didn’t have that many skaters that look like me. So the fact that I could be that for little girls and boys coming up now is just something I didn’t really expect to do. It’s kind of like a full circle moment.

Walker: I definitely think just looking toward the future and how it could impact the younger generation, I look at how it would have impacted me. Even knowing coming into Howard, knowing that there would have been skating, just knowing that you have that community here on campus and that you can make even the smallest impact on [the] community you’re in.

The bored freshmen at the Brazeal House dorm at Morehouse entered a Call of Duty tournament for students from historically Black colleges and universities on a whim. The group grew into the second-largest student organization on campus.

“At that time esports was nothing more than having fun with my friends at that moment, because I didn’t know much of what it actually was apart from some people competing for money,” Howard said. “In the last three years the scope of esports has really changed for me. I’ve always played the game, and now it’s kind of this newfound avenue in life and something you can really capitalize as everyone plays games.”

The days of the old Atari video game are long over. Video games and streamers are the norm. A 2022 market report by games data firm Newzoo found global esports revenues hit $1.38 billion in 2022, the last time statistics were available – and that growth is prompting HBCUs to jump into gaming. Since 2020, the number of HBCU esports teams has grown to more than 50, said Julian Fitzgerald, executive director of Cxmmunity, a nonprofit that holds tournaments and provides opportunities to youths and students in esports and gaming.

The Morehouse gaming group has expanded to include more than 250 members, with eight teams that compete in HBCU and other tournaments. In 2023, two students received a $50,000 Call of Duty contract at the Mtn Dew Real Change Challenge tournament, besides the $20,000 the team won for finishing in second place.

The group will begin this year’s season on Feb. 4 at an HBCU Fortnite tournament. Then it’s on to the College Call of Duty league, which includes students from outside of HBCUs.

“This is life-changing money for a student, and they’re now in the professional world [of esports],” Howard said. “This is something they always dreamed of but not something they thought were attainable. For them to do that, it inspired other people to join the club [and] other people to come to Morehouse just for esports, because they know that their dream may come true.”

The growth in esports’ popularity at HBCUs has allowed students to continue the friendly rivalries between schools. But what excites Cxmmunity’s Fitzgerald is that over a dozen historically Black colleges are offering degrees or courses students can use in esports, from game development and design to a few esports majors.

“It’s really about giving students the ability to engage in an ecosystem that’s growing rapidly,” Fitzgerald said. “Esports is headed to be a $2 billion space. But that is a subset of the larger revenue within the gaming ecosystem. Without being involved in esports, you really have a harder opportunity of being exposed to the world and ecosystem of gaming.”

That’s why Sinclaire Hoyt, founder of the Spelman College esports team, plans to focus her master’s research on increasing the number of women in gaming.

“It’s very important for Black women to be in the space, because you can only tell your story from your perspective,” Hoyt said. “You can’t have somebody who’s going to try to design how you look, talk, how you move.

“It’s very important for us to get not only in front of the camera but behind the camera, not in front of the controller but [also] behind the controller. You have to have the perspective of a Black woman playing or developing a Black woman [to do that].”

At Morehouse, the Maroon Tiger Gaming room opened in December 2023. The two rooms contain four 40-inch televisions, another 60-inch TV with couches, and a school sign on the wall in the front portion. The second room is focused on the esports teams’ advanced competitions and where they practice. There are five PCs on each side and three additional TVs with couches. Separately, there’s a middle island for people to watch.

The facility took a year to build.

“It was a lot of hard work, but it was something we dreamed of,” said Howard, who helped to plan the entire area, which entailed securing a former campus game room to retrofit, designing the facility and making a pitch to Intel to secure the computers.

“In order for us to succeed we needed a central space,” he said. “You have to have face-to-face interaction. We’re a completely student-run organization. It was a big hurdle, but I’m glad we got it done.”

Howard University’s esports association, now led by president Ahmad Whitaker, has about 420 members who play tournaments in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference esports league and Cxmmunity. Last season, team members won $80,000 in the Mtn Dew tournament.

