I was just 22 years old. I had moved to south Florida from the Midwest right after college and had taken my first job as a high school basketball coach. Things were going well with my team. We had a great record and loads of talent. Many of my players were from extremely poor households, sometimes one parent, sometimes none at all. But I felt like I was making a difference, guiding these young men in those tumultuous teen years. My team was made up of twelve players—eleven black, one white. As occurs on most basketball teams, I usually rotated eight players in and out, and they consumed most of the playing time. The ninth and tenth guys got in occasionally. The last two only when we were up big in the closing moments of a game. The players knew their roles, and we had developed into a top-quality team. But one player wasn’t happy.
We were about two-thirds of the way through the season when a strange thing happened one evening. It was game night and I was pacing the sideline, my favorite place in the word to be—my safe space, if you will. One of my last guys on the bench (one of my eleven black players), who had been grumbling for a while about his lack of playing time—completely unaware of his own ineptitude on a basketball court—did something that hadn’t happened to me up to that point and never happened to me again in all my years as a coach. We were up by a bunch in the final moments, and I walked toward his seat near the baseline and asked if he was ready to go in. He looked at me defiantly and shook his head. I asked him, “You don’t want to play?” Again a head shake. I said okay and went back to focusing on my players still on the court.
This player’s mother had always been fairly vocal, sitting just a few rows behind the bench, occasionally shouting that I should put her son in the game (also ignoring his obvious lack of skill as the reason he didn’t get much playing time). But this particular evening, she shouted something different, something I’ll never forget. With just a minute or two left in the game, her voice echoing across the half-empty gym, she yelled, at me, “We need to send that white boy back where he came from.”
I turned around and looked at her, wondering, “Did I just hear that correctly?” Her friends nearby laughed along with her as they cackled their disdain for my coaching their boys. I turned my attention back toward the court, back to my players who were giving their best efforts that night, and let the comment drift away. I still had a job to do, and we finished out the game.
Driving home that night, I had the same thought that I still ponder to this day: I wonder what would happen if a white woman were sitting in the stands, watching her white son be coached by a respectable black man and yelled, “We need to send that n—r back where he came from.” Would people laugh? Would everyone just go back to watching the game? I assume she would have been escorted out of the building and, if she lived to reach the parking lot, told never to return to campus again. Yet that’s not what happened that night. She yelled something ignorant and awful. I did my job. We won by 30. No one cared.
I was just 22—in some ways still a kid myself—only six years older than most of my players. I was already establishing myself as a respected leader. I had earned it through my experience as a ballplayer in college and my willingness to do workouts with them, run drills with them, open the gym for them on the weekends. The boys knew I was tough on them, but that I cared about them. I tutored them with their schoolwork late into the night. I gave them rides home, even though our school’s insurance policy said I wasn’t supposed to. I bought them a bite to eat after road games when I knew they didn’t have any money. Oh, and I led those players to being one of the best teams in the state that year. And somehow I was the white boy that needed to be removed.
This story is not intended to make myself out to be a victim. Victimization through the use of words, I believe, only occurs when you allow yourself to feel victimized. You always have the choice in how you respond to people’s language, hurtful or otherwise. After the woman yelled, I didn’t run into the bleachers and grab her—no violence. I didn’t tell her to leave the gym—no banning. I didn’t even tell her to shut-up—no silencing. I went back to doing my job. I never took my frustration out on her son—I continued to sit him in the weeks afterward for his own bad attitude, not for his mother’s stupidity. I mention this story because of the turmoil on many college campuses these days regarding power and privilege, campuses where speech is censored and even the possibility of offending someone hovers like an ominous cloud ready to pour down condemnation, guilt, and job dismissals.
