It was at an AAU basketball practice that Terrence Echols was first told that he played like a white guy. The graduate student, and shooting guard on the Marist Basketball Team is not white. “They'd be like, ‘Oh, you play like a white boy’ just because of how I grew up”, he said. Echols is from Fayetteville, NY - a suburb near the city of Syracuse - that totals almost four thousand residents, with only 1.05% of those residents being Black or African American.
Meanwhile, 339 miles south Jordan Jones hasn’t even considered picking up a basketball yet. Jones, who just finished up his last year on the team leading in rebounds and field goal percentages doesn’t even see himself as a college athlete just yet. “I really started playing organized [basketball] when I was like, 14” he laughs. Now nine years and two colleges later, he appeared in all 21 games of his senior year, and came in third in the MAAC conference in blocked shots per game.
It’s rare that in a country full of hoopers that these two specifically would meet. However, as their paths both led to Marist College, one commonality remained the same; the two young men would find themselves in a new space with the similar mindset: navigating a predominantly white institute as a black athlete.
“When I got here in the fall of 2018, it was kind of a culture shock. Because coming from Baltimore I grew up [around] all black people, and coming here this was all white. It took a lot to get adjusted to that” Jones mentioned. According to the 2021 U.S. Census Bureau, Black people make up a total of 62.3% of Baltimore’s population. At Marist College, they make up a mere 4%.*
“It's hard to be black here. I don't know if I can handle it”.
Echols echoes this sentiment: “When you take your first look around the classroom, and no one looks like you…that's, that's definitely something that I know a lot of [black] people can relate to”. However during these classroom settings was when Echols found his race questioned the most.
For academically striving in these settings, his blackness seemed to be stripped, masked by good grades and articulated sentences. “[People] were surprised to meet someone like me and so they didn't associate me with being black. A lot of people were like, ‘Oh, you're just like a white guy’ and I didn't like that because you knew the only reason they were calling me that was because I spoke well, and I got good grades”.
Jones didn’t know quite where he fit in during his start at Marist. After transferring from Charleston Southern - a school with 31.6% students of color - his blackness was all he knew; now being in an environment where most of his peers couldn't relate made him question this new place he was expected to call home. “One of the first problems was [wondering], ‘’Where do I fit in?’” he mentioned, “I told my coach about this and I said, “It's hard to be black here. I don't know if I can handle it”.
"I feel like I definitely have to be black, and I just can't be myself"
He felt as if he had a duty. Being one of the only black people in a majority white space in almost every building he walked in, he took it as a responsibility to represent those who weren’t. “I definitely felt like a burden. I felt like an obligation to my people that I had to call everything out every time something happens or I felt obligated when I hang [around] black people where I feel like I definitely have to be black, and I just can't be myself”.
But how did this mindset change on the court? During the Summer and Fall of 2022, the Marist basketball team had an all black squad for the first time in over a decade. Yet, while the team remained a pocket of the Marist campus where there were a majority of people of color, outside of the classroom the athletes were still seen as a rarity.
The 2021-22 Marist College Basketball Team
Source:https://goredfoxes.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster
“Obviously they're struggles that we have to deal with at a PWI that I try to help other guys with because I just feel so comfortable. I've been in this element for a long time” Echols mentioned.
However, despite the experiences of their athletes, they found themselves still in the spotlight for the college because of their roles on the team. “Being a black athlete here, from the administration and people higher up, you're definitely the token for representation here on this campus” Jones mentioned.
Echols said that this was expected from him from as early as his elementary age. “I had a dashiki when I was little [and] my mom would bring it in, and talk about it to my classmates and stuff because we had no other black kids in the class.” he said, “and my parents were experts on Black American culture because that's what both of my parents grew up with, but the thing is, they expected Black Americans to understand African culture”.
Now, the mindset of each of these athletes has shifted throughout their time on campus. For Echols, he’s learned that his blackness is not shaped by the sport he plays. He doesn’t play ‘like a white guy’ anymore, but like he always has. “Basketball probably is what helped keep me around both cultures” he said, “So I think having that really helped me a lot, especially as I got older. But [my teammates] helped actually bring me out of my exclusively basketball shell and break into some of the other stuff which is really cool to see because not everyone is basketball 100% of the time”.
For Jones, his revelation was not as optimistic. In fact, it was taught through a book: What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker by Damon Young. “Being in spaces with white people [...] you have to pick and choose [when] you want to point things out.” he says “You want to choose your sanity over your peace.”
*2019 Marist College Demographics
Sources:
Student body demographics - marist. (n.d.). Retrieved April 5, 2022, from https://www.marist.edu/documents/20182/208226/FT+UG+-+Student+Body+Demographics.pdf/5540e633-62db-483d-8154-56bf8e5b1091
U.S. Census Bureau quickfacts: Baltimore City, Maryland. (2021). Retrieved April 5, 2022, from https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/baltimorecitymaryland
At a glance: CSU. Go to CSU. (2021, September 16). Retrieved April 4, 2022, from https://www.charlestonsouthern.edu/about/at-a-glance/
Fayetteville, New York population 2022. Fayetteville, New York Population 2022 (Demographics, Maps, Graphs). (n.d.). Retrieved April 4, 2022, from https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-cities/fayetteville-ny-population
Jordan Jones. Marist College Athletics. (n.d.). Retrieved April 4, 2022, from https://goredfoxes.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster/jordan-jones/13150
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