Many of the students were much like Whitaker, who joined the team in 2022 after having a hard time adjusting socially after the pandemic.

“There have been some really crazy stories of people just finding us at the perfect time,” Whitaker said.

Whitaker said because the university is so large, the esports team gives Howard students a sense of place and belonging. Howard’s Electronic Sports (Esports) Lab, launched in 2022, is used for team practices, scrimmages, game day matches and other activities related to science, technology, engineering and math sanctioned by the university.

“Some students at Howard don’t go out to parties, don’t do social stuff. They just don’t feel like it’s them,” said Whitaker, who will be an adviser next year. “So Howard esports gives them that space to say, ‘Hey, I have friends and I am not doing those things, and I don’t feel the need to do all these things.’ They really feel that sense of camaraderie, and they really love coming down to the lab and talking to everyone and being a part of it.

“It’s a really sweet thing to see students feel supported and feel like they have people in their corner.”

Hoyt developed the esports team at Spelman as a passion project. As a Bonner Scholar, she was required to create a capstone project, which led her to launch the team a year ago.

Hoyt, who has 20 members on her team, said there wasn’t a place to “learn how to come together and compete” in the Spelman Innovation Lab until last year. The lab, which opened in 2016, is now a place where creators, animators, software engineers, gamers and streamers come together every Monday and Friday to play games.

So far, Spelman has three teams playing Fortnite and Overwatch Call of Duty that participate in Cxmmunity’s HBCU Esports League and the Georgia Esports League.

“Esports team means a lot to me. This is something that I’ve been thinking about ever since I’ve been in high school. I’ve always wanted to compete and play on a team,” Hoyt said. 

“It means a lot to create spaces for people that have similar interests. Anything that they want to do, this is a space for them to come and be able to do it.”  

According to Howard, the Bison have won 31 conference and national championships since Davis’ hiring. In the last two years alone, several athletic programs have won Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference titles – football (November), men’s basketball (March), women’s indoor and outdoor track and field (February, May), softball (2022), women’s cross-country (2022) and men’s golf (2022), to name a few – and multiple coaches agree Davis has been the difference maker.

“When you have a person who hires you, brings you in, believing in you and aligning to give you most of the things that you need to really get [the program] off its feet and build it, it is tremendous,” said football coach Larry Scott, whose team will play Florida A&M University in the Cricket Celebration Bowl on Saturday in Atlanta.

Before Scott’s arrival in 2020, the Bison football program had cycled through three head coaches in three years and hadn’t won a conference title since 1993. In 2022, Scott’s second full season, the Bison shared the MEAC title with North Carolina Central, and this season they won the title outright, earning their first Celebration Bowl berth.

“[Davis] stands in support of what we’re trying to do,” he said.

Davis, a former senior vice president of programming with HBO’s sports division, joined Howard with a vision of making its athletic programs mirror the academic success commonly associated with the university. 

Despite lacking experience as an athletic director, Davis said his primary focus to transform the programs had to include assessing coaches and increasing department resources.

“I came in with two approaches. The first one was to evaluate the coaches that we had, and some of them were dynamic, creative coaches who were doing well with the resources that they had but didn’t have enough resources to get over the top,” Davis said. “[Secondly] what are the resources you need to get you to win championships, and then what things you need to get you to be a top 100 program.”

Davis sought to weed out coaches who he believed saw Howard as only a steppingstone to their next big job.

“I want coaches who understand and recognize how special this post is [and] who want to be here. I want a coach who is going to match my passion,” he said. “I want to be here. … This is the only place I wanted to be an athletic director.”

Scott applauds Davis for finding the right balance between additional resources and the hiring of good coaches. 

“He wanted to make sure that he was starting to put the right people in place that had the right experience and the right level of care and passion for what they do and how they do it,” Scott said. “Because he knew and understood that we had a name. We had a great brand already.

“But then, at the end of the day, it’s not about buildings. It’s not about facilities. … It’s about people.”

