USC Athletics Kicks Off School Year With Event on Race and Equality
August 18, 2020 | Trojan Outreach, USC Ripsit Blog, Features
Every year, USC Athletics kicks off the school year with a Welcome Back BBQ for student-athletes. Trojans mingle with one another outside of the John McKay Center while playing games like corn hole, jenga and spike ball. There's usually a DJ playing music and a catered dinner.
But this is a year unlike any other. The coronavirus pandemic forced USC to move the event to a Zoom format, and the recent social justice movement in response to racism and inequality in the U.S. led USC leadership to take the event in a different direction.
This summer, a group of USC student-athletes came together to form the United Black Student-Athlete Association. The group asked the USC Athletic Department to directly address racism, acknowledge that Black Lives Matter, implement implicit bias training and more.
USC Athletic Director Mike Bohn used this year's Welcome Back event as a way to make progress on a number of those issues.
"While the purpose of this event is to be a welcome back address to student-athletes, we could not think of anything more meaningful and timely right now than taking this opportunity to learn and grow together," Bohn said. "This is the first step in what we intend will be a meaningful journey for us to make ourselves the best program we can be. I want to thank our student-athletes for challenging us to grow and be more intentional in our actions."
At the beginning of the event, which had 667 attendees, USC baseball player John Thomas unveiled the design for this year's student-athlete backpack. Thomas designed the backpack imagery along with Anna Cockrell (track & field) and Candice Denny (women's volleyball). The trio presented the design to USC's Trojan Athletic Senate — the group that normally designs the backpack — and once they convinced TAS to adopt the design, they took it to the USC Athletics administration for final approval.
The backpack affirms USC Athletics' support for the Black Lives Matter movement as well as the LGBTQ+ community.
"It meant the world to me to have a hand in a design that has already created so much conversation, and what we hope to be change in the positive direction," said Thomas. "Given the current state of our country, as leaders in USC Athletics, Anna, Candice and I felt it necessary that we use this design as an opportunity to unapologetically state the direction we want USC Athletics to go in. Of course, none of this would be possible without an athletic administration that is willing to listen to its student-athletes. The support we received from Mike Bohn and others was critical in making this very special piece happen."
After the unveiling, Bohn gave the floor to Dr. Shaun Harper, a USC provost professor of management and organization who is also the executive director of the USC Race and Equity Center.
Harper's message was dedicated to educating student-athletes and staff on how they could show support for their black teammates and colleagues beyond simply toting a backpack emblazoned with the phrase, 'Black Lives Matter.'
Harper reaffirmed Bohn's vision to help USC become the most anti-racist athletic department in the country, and he outlined three key ways to make it happen.
First, he explained that "if we're going to make Black Lives Matter beyond the backpacks, we have to teach every member of the Trojan Family, every student-athlete, not only the importance of fighting racism and racial injustice and racial inequity and racial unfairness everywhere they see it, we have to teach them how to Fight On."
Additionally, Harper expressed that "we have to commit ourselves as a department to amassing racial literacy." He continued, "We have to commit ourselves to a journey of learning things that we never learned anywhere else, like how to talk about race, how to solve complex racial problems."
Harper likened the work that goes into learning anti-racism to the work USC student-athletes put into the weight room. "This requires work. It requires conditioning," he explained. "We've got to get in the weight room and actually work the muscles and learn things."
Third, he noted that USC Athletics must look inward to "take bold, courageous actions to address racism, racial tensions and racial inequities."
Brett Neilon, the starting center for the football team, was stirred by Dr. Harper's charge to take action. "We need to do more for the black community than just saying things," Neilon explained. "Voting is definitely No. 1 on my list."
Cockrell, who's co-president of the UBSAA, noted that the organization would be hosting voter registration events to support Trojans like Neilon ahead of November's presidential election. The women's basketball team recently announced that all 13 members of the team have registered to vote, and they're challenging the rest of USC's teams to hit the same mark.
Bohn is continually listening to and working with student-athletes like Cockrell to improve the black experience at USC. In June, he announced the formation of the USC Athletics Black Lives Matter Action team, which comprises seven student-athletes, eight coaches and 10 staff members. Earlier this month, Bohn announced that former LA Sparks head coach Dr. Julie Rousseau, who's now an adjunct professor in the Gender and Sexuality Studies department at USC, would chair the team.
Rousseau saw Sunday's event as a great way to kick off the school year — a year sure to be full of self-reflection and hard work.
"I want to thank Dr. Shaun Harper for helping us begin the conversations and implement language that will help establish an environment of diversity, equity and inclusion in the spaces we occupy throughout the university and within the athletic department here at USC," she said. "I think we all have a new meaning of what 'Fight On' really means."