I wouldn’t want that woman’s speech censored that night at the basketball game. As long as she was not inciting imminent violence toward me, I didn’t care. I fully believe people have the right to be jerks. And I have the right to ignore them. She showed herself to be a buffoon that night, and I can only hope that my refusal to be affected by her demonstrated to those who heard her comment that I was mature enough not to allow it to deter me from my job that night, or my job every day after. I only remember the incident now 14 years later, not because of its indecency, but because of its irrationality. I had given the kid a chance to be on a team, despite his incredible lack of talent, likely the best and only basketball team he would ever be on. And instead of having a good attitude, giving his best effort every day in practice, trying to learn as much as he could from those wiser than he, taking advantage of opportunities to show his potential when sent into games, and celebrating in the successes of his brothers, he sulked and his mom insulted. Without any consequences. To speak one’s mind, no matter how mired in ignorance, and have others choose to peacefully disregard such idiocy is the height of freedom. That is privilege. But some are just too foolish to see how fortunate they are.
So for those college students out there feeling “oppressed” or “othered” or “marginalized” or whatever buzzword your humanities professor has trained you to use, be vigilantly cognizant that your mere presence on a college campus, equipped with valuable resources and endless opportunities, with the freedom to dress as you choose, socialize as you choose, and speak as you choose places you in the top 0.1% of privileged people on the planet. Don’t forget that fact when you are receiving your Pell Grant, tweeting hashtags on your $500 iPhone, and demanding administrators be fired. You may clamor for all the speech codes and safe spaces your precious heart desires, but ultimately your rebellion is just as authoritarian as that which you claim to be fighting against. Your form of silencing and hostage-taking is a worse form of persecution than you are charging in others because yours is one that is proactive, forceful, and purposefully intimidating—granting yourself simultaneous positioning as prosecutor, judge, and jury. When you instigate fear in your perceived opponents, prohibiting them from fulfilling work duties, engaging in discourse, and making personal choices, you can no longer consider yourself the disenfranchised. You have become the discriminator. Instead, seek wisdom. Wise people may desire respect, but they also know they cannot demand it. Be thankful for your freedom to voice your opinions. But also have the humility and maturity to know when to have perspective and show restraint. My player’s mother valued speech too; I wish she would have valued sagacity instead.
One final note about that team and one of the best years of my life working with those boys. The other player that sat at the end of the bench? He never complained once. And though he was also woefully unskilled and hardly ever got into games, he was a valuable part of our team that went 19-5 that year.
His name was David. He was my lone white player.
We were about two-thirds of the way through the season when a strange thing happened one evening. It was game night and I was pacing the sideline, my favorite place in the word to be—my safe space, if you will. One of my last guys on the bench (one of my eleven black players), who had been grumbling for a while about his lack of playing time—completely unaware of his own ineptitude on a basketball court—did something that hadn’t happened to me up to that point and never happened to me again in all my years as a coach. We were up by a bunch in the final moments, and I walked toward his seat near the baseline and asked if he was ready to go in. He looked at me defiantly and shook his head. I asked him, “You don’t want to play?” Again a head shake. I said okay and went back to focusing on my players still on the court.
This player’s mother had always been fairly vocal, sitting just a few rows behind the bench, occasionally shouting that I should put her son in the game (also ignoring his obvious lack of skill as the reason he didn’t get much playing time). But this particular evening, she shouted something different, something I’ll never forget. With just a minute or two left in the game, her voice echoing across the half-empty gym, she yelled, at me, “We need to send that white boy back where he came from.”
I turned around and looked at her, wondering, “Did I just hear that correctly?” Her friends nearby laughed along with her as they cackled their disdain for my coaching their boys. I turned my attention back toward the court, back to my players who were giving their best efforts that night, and let the comment drift away. I still had a job to do, and we finished out the game.
Driving home that night, I had the same thought that I still ponder to this day: I wonder what would happen if a white woman were sitting in the stands, watching her white son be coached by a respectable black man and yelled, “We need to send that n—r back where he came from.” Would people laugh? Would everyone just go back to watching the game? I assume she would have been escorted out of the building and, if she lived to reach the parking lot, told never to return to campus again. Yet that’s not what happened that night. She yelled something ignorant and awful. I did my job. We won by 30. No one cared.