Coaches rave about the gradual increase in support positions such as academic advisers, trainers, sports psychologists and mental health professionals.

“The bolstering of the support staff, with assistant coaches, the compliance staff, training staff and that athletic academic resource staff, those are all things we’ve seen continue to get better and better over the last couple of years,” said Howard alumnus Nicholas Askew, who is responsible for coaching four programs at the university: men’s and women’s tennis and men’s and women’s swimming and diving. 

In February, the men’s swimming and diving program won its first NEC championship. Howard is currently the only HBCU with a swim team.

“The athletic training, our strength and conditioning … those have been the big shifts in athletics, and now we’ve begun to really see those benefits over the last few years truly pay off,” Askew said.

As his vision took root, Davis said he believed women’s sports also offered fresh potential.

“About five years ago, we started really emphasizing the opportunities for us to excel in women’s sports,” Davis said. “That’s a big part of our strategy.“

Howard’s women’s basketball coach Ty Grace ended a 21-year title drought in 2022, when her team won the MEAC Tournament and secured the program’s first NCAA tournament appearance since 2001.

Grace said the emphasis on women’s sports was crucial to the team’s success.

“He’s a visionary. He talked about how he viewed Howard, where he saw the programs, and he talked about how we should be winning championships,” Grace said. “It wasn’t easy. Obviously, it took some time building, getting the right people, players and resources in place. But he definitely believed in it before it happened.”

Davis negotiated a 20-year deal with Jordan Brand in 2022, a partnership that Grace said “transported us to a different bracket.”

“I know people think that brands and those things aren’t important, but they’re important to recruits and their families,” she said. “It’s a global brand, so that definitely has helped us to be able to have more conversations with recruiting players.”

In 2019, five-star recruit Josh Christopher took an official visit to the Mecca, and in 2020 five-star prospect Makur Maker committed to Howard, playing in two games during the season shortened by the coronavirus pandemic before seeking a pro career.

For Davis, the attention from those top prospects meant Howard was shrinking the perceived athletic gap between Power 5 schools and historically Black colleges and universities. 

“[Recruiting] is an arms race. … We had a unique athlete who saw the importance of going to an HBCU at that time. We might have been a year early, maybe two,” Davis said. “But at the same time, you want to make sure that they [athletes] have all of the basics that they need, they have a good strength and conditioning room.

“I don’t want the gap between what we’re providing and what they could get at another school to be that great. If it’s close, then the other elements of Howard can kick in to put us over the top.”

The Jordan Brand agreement has been instrumental in creating better facilities for Howard, Davis said. Earlier this week, Howard unveiled new basketball practice courts for its men’s and women’s basketball programs. 

Even alums have noticed the changes in Howard’s athletic programs, Askew said.

“They wish they were training and competing for the university now versus back in the day. They always tease these current players [saying], ‘Man, they don’t know how good they have it,’ ” Askew said, “because, when we were coming up, our resources were very small. We didn’t have a Jordan deal or Speedo deal like we do now.”

Along with all that the athletic programs have accomplished during his tenure, Davis has another goal.

“I’m happy about the [football] team being competitive and strong and winning a share of the conference championship last year,” Davis said. “But our goal has always been to go further. … Our goal now is to win a Celebration Bowl.”

More athletic success is in Howard’s future, Askew said.

“We are still scratching the surface of where we can be, and where we will be,” he said. “I don’t think anyone’s satisfied with the success that we’ve shown in the last couple of years. 

“I think everybody has the same mindset of a new season, new goals. … So I think in the next couple of years, we’ll see even more programs we may not have seen do exceptionally well in the past stepping up.”

However, the second annual event also will focus on the future of swimming, including the slow renaissance of aquatics programs at HBCUs and potential careers and lifestyles available.

That is why the event, which is being held in partnership with the Cricket Celebration Bowl, is more than just a competition for past and present swimmers in all age groups and categories, said Miriam Lynch, executive director of Diversity in Aquatics, an organization dedicated to promoting and supporting aquatic activities, education and safety in historically underrepresented communities.

