Fayetteville State U. Players Reflects On Life, Basketball, And Obama
Posted by: Baller-in-Chief in Articles(From Todd M. Adams for the Fayetteville Observer Online)
Life and basketball
Normally, during the national anthem, Eddie Brown doesn’t think about the words.
The 6-foot-9 Fayetteville State forward stands and faces the flag, sure. But more, the soft spoken, respectful 23-year-old gets up because it’s part of the pre-game ritual:
Shoot around, lay-ups, stretching, coach Sam Hanger’s final instructions and a prayer.
Tipoff’s in 30 seconds — but first, The Star-Spangled Banner.
But this day, Feb. 14, is different. As he stands, the anthem reminds Brown that this conference showdown with Livingstone had been scheduled for Jan. 20 — inauguration Tuesday. Officials at the historically black colleges felt it disrespectful to play just after Barack Obama, the country’s first African-American president, was sworn in.
So, even though schedules had been printed, they did something unusual: They postponed the game.
Brown is remembering that as the anthem begins. And he does something unusual, too: He thinks about the words.
“It made me feel patriotic,” Brown says the day after his team’s 59-57 loss. ‘The land of the free and the home of the brave.’
“That makes a lot more sense now.”
Over the course of this basketball season, huge political changes have taken place in the U.S. In October, when practice began, Republican George W. Bush was still president. As the Livingstone game tips off Saturday — nearly four months later — President Obama has been in office for about three weeks and is on the verge of signing his first major bill, the economic stimulus package.
The FSU players, like many young blacks on campus and around the country, have been united by Obama and his message of change.
But their level of optimism is not uniform.
For some, like sophomore point guard Jarrick Jones, it’s limited. Jones expects Obama to make the United States a better place. But he doesn’t believe it will affect his own life.
For others, like junior forward Jason Thompson, that optimism is more powerful. He agrees Obama will change the world, but Thompson also envisions a direct, positive impact for himself.
And for others, like Brown, who felt patriotic Saturday listening to the national anthem, the enthusiasm comes in great waves. But when it subsides, there is doubt. He wonders how much difference one man can make.
The Fayetteville State Broncos, all 14 of whom are black, make up just a small part of the university’s 3,807-person student body. And FSU’s students comprise a tiny percentage of the country’s 5-million-plus African-Americans between the ages of 15-25.
But, if we can understand how the FSU players feel today — three weeks after Obama’s inauguration — perhaps we can understand the political climate the new president is entering. Maybe we can see what young, black Americans expect of Obama, and what he must do to gain their help in fostering progress in the black community, as he has promised.
“If President Obama is going to accomplish his goals for African-Americans, he’s going to need to mobilize that age group,” says Chad Miller, a political research analyst from St. Louis with a sociology degree from Southern Illinois University. “You’ve got a pretty good cross-section of young, black men (with the FSU team) — a few different perspectives. The president will need to get all those groups involved if he’s to make a real difference.”
Jarrick Jones and the Broncos were so inspired on Election Day that they had trouble concentrating.
Nov. 4 was just seven days before the team’s first exhibition game, and practice was sloppy as news of Obama’s widening electoral college lead filtered into Capel Arena.
When Hanger — FSU’s work-until-you-get-it-right coach — whistled a stop to scrimmage, Jones was expecting a reprimand. Instead, he was shocked by Hanger’s words.
“It’s over,” the coach said with a grin. “Obama won.”
It took a second to sink in. Then, Jones sprinted across the floor in celebration, enjoying a rare moment of pandemonium with teammates.
As the only player under 6 feet tall, Jones blends in on campus better than the other Broncos. Naturally friendly and playful, he’s just one of the guys — a modern-day Ferris Bueller.
In fact, he’s the ideal athlete to ask why the basketball players, all of whom voted for Obama, are so happy with the election result.
“Because things are bad right now, man,” Jones, a native of Ridgeway, S.C., says. “And with Obama, that will change.”
That optimism seems sincere. Three weeks into Obama’s presidency, Jones and most of his teammates think the former Illinois senator will be a great fixer. Some say they believe he’ll repair the economy by the time they graduate. Others say he’ll get the United States out of war in Iraq. And there’s a general feeling he’ll end centuries-old racial tensions.
They also believe Obama will find solutions to specific black issues. Different players mention the education gap, the high percentage of single black mothers, or the unbalanced number of black men in prisons as problems they think the new president will tackle.
“All that and more,” Jones says. “There’s no doubt he’ll make a difference. Because, as a black man, he understands those things.”
But for a majority of the Broncos, all that optimism comes with a strange caveat: While they imagine a better future for the black community, the country, and even the world, they don’t necessarily believe Obama can make a big difference in their lives.
Jones, for example, envisions himself a great success in 10 and 20 years. The computer science major believes he’ll be an innovator in that field. A leader and a moneymaker, too.
But he had those dreams well before Obama was a presidential candidate.
“No, I’m going to end up where I’m going to end up,” Jones says. “I have to make my own way. Who the president is isn’t going to change that.”
Jason Thompson singles out the end of his team’s Nov. 25 home game against Virginia Union as his favorite memory of the season.
Trailing, 70-68, the 6-6 forward received a pass with 10 seconds left, drove the lane, and banked in a 5-footer to send the game into overtime.
“I remember thinking that I just wasn’t going to be denied,” Thompson, a junior from Sanford, says of the Broncos’ 75-74 win that put them at 4-1.
His second favorite memory is the impromptu Election Day celebration.
“I guess you could say I felt like I just wasn’t going to be denied on that day, either,” he says.
Like Jones and his other teammates, the energetic and amiable Thompson has faith in the country’s new president. But, unlike most of the others, Thompson equates Obama’s promises to himself.