But this is a year unlike any other. The coronavirus pandemic forced USC to move the event to a Zoom format, and the recent social justice movement in response to racism and inequality in the U.S. led USC leadership to take the event in a different direction.
This summer, a group of USC student-athletes came together to form the United Black Student-Athlete Association. The group asked the USC Athletic Department to directly address racism, acknowledge that Black Lives Matter, implement implicit bias training and more.
USC Athletic Director Mike Bohn used this year's Welcome Back event as a way to make progress on a number of those issues.
"While the purpose of this event is to be a welcome back address to student-athletes, we could not think of anything more meaningful and timely right now than taking this opportunity to learn and grow together," Bohn said. "This is the first step in what we intend will be a meaningful journey for us to make ourselves the best program we can be. I want to thank our student-athletes for challenging us to grow and be more intentional in our actions."
At the beginning of the event, which had 667 attendees, USC baseball player John Thomas unveiled the design for this year's student-athlete backpack. Thomas designed the backpack imagery along with Anna Cockrell (track & field) and Candice Denny (women's volleyball). The trio presented the design to USC's Trojan Athletic Senate — the group that normally designs the backpack — and once they convinced TAS to adopt the design, they took it to the USC Athletics administration for final approval.
The backpack affirms USC Athletics' support for the Black Lives Matter movement as well as the LGBTQ+ community.
So so proud of this project and of USC Athletics for not only listening to Black student athletes, but also following through with tangible actions!! https://t.co/RGY9oD6WJG
— Anna Cockrell (@AnnaCockrell48) August 17, 2020
"It meant the world to me to have a hand in a design that has already created so much conversation, and what we hope to be change in the positive direction," said Thomas. "Given the current state of our country, as leaders in USC Athletics, Anna, Candice and I felt it necessary that we use this design as an opportunity to unapologetically state the direction we want USC Athletics to go in. Of course, none of this would be possible without an athletic administration that is willing to listen to its student-athletes. The support we received from Mike Bohn and others was critical in making this very special piece happen."
After the unveiling, Bohn gave the floor to Dr. Shaun Harper, a USC provost professor of management and organization who is also the executive director of the USC Race and Equity Center.
Harper's message was dedicated to educating student-athletes and staff on how they could show support for their black teammates and colleagues beyond simply toting a backpack emblazoned with the phrase, 'Black Lives Matter.'
Harper reaffirmed Bohn's vision to help USC become the most anti-racist athletic department in the country, and he outlined three key ways to make it happen.
First, he explained that "if we're going to make Black Lives Matter beyond the backpacks, we have to teach every member of the Trojan Family, every student-athlete, not only the importance of fighting racism and racial injustice and racial inequity and racial unfairness everywhere they see it, we have to teach them how to Fight On."
Additionally, Harper expressed that "we have to commit ourselves as a department to amassing racial literacy." He continued, "We have to commit ourselves to a journey of learning things that we never learned anywhere else, like how to talk about race, how to solve complex racial problems."
Harper likened the work that goes into learning anti-racism to the work USC student-athletes put into the weight room. "This requires work. It requires conditioning," he explained. "We've got to get in the weight room and actually work the muscles and learn things."
Third, he noted that USC Athletics must look inward to "take bold, courageous actions to address racism, racial tensions and racial inequities."
Brett Neilon, the starting center for the football team, was stirred by Dr. Harper's charge to take action. "We need to do more for the black community than just saying things," Neilon explained. "Voting is definitely No. 1 on my list."
Cockrell, who's co-president of the UBSAA, noted that the organization would be hosting voter registration events to support Trojans like Neilon ahead of November's presidential election. The women's basketball team recently announced that all 13 members of the team have registered to vote, and they're challenging the rest of USC's teams to hit the same mark.
Bohn is continually listening to and working with student-athletes like Cockrell to improve the black experience at USC. In June, he announced the formation of the USC Athletics Black Lives Matter Action team, which comprises seven student-athletes, eight coaches and 10 staff members. Earlier this month, Bohn announced that former LA Sparks head coach Dr. Julie Rousseau, who's now an adjunct professor in the Gender and Sexuality Studies department at USC, would chair the team.
Rousseau saw Sunday's event as a great way to kick off the school year — a year sure to be full of self-reflection and hard work.
"I want to thank Dr. Shaun Harper for helping us begin the conversations and implement language that will help establish an environment of diversity, equity and inclusion in the spaces we occupy throughout the university and within the athletic department here at USC," she said. "I think we all have a new meaning of what 'Fight On' really means."
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