(From Tom Archdeacon at the Dayton Daily News Online)
His parents met during the Nigerian civil war, a conflict that claimed as many as 3 million lives, not just from the fighting, but the hunger and disease that came with it. During the years of turmoil that followed, his mom and dad fled to America.
“I was the first child born in the United States,” said Wright State assistant basketball coach Victor Ebong. “They called me Victor because to them, just getting to America — the land of opportunity — had been a victory.
“And I can recall them saying, ‘You can be whatever you want to be here,’ and while that pretty much was true, there was always, well … except president.”
And then came Barack Obama, the first black elected president of the United States. Ebong’s mother called him and said, finally, here was the living embodiment of all those things she believed in when they came to this country.
“This really is the American Dream come true,” Ebong said.
DeAndre Johnson, a Wilberforce University junior forward from Los Angeles, got a phone call, too. It was from his grandmother.
“She was crying,” Johnson said quietly as he sat courtside following the Bulldogs’ game with Rio Grande this past week. “She started talking about the Jim Crow days — how blacks couldn’t sit in the same areas as whites or use the same water fountains — and how now she was witnessing this. Listening to her was just heart-filling.
“She died last month, but at least before she passed she had seen a black man elected president and that … that was beautiful.”
Over the past 10 days, I have talked to two dozen black athletes and coaches at the University of Dayton, Central State, Wilberforce, Wright State and Miami University about Obama, his election and what it all means to them, their families and friends and this nation.
“It’s a really exciting time, and whether you support Barack Obama or not, you know this is a major event,” said Casey Nance, a freshman center for the UD women’s basketball team. “This is history being made.”
For most of the athletes — like Central State players Rondah Harris and Chynele Stewart — this was their first time voting and they unexpectedly found the process bonded them with their families.
“My brother sent me a video he had taken of my dad the moment he found out Obama had won,” said UD center Devin Searcy, his smile growing. “Dad had both his hands up like he was Muhammad Ali. That picture — just the joy coming from him — is something I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”
Memories like that are not lost on Wright State senior guard Will Graham:
“Like stories from the civil rights days, this story and the little parts each of us had in it — this story of Obama becoming president — is one that’s going to be passed down from generation to generation.”
“I can remember when I played in college in the ’60s, Mississippi State qualified for the NCAA tournament and couldn’t go because the governor or state law, whatever, wouldn’t let them play against blacks,” said Miami men’s basketball coach Charlie Coles. “That’s just in my lifetime. And while we still have some hang-ups in this country, to see this come around like this is amazing.”
Although she’s from London and couldn’t vote, Central State senior guard Ijeoma “Ejay” Ofomata campaigned for Obama and is writing her senior thesis about him:
“I liked his message that you can do whatever you want to if you put your mind to it, work hard and refuse to live up to stereotypes. That’s a message everybody needs to hear.”
And no place heard it louder than Wilberforce.
“Our school is the oldest private (historically black college) and there’s a lot of history here,” Johnson said. “Martin Luther King spoke here, W.E.B. DuBois went here, the Underground Railroad passed through here. We take pride in all that.
“Still, though, everybody here comes from different demographics, different areas and not everybody’s into voting. They don’t have a lot of trust in the system. But everybody — from the quote-unquote ‘thugs’ to the scholars — voted. They said we had 100 percent turnout. It was a great feeling.”
Angelica Rucker, a freshman guard for the Wilberforce women’s team, graduated from her Shawnee, Kan., high school with a 4.3 grade-point average and came to college on an academic presidential scholarship. She said she had experienced first-hand that “great” feeling of which Johnson spoke:
“I remember walking over to Central State with my friend Emma to vote. And as we came out, the bells were ringing and it was just an incredible experience. I felt I’d just done something I’ll remember forever.”
“My 11th-grade English teacher gave me a book to read as a birthday present,” Devin Searcy said. “It was ‘The Audacity of Hope’ by Barack Obama. She knew I’d be interested. She thinks I could be the next black leader, and that’s something that seems real now.”
A lot of the black athletes and coaches were especially proud that Obama had struck a heartfelt chord with whites, Hispanics and so many others.
“It was inspiring because people didn’t look at him as just a black man or a mixed guy, but as a guy capable of doing the job,” said WSU women’s coach Bridgett Williams.
Charne Dixon, a junior guard from Boston on Williams’ team, heard Obama speak at the Nutter Center: “He knows how to grasp your attention and pretty soon you’re just in awe.
“Even if you don’t understand everything he’s saying, he makes you want to understand. And after that I was on his Web site at least once a week, just to see, hmmm, what’s he saying about this or that. And what I really liked is no matter how anybody else bashed him, he just stayed humble, stayed positive.”