Lynch, a former swimmer at Howard University who is now a volunteer coach for Howard’s renowned swimming and diving program, cites multiple advantages that come from knowing how to swim and be safe in the water, from participating in sports such as rowing and water polo to pursuing careers such as marine biology and joining the Coast Guard.

“It’s the blue economy,” Lynch said. 

That isn’t just a figure of speech. Civil rights legend Andrew Young swam competitively at Howard in the 1950s. Samuel L. Jackson did the same at Morehouse in the 1970s. Howard and other HBCUs even required passing a swimming class for graduation up until the coronavirus pandemic a few years ago.

“They knew swimming was networking,” Lynch said. “You know what they say, ‘You need to learn how to golf because most of your business is on the golf course.’ The same thing with swimming – you need to learn how to swim because that’s also where business is conducted, during those summer times at the pool. Water safety was a part of the culture, a part of the lifestyle.” 

Swimming was part of academic and cultural life at HBCUs for decades. According to Nicholas Askew, Howard’s director of swimming and diving and tennis, more than 20 institutions had swimming and diving teams as recently as the 1980s, including Morehouse, which had a dominant team in the 1970s under coach James Haines and the two programs playing in the Celebration Bowl, Howard and Florida A&M University.

Masters swimmer Doug Carrington swam competitively at Florida A&M in the 2000s and later served as an assistant coach and head coach for the university. Carrington had come to the Florida HBCU thinking strictly of his engineering studies, having drifted away from a youth swimming career in Albany, New York. His coach at FAMU, Jorge Olaves, had Carrington compete in the 200-meter backstroke in the conference championship meet.

“I found on the bus ride home that, OK, I got the school record in the backstroke,” Carrington recalled. “And it was at that moment that I said, OK, I gotta take this seriously. I gotta really get into this. How can I make the record faster? How can I be better?”

Carrington brought that mindset to his continued participation in swimming. When Lynch, who swam at Howard at the same time Carrington was at Florida A&M, organized the HBCU Celebration Swim Meet, he suggested bringing older swimmers into the mix, knowing how much fellowship there would be in the HBCU swimming community.

“It’s like family,” he said. “I’ve been inundated with a lot of people that used to swim with me, saying, ‘Yeah, come to Atlanta and go to the meet.’ That’s what you want, people that you know. You want people to be enthusiastic about maybe coming and getting back together, something that you know doesn’t happen very often.”

Diversity in Aquatics, which was founded in 2010, now has about 2,000 members, including board members and U.S. Olympic medal-winning swimmers Cullen Jones and Maritza Correia McClendon. One of the driving forces for Diversity in Aquatics to organize the swim meet and water safety festival was that Howard is currently the only HBCU with a swimming program.

That is gradually changing. Club programs are either starting or restarting at Delaware State University, Grambling State University, Morehouse, North Carolina Central University and Spelman College. Funding campaigns are underway to build or refurbish pool facilities at several universities, including Morehouse, which still needs major upgrades even as it hosts the HBCU Celebration Swim Meet for a second straight year. USA Swimming and U.S. Masters Swimming have contributed significant funding to this weekend’s events and HBCU programs overall.

Gathering those people in the context of reviving dormant or discarded programs is an even greater incentive, Carrington said. 

“They’re like, a step away. You have something to model on, to say, ‘Hey, this is how we could do it,’ ” he said. “So, I’m looking forward to seeing what’s the new dialogue, what’s the new ideas out there that can keep the juices flowing, that, yeah, maybe some of these schools do bring the kids back so that it’s not just Howard.”

The Black aquatics community is welcoming the resurgence. Harold Head II, who heads Morehouse’s club program, previously ran aquatics programs at YMCAs in Atlanta and surrounding counties. He also is the son of Harold Head, who headed the aquatics program for the city’s Parks and Recreation Department and taught physical education at Morehouse in the 1960s.