I was just 22—in some ways still a kid myself—only six years older than most of my players. I was already establishing myself as a respected leader. I had earned it through my experience as a ballplayer in college and my willingness to do workouts with them, run drills with them, open the gym for them on the weekends. The boys knew I was tough on them, but that I cared about them. I tutored them with their schoolwork late into the night. I gave them rides home, even though our school’s insurance policy said I wasn’t supposed to. I bought them a bite to eat after road games when I knew they didn’t have any money. Oh, and I led those players to being one of the best teams in the state that year. And somehow I was the white boy that needed to be removed.
This story is not intended to make myself out to be a victim. Victimization through the use of words, I believe, only occurs when you allow yourself to feel victimized. You always have the choice in how you respond to people’s language, hurtful or otherwise. After the woman yelled, I didn’t run into the bleachers and grab her—no violence. I didn’t tell her to leave the gym—no banning. I didn’t even tell her to shut-up—no silencing. I went back to doing my job. I never took my frustration out on her son—I continued to sit him in the weeks afterward for his own bad attitude, not for his mother’s stupidity. I mention this story because of the turmoil on many college campuses these days regarding power and privilege, campuses where speech is censored and even the possibility of offending someone hovers like an ominous cloud ready to pour down condemnation, guilt, and job dismissals.
I wouldn’t want that woman’s speech censored that night at the basketball game. As long as she was not inciting imminent violence toward me, I didn’t care. I fully believe people have the right to be jerks. And I have the right to ignore them. She showed herself to be a buffoon that night, and I can only hope that my refusal to be affected by her demonstrated to those who heard her comment that I was mature enough not to allow it to deter me from my job that night, or my job every day after. I only remember the incident now 14 years later, not because of its indecency, but because of its irrationality. I had given the kid a chance to be on a team, despite his incredible lack of talent, likely the best and only basketball team he would ever be on. And instead of having a good attitude, giving his best effort every day in practice, trying to learn as much as he could from those wiser than he, taking advantage of opportunities to show his potential when sent into games, and celebrating in the successes of his brothers, he sulked and his mom insulted. Without any consequences. To speak one’s mind, no matter how mired in ignorance, and have others choose to peacefully disregard such idiocy is the height of freedom. That is privilege. But some are just too foolish to see how fortunate they are.
So for those college students out there feeling “oppressed” or “othered” or “marginalized” or whatever buzzword your humanities professor has trained you to use, be vigilantly cognizant that your mere presence on a college campus, equipped with valuable resources and endless opportunities, with the freedom to dress as you choose, socialize as you choose, and speak as you choose places you in the top 0.1% of privileged people on the planet. Don’t forget that fact when you are receiving your Pell Grant, tweeting hashtags on your $500 iPhone, and demanding administrators be fired. You may clamor for all the speech codes and safe spaces your precious heart desires, but ultimately your rebellion is just as authoritarian as that which you claim to be fighting against. Your form of silencing and hostage-taking is a worse form of persecution than you are charging in others because yours is one that is proactive, forceful, and purposefully intimidating—granting yourself simultaneous positioning as prosecutor, judge, and jury. When you instigate fear in your perceived opponents, prohibiting them from fulfilling work duties, engaging in discourse, and making personal choices, you can no longer consider yourself the disenfranchised. You have become the discriminator. Instead, seek wisdom. Wise people may desire respect, but they also know they cannot demand it. Be thankful for your freedom to voice your opinions. But also have the humility and maturity to know when to have perspective and show restraint. My player’s mother valued speech too; I wish she would have valued sagacity instead.
One final note about that team and one of the best years of my life working with those boys. The other player that sat at the end of the bench? He never complained once. And though he was also woefully unskilled and hardly ever got into games, he was a valuable part of our team that went 19-5 that year.
His name was David. He was my lone white player.