“He killed them with kindness,” chimed in teammate Paige Lowe.
Ebong is just as impressed with Obama’s even-keel demeanor:
“I don’t even know if it’s a word — probably not — but there is a very commonsensical approach to him. And because of that, he gets through to people.
“Right now, especially, our country needs someone who can inspire them. When he speaks, I get goose bumps. There’s a sense of trust.
“Actually, his approach parallels what we as coaches try to do. More than just X’s and O’s, it’s getting players to believe they can do more than they ever imagined.”
Doug Lewis, Central State’s men’s hoops coach, thinks Obama especially can reach young black males who feel disenfranchised:
“I grew up in the inner city and oftentimes there’s not a lot of hope there. For Obama to beat the odds — for an African-American to become president — gives hope that anything is possible.
“And just as important, it shows that attitudes are changing in America and we are becoming one.”
That change extends to the image presented by Obama’s family, said Deandra Canon-Dixon, a CSU senior guard from Chicago:
“There are always perceptions we don’t have traditional families — that our kids are always born out of wedlock. Seeing Obama and his family together shows that’s just not true.”
“I have seven siblings, was in foster care and out on my own, so the odds were against me, too,” said Johnson, who was the valedictorian of his Joel John Scholastic Academy graduating class in Los Angeles. “Obama is an inspiration for us. I’m a poli-sci major now and want to be a lawyer just like him. He’s given me something to shoot for.”
Election night was something special at Central State, said Shayla Henderson, a senior guard from Phoenix:
“We had a big screen in our back gym and everybody was there, and when they announced Obama had won, all you heard was screaming and yelling and people were running around hugging and crying.”
“It was pandemonium,” said Brandon Price, a junior forward from Chicago on the CSU men’s team. “Somebody fainted and had to be rushed to the hospital. They were just overcome by the moment.”
When Obama’s victory was announced, the 6-foot-10 Searcy said he was so overjoyed, he jumped up on the bed in his apartment and yelled out, “He got it! … He got it!”
In Oxford, Miami track athlete Cedric Diakabana — who had spent more than a year registering voters in Ohio and back home in Rhode Island — had similar thoughts:
“There was a party and even MTV came by, but once I saw Obama won Ohio, I started feeling a little weird with everyone there. I wanted some time to myself and I decided to walk home.
“It took about 20 minutes and as I walked in, my phone rang and it was my girlfriend. She said, ‘Turn on the TV.’ And as I did, they were saying, ‘Barack Obama is the next president’ and I remember just dropping down on my knees and saying ‘Yes!’ … It was the most exciting moment of my life.”
“Now I know I’m not related to Barack or nothing,” WSU guard Kanisha Ward said, sounding a lot like Chris Rock, “but I felt myself tearing up like ‘Ooooh that’s my daddy up there or my uncle or soooomebody.’ We all felt like we were part of him.”
Like Obama, UD senior forward Marie Rosche is of mixed race with one parent from Africa, the other from the U.S.
“From my perspective, I can relate to him,” Rosche said. “I can say, ‘Someone in a real position of power finally looks like me. Maybe he experienced some of the same things in life I did.’ It gives me a real sense of hope.”
Bridgett Williams thought of the significance of Obama’s presidency on the generation of blacks who preceded her: “For those who experienced inequalities because of their race — even though they were capable mentally of performing the jobs — this is an affirmation that all their hard work raising their kids the right way and pushing them to get an education was not in vain.”
That message now becomes louder for his generation, said UD junior guard Mickey Perry.
“This is a great opportunity for us as long as we don’t sit back and think things are going to be handed to us, he said. “Same as for Obama, you have to work hard, follow the right path and good things can come. We have proof now.”
The UD team is so moved, said senior forward Charles Little, that some players are trying to lobby coach Brian Gregory to let them wear their new black uniforms at the George Washington game, Thursday, Jan. 22, two days after the inauguration:
“They’re black with baby blue and red trim, but I don’t know if we have the black shoes in yet to go with them. We’ve been waiting to pull them out and this would be great. It’d be sort of a way to give tribute to Obama.”
When it comes to giving folks their props, DeAndre Johnson thinks America as a whole should get a nod.
“You never think America is gonna come through, but this is the personification of what can happen in this country. This is what America stands for,” Johnson said.
No one got that message any more wondrously than Diakabana:
“I’ve got cousins who live in Belgium and in Africa and I’ve got friends all over Europe and I started hearing from all of them when Obama won.
“My cousin was like, ‘Wow, I want to be an American.’ They all felt that way. They saw what we can do and that day they all wanted to be American.”
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