As a Morehouse student, the younger Head followed his father’s commitment to water sports, getting his first experience in administration, working as a part-time lifeguard and earning certifications before graduating.

When he returned to Morehouse five years ago, he said, the facilities largely remained the same. 

“It’s still the same pool as when I was there, back in the ’90s. Very little has changed from when my father was there back in the ’60s,” he said.

The challenge of getting money to stay current, even at a prestigious private institution like Morehouse, affects athletic programs of all sizes, leaving Head to scramble to give students interested in the program something to work with.

“We’re now trying to get some exposure,” he said, “to let people know what we’re doing at the facility, trying to start the program back up and see if we can get inside the curriculum a recreation and aquatics track, so a person can come in as a freshman and do the exact same thing that I did.”

The head start he had, because of a parent immersed in water sports, doesn’t have to be the only path for Black people of any age to get immersed themselves, Head said. 

Others committed to swimming, water safety and education agree. Teshia Lincoln, a kinesiology professor at Grambling State who is helping facilitate the club program at her alma mater, was a dance student there. She had grown up swimming with her siblings in ponds, lakes and rivers nearby in Louisiana.

“It wasn’t like we went to the YMCA to learn how to swim,” she said, laughing. 

Her interest in engaging in water sports and education intensified when she took up water aerobics to rehab from a dance injury.

Grambling’s Tiger S.H.A.R.K.S. – the acronym stands for swimming, health and wellness, aquatics fitness, recreation and rehabilitation, kinesiology and safety awareness – is designed to serve the local community as well as the university, Lincoln said. The program’s challenges are familiar to other HBCUs: resources, including the fact that Grambling did not have a working pool on campus for nearly three decades, and the continued reluctance of Black people to get in the pool – “the fear factor,” Lincoln said.

Her experience tells her the fear is largely cultural, she said. 

“We have a lot of international students who come, and they swim because they’re born into it,” Lincoln said. “It’s a necessity for them, whereas truly in some neighborhoods or standpoints within our lives it’s only recreational.”

The practical benefits of knowing how to swim are critical to Diversity in Aquatics’ cause and that of the HBCU Celebration Swim Meet. Organizers and participants can cite the disproportionate statistics on drowning by Black people compared with whites and other demographic groups.

According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drowning death rates for Black people are 1.5 times higher than for whites, and among Black children ages 10-14, the rate is 3.6 times higher – and a terrifying 7.6 times higher for those children when in pools.

Lincoln said water accidents such as the 2010 drowning of six teenagers in Shreveport, Louisiana, have driven people to participate in Grambling’s program and others. 

Herman Kelly, then the pastor of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and an African American studies adjunct instructor at Louisiana State University, was one of those deeply affected by those drownings. Kelly was part of the Morehouse swimming powerhouse in the 1970s and part of his master’s education at Springfield College in Massachusetts was in aquatics, but as his teaching and ministry grew, he spent less time in the pool. The Shreveport tragedy moved him to action, he recalled.

“I said, ‘Wow, that bothers me, God. Somebody ought to do something,’ ” Kelly said. “And God spoke back to me, ‘You know how to swim. Why don’t you do something?’ ”

Kelly, an avid swimmer since growing up in Jacksonville, Florida, started a swimming program for youth at his church and plans to do the same at his new parish, Grant Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Amite, Louisiana. He also has become a masters swimming champion, winning several national competitions since returning to swimming seriously nearly a decade ago.

Even with his epiphany about teaching swimming being rooted in tragedy, Kelly fully embraces the possibilities of a love of the water. A scheduling conflict will keep him from attending the HBCU Celebration Swim Meet at his alma mater, but he said he is already committed to attending in 2024.

The wealth of positive stories, histories and legacies are such that Lynch is adamant about the negatives not defining Black people’s relationship to the water.

“What we start off with is, we don’t talk about it in a deficit mindset,” she said. “For us, we are changing the narrative of all aquatics and how it is approached in communities, because for so long the narrative has been, ‘Learn to swim so you don’t drown,’ right? It’s so aggressive.