In October, while watching Obama speak of a higher standard of living for minorities, Thompson imagined landing a well-paying job. Two months later, while listening to the new president call for leadership in the African-American community, Thompson envisioned himself filling that role.
“I think this election opens up a lot of opportunities,” he says. “Obama will make a lot of those himself. But other people will see what he’s done, and that will help, too.
“I definitely plan on taking advantage of that.”
Indirectly, Thompson believes Obama’s election has already made a big difference in his life. His clear vision of the future motivates him to listen in class when his mind starts to wander to basketball. And to buckle down and study when he’d rather be playing video games.
“A lot of little things like that,” says Thompson, who received one of his best college report cards this past semester and expects greater improvement this spring. “Just, more than anything, using him as an example. With everything he was able to accomplish, it makes you know that you can do that, too.
“But you know he worked hard to get there. So, if you want to get what you want, you’ve got to work hard, too.”
It was a wild minute.
Coming off the bench early in FSU’s Jan. 17 game against Elizabeth City State, Eddie Brown made an instant impact. First, after missing a 15-footer, he chased after the long rebound, which was heading out of bounds, diving to try to save it. The next trip down the floor, he sank a 17-footer, his first basket of the game.
A few seconds later, while pressuring a ball handler, the referee whistled Brown for a questionable foul.
He didn’t react, instead just walking away.
“That’s Eddie for you,” said his mother, Angela Thompson, who was in Fayetteville for the week on vacation along with Eddie’s aunt and grandmother. “With us here watching, he’s filled with emotion. But he doesn’t show it. You’d never know how emotional he is just by looking at him.”
Or by talking to him. Speaking in a slow, hushed monotone, Brown comes off as one cool customer. But he admits that, despite outward appearances, his emotions are often racing on extremes.
So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that, when it comes to Obama, Brown expresses strong, mixed feelings.
“I think a lot of the time I have been just as excited as everyone else,” Brown says. “I mean, I was really very happy when I heard he won. I was pulling for him hard.
“It’s just that, at other times — like when I’m by myself — I’ll stop and think about it. And I wonder how much he can really do.”
Brown has reason for his skepticism. He has experienced racism first hand.
Like last year at a local Wal-Mart, when someone bombarded him with racial slurs.
And the time at Pasco-Hernando Community College in his home state of Florida, when he noticed Ku Klux Klan literature stapled on one of the bulletin boards.
“I had an English teacher warn me to be careful after that,” he says. “She said, ‘You never know who’s involved in that stuff. It might be someone sitting right next to you and you’d never know it.’
”
Even on Election Day, he experienced emotional extremes.
Brown had been the tallest of a huge group of FSU students who walked together to the polls that afternoon, with the school band playing behind them. It had been surreal, like a mix between a civil rights march and a Rose Bowl parade.
He experienced elation when Hanger announced that Obama had won, too. And even more a little later, when his mother began crying with joy on the phone.
But, even before that conversation ended, much of Brown’s optimism was gone.
“Before we hung up, she told me that my sister, who goes to Lane College in Tennessee, wasn’t able to vote,” he said. “There had been some threats of violence. She was told that some people said if they saw any black people out trying to vote, they were going to get hurt. So she stayed in her dorm.”
Officials at Lane College said they didn’t know of any threats made specifically against their students, but a reporter from the local newspaper, the Jackson Sun, confirmed that there were threats made against blacks on Election Day.
Brown’s life experience has fostered a different sense of hope than that of his teammates. While the other Broncos are almost blindly optimistic, Brown takes a more cautious approach.
He’d like to think Obama will end racism, but he doesn’t think people filled with hatred are going to change just because the president is a minority.
He hopes the president will bring improvements to the black community — that he will demand better education in inner-city schools, help decrease the number of young black men in jail, all those things his teammates are convinced will change. He just has trouble believing it’s possible.
“I know those are all things that he has brought up at one point or another,” Brown said. “I just don’t see how he can change all that — all that stuff that’s pretty deep-rooted.
“I want him to. I hope he does. If he does, I’ll be his biggest supporter.”
Fayetteville State’s rescheduled game against Livingstone on Saturday doesn’t end the way the Broncos had hoped.
Up and down all night, FSU took a 57-56 lead with five seconds left on two Andy Gebru free throws. But the Broncos can’t hold on as Livingstone’s Sean Booker converts a conventional three-point play with one second left.
After starting the season 7-1, the Broncos’ loss — their third straight and eighth in 10 games — leaves Fayetteville State at 12-12. With the CIAA Tournament starting in eight days, the Broncos’ campaign will soon be over.
For Brown, that means it’s almost time to enter the real world. It will not be long before Thompson and Jones follow.
For Obama, those transitions will be worth watching. Because as he attempts to make good on his promises to blacks, he’s going to need the help of the optimistic Joneses, the wildly motivated Thompsons, and even the skeptical Browns.
“It’s not going to be easy — not as easy as everyone seems to think,” says Miller, the sociologist. “Young black men are with Obama right now. But they are young, and he’ll have to work very hard to keep them excited and motivate them to help.
“And he’s going to need their help. He can accomplish a lot — probably most everything he’s promised — but (he’ll need) the help of all the groups of people you’ve described to deliver on those campaign promises to the black community.”
Not even a month into Obama’s first term, it’s way too early to guess how it will turn out. But if nothing else, at the end of an up-and-down season, it seems the FSU players understand what Obama’s up against.
“You win some and you lose some,” Thompson says Sunday, a day after the Livingstone loss. “It doesn’t always go the way you want it to. But you try — you try real hard — to always walk off a winner.”
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