“The strategic plan is, ‘This is where we can be in this space.’ Our part in that was to talk about the possibilities when you learn to swim.”  

Now Odom relishes the opportunity to represent HBCU golfers, and both Odom and Puryear fondly look back at the conversation as the beginning of a bond that would help shape Howard’s program. After dealing with the highs and lows of being a collegiate athlete, Odom said his HBCU experience is exactly what he needed at this juncture of his life. 

“[At Memphis] my teammates were just teammates, but we became friends. The coaches were more just team-based duties and very structured, kind of like military,” Odom said. “But coming to Howard feels very family-based. I always say Coach [Puryear] is like an uncle to me. Then my teammates, they [are] kind of like my brothers and sisters.

“We all came here, we met together and started to grow closer and bond. All our accomplishments together have just made us even closer.”

Howard’s women’s and men’s golf teams are featured on the fourth season of the Why Not Us series from Andscape, FILM 45 and ESPN+ Originals. All eight episodes chronicling the teams’ 2022-23 season are currently available on ESPN+.

“I think it was cool to see our day-to-day life. A lot of people don’t know what HBCU golf was [and] what it could be, so it’s cool to finally share the light on it,” Odom said. “I was one of those guys who didn’t want to go to an HBCU first because I thought it lacked resources and opportunity. … Howard put us in the right spaces at the right time.”

Odom, one of two players who have been a part of Howard’s golf program since its inaugural season in 2020, was originally committed to the University of Memphis, his hometown school. He was the first African American to play on the Tigers’ golf team. 

He has been an integral part of Puryear building Howard’s golf program. Since arriving on campus in 2020, Odom has helped Howard win two PGA Tour Works Collegiate Championships and was a two-time men’s medalist at the collegiate championship, an award given to the golfer with the lowest score.

He attributes his growth as a golfer to his relationship with Puryear and the lessons the coach has taught him over the last four years. 

“I think the most impactful thing I learned from him is just trusting the process,” Odom said. “And with trust in the process, you have to be patient. I feel like I wasn’t a guy to always be patient when it came to doing things. I kind of made a way out of no way at the beginning, with the rough road.”

Howard’s golf program is funded by Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry, who returned the program to Division I golf status after a decadeslong hiatus. Curry’s contributions to the program have given Odom the same resources he had at Memphis.

“You just have to cherish those moments,” Odom said. “You have to put the phone down and take in the moment because you don’t have a guy like this very accomplished just walk in the room and be able to pick his brain, talk to him about mental health and what he liked to do in the free time. … Steph [Curry] has made a very huge step in the game of golf. To provide resources, the opportunities for Howard has impacted us for the good.”

Every day in practice, Odom’s teammates notice his effort and willingness to push them all. Graduate student Everett Whiten Jr. said competing against Odom helped motivate him to earn his own men’s medalist title at this year’s collegiate championship.

“Greg’s a great teammate. He’s gonna be himself, which I like,” Whiten said. “He’s hard on you, he pushes you. He makes me a better golfer knowing that I gotta play good golf to compete and beat him and make us better [and] stronger as well.

“[When] Greg won the first PGA Works [men’s medalist] it drove me. It pushed me and motivated me to work hard. I think it’s just having him dap me up and hug me on the green, like, it just felt good having my teammate there.”

Odom’s influence on the golf course isn’t limited to his impact on his teammates. When he goes home to Memphis, Tennessee, or when he’s in Washington, practicing alone he takes pride in helping his teammates and any golfer who approaches him asking for tips.

“I want to be a guy that, you know, people look up to and that they can learn from. I’m also not stingy with my resources,” Odom said. “I opened my arms to all Black golfers and junior golfers. I was the guy that never had anybody to look up to when it came to golf. 

“You always had Tiger Woods, but I feel like I couldn’t really connect to him. I’m from Memphis. We have a heavy slang and heavy diction and I have to be me on the course.”

Heading into his final year, Odom and the Bison are on a quest for their third collegiate championship. He isn’t worried about the future of the program after he and Whiten, its original members, graduate at the end of this season. 

“I feel like we have laid out a great platform and footprint for our teammates or the younger Black golfers to look at,” Odom said. “And I think it will be impactful because being an HBCU golfer, we’re kind of looked at differently when it comes to collegiate golf or even amateur golf. I can say we’re no longer just HBCU golfers but, you know, world-class amateur golfers.”

Odom debuted on the PGA Tour in May 2022 at the Wells Fargo Championship on a sponsor exemption, competing against two-time PGA Championship winner Rory McIlroy and 2022 U.S. Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick. Odom missed the cut and finished two rounds, shooting 12 above par. He also earned exemptions to play five events on the Korn Ferry Tour, a PGA professional developmental tour. In his latest appearance on the Korn Ferry Tour he competed at the Memorial Health Championship this summer and finished one above par, missing the cut.

Playing in PGA Tour events allowed Odom to flirt with the possibility of moving on to play professional golf at the end of the last two seasons, but he ultimately decided to move at his own pace when it comes to pursuing a professional career. 

“I wouldn’t say I’m behind the eight ball, but I know that the game has changed since Tiger entered the game,” Odom said. “[Golf’s] moving at a fast rate. I feel like being in college for an extra year or an extra two years is not a bad idea. I can seize the moment when it’s time to seize the moment.”

Odom and Whiten dream of competing against each other as pro golfers. Though Odom has heard a lot of skepticism about HBCU golfers competing professionally, he isn’t bothered by naysayers.

“I feel like at other schools [playing pro golf] is the most realistic goal for all your teammates. … You’re competing against each other on the professional tour. But I know it’s different for us because [people] try to throw it in our face – ‘oh, maybe pro golf won’t work and you can work in the clubhouse’ – but I feel like with all our success and the opportunity we’ve been getting, the chances of actually being on the inside of the ropes and playing is very high.”

For some, the answer may seem obvious. But for Whiten the answer wasn’t so simple. 

“I just knew that I wanted to pursue golf,” Whiten said. “I had this great opportunity, and I wanted to come back and play for Howard to try and win some more. The goal is to be a professional golfer, so it’s always good to have a plan B but [I] want to stick to plan A and see what we can do.”

His resolve stems from almost having his golf dream taken away from him. Whiten, one of two players who have been a part of Howard’s golf program since its inaugural season in 2020, was originally committed to Hampton University. He spent two years with Hampton’s golf program before it was abruptly cut in June 2020, which left Whiten scrambling the summer before his junior season. He considered staying at Hampton to finish his MBA and forgoing his dream of playing golf before he received the offer that would change everything.

“I got a call from Coach Sam [Puryear], like, the next morning – literally never knew the man, never heard of him, and he called me. He just started talking to me about Howard,” Whiten said. “It’s funny because I remember talking about Hampton versus Howard in golf. We could have a rivalry in golf. And then fast-forward. I get a call from this Coach Sam, saying, ‘Hey, we want to play golf at Howard University.’ It was a reset with golf for me.”

In 2019 Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry agreed to fund Howard’s golf program for six years, igniting the program’s return to Division I golf after a decadeslong hiatus and giving Whiten a new path toward his goal.

Recently, Whiten got the chance to tell Curry what Howard’s program has meant to him. 

“I told Steph when I saw him a few weeks ago and broke down the whole story, too. He’s just changing lives, day in and day out,” Whiten said. “This whole [program] has changed my whole perspective, trajectory and what I want to do, just because he started the program here at Howard.”

Since then, Whiten has witnessed the program’s progress, with the men’s program winning its first Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference championship in 2022. For postseason play, athletes from historically Black colleges and universities compete in the PGA Works Collegiate Championship, an annual championship in collegiate golf for student-athletes attending minority-serving institutions such as historically Black colleges and universities. The Bison have won two consecutive PGA Works championships, finishing their season schedule with five top-3 finishes in tournaments.

“I think a lot of people, they kind of see what we’ve done now. They didn’t really see us back when we first started when Coach used to take us to Enterprise [Golf Course] or all these courses where we’d just be practicing for hours,” Whiten said. “The people in the DMV or in Maryland and D.C. that let us come to those nicer courses and let us practice, I’m thankful for them having us out there. 

“It’s been a long ride, but Coach [Puryear] always said, ‘Trust the process.’ I think it’s been good to see how far we’ve come, and it’s only going to keep getting better.”

At this year’s championship a strong final round by Whiten helped secure the Bison’s second ring and earned him the men’s medalist award for the lowest combined score. Teammate Greg Odom Jr., who won the medalist award the previous year, is proud to see Whiten’s growth. 

“EJ is more than just a teammate – he’s a brother. Sharing life’s journey through every twist and turn, from course grind to personal highs and lows, our bond grows stronger every day,” Odom said. “Watching EJ evolve has been great to witness. He’s leveling up as a man, moving smarter and sharper. His biggest glow-up, I would say, [is] flipping the script on how he tackles life, strategizing moves to conquer his goals to not only become a better golfer but a better person.”

Whiten had an inauspicious start with golf. A native of Chesapeake, Virginia, he spent most of his childhood switching between basketball, baseball and soccer. He didn’t start playing golf formally until age 13, when his childhood friend Josh Africa, who played collegiately at Penn State Harrisburg, encouraged Whiten to consider trying the sport.

“I just like how hard it was, how hard the challenge was and how much of a grind it is. I like to say I’m very athletic. I was always good and decent at everything that I played. Golf definitely humbled me,” Whiten said.

His days as a novice are long behind him. Coach Sam Puryear, who coached golfers during his time at Michigan State and Stanford who have since joined the PGA Tour, has finally seen the shift in his Howard golfers’ mindset: They now believe they, too, can play pro golf.

“If you’ve been blessed [with] God-given talent and you want to trust the process and put the work in, you can make it from anywhere, because I do believe dreams come true,” Puryear said. “We have a bevy of guys on this team, men and women that do have the ability right now to make some real checks down the road in their lives playing [pro] golf.

“I feel like we put together a roster of really good people that have really high hopes and dreams. My goal right now is to try to facilitate [and] be that Robin Hood trying to make these dreams come true. I really want to do that. I want to level that playing field. I really do, because at the end of the day, why not us.”

Whiten earned an exemption to play on the Korn Ferry Tour, a PGA professional developmental tour, after the Bison finished their collegiate season, and the Howard graduate senior participated in two Korn Ferry Tour tournaments. He shot one under par at the BMW Charity Pro-Am in June. At the Pure Cutter Charity Championship in July he shot five below par after two rounds, narrowly missing the cut. He also played at the Knoxville Open in 2022.

“Korn Ferry is the next step to the PGA Tour. So just being able to have that exemption and just get that experience going out there and competing with the guys that are trying to do what you’re trying to do on an everyday basis is huge,” Whiten said.  

Whiten’s stints competing on the Korn Ferry Tour have helped him hone his collegiate game. He will decide whether to pursue a pro career at the end of this upcoming season. 

“Those three events have already boosted my confidence and I feel like I have more and more experience. So just going into the season, I’m just trying to emulate the same thing, learn and don’t force it,” he said. “Golf is not going to have perfect days every day, so you just got to take what you get and learn from each round.”  

Why Not Us: Howard Golf, the fourth season of the acclaimed Why Not Us series from Andscape, FILM 45 and ESPN+ Originals, premieres Monday, with episodes 1 through 4 airing on ESPNU and available to stream on ESPN+ immediately following the debut. Why Not Us: Howard Golf will debut its eight episodes over three weeks on ESPNU, with episodes 3-6, Aug. 28 at 7 p.m. ET and episodes 5-8 at 7 p.m. Sept. 4 ET.