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Just when you thought black people were done breaking athletic barriers, enter Howard University’s women’s lacrosse team.
During my sophomore and junior years of college, I woke up each day for a 6 a.m. lacrosse practice that had no coach. In a typical lacrosse game, there are 12 players from each team on the field. Our first game last season, there were only nine of us.
Once, in the heat of battle, one of my teammates got called the N-word.
These are the conditions you face when you are a member of the nation’s only African-American college lacrosse team.
Needless to say, playing lacrosse for Howard has been a challenge. But given what our team’s efforts to integrate the lily-white sport symbolize, it’s been mostly a privilege.
But, you say, “hold on. I'm lost. Since when does Howard University have a women's lacrosse team?”
That’s the question I get from surprised strangers whenever I wear my Howard lacrosse sweatshirt or T-shirt. I understand the image of 12 black girls on a field with sticks, throwing around a ball may be a little difficult to digest. That is why I am always happy to answer and share a little bit of our history.
In the mid-‘90s, two Howard women, Jennifer Brown and Monique Richards, had a vision of an all-black lacrosse team. In 1998, what began as a club sport became the first Division I women's lacrosse program at a historically black college or university. It is because of Richard and Brown's vision that I and other Howard women have this unique opportunity.
Despite notable black lacrosse players like Jim Brown, who some consider to be the greatest lacrosse player of all time, throughout the years the sport has been dominated by white athletes. There are few black players on the rosters of top lacrosse schools like Princeton University, Duke University and the University of Virginia, but at Howard, we are all we have.
I came to Howard, first and foremost, because it is the school that I thought would be best for me academically. But Howard has given me the opportunity to experience something that I would have never had the chance to experience had I gone to a majority white school.
This is my final season before I graduate, and we have a lot to build on and look forward to. Most of Howard's sports teams compete in the Middle Eastern Atlantic Conference (MEAC) with other HBCUs. But because no other MEAC schools have lacrosse teams, for 11 seasons we have competed independently without a conference. Last season, we proudly took our place at the National Lacrosse Conference and competed in its inaugural conference tournament.
Last year, the Intercollegiate Women's Lacrosse Coaches Association recognized the need for diversity when they launched there Identify, Recruit and Mentor Program. The program is designed to get more minorities involved in the game.
Our current coach, Jessica Morgan, is one of those minorities. When she took over, she became one of only three active black women's lacrosse coaches in Division I. (The other two are Bryant University coach Karen Healy and University of California at Davis coach Elaine Jones.) Just knowing this makes me appreciate her for the sacrifices that she makes for the team. Her passion for the game is evident, and she really believes that she was put on this earth to coach Howard lacrosse.
We may be in the rain, soaking wet and freezing, but Coach Morgan keeps pushing us until she gets what she wants. We are in a constant fight to prove to ourselves and to others why Howard University should even have a women's lacrosse team.
But as much as I take pride in the fact that we are the only black women's lacrosse team, I still think it’s unfortunate. It means that we are not just playing for ourselves and our team, but also the whole race. We will always have the bragging rights to be called the first, but I hope some time really soon that we will no longer be the only.
Eboni Farmer is a writer and intern for The Root.
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And while I applaud the women of Howard University creating their own team, and wish them the best of luck, describing the sport as being the "whitest sport in America" is innaccurate not just because skiing exists, but also because it is one of the country's most intensely regional sports. Jim Brown played Lacrosse because he was from Manhassett, Long Island, where Lacrosse ranks a close second after breathing for what people do with their time. My high school, which had about 50 male students, beat an all-male school from Staten Island, which had 2,000 male students in a game once, mainly because, even though they were bigger, stronger, and faster than us, we had a few people who had been playing Lacrosse since they could walk. The sport has a cache on Long Island and in Maryland and a few other places that it doesn't have anywhere else (e.g. I went to college in the midwest and brought my Lacrosse stick with me--many people asked me what it was.). We also played a public high school from Jamaica, Queens, every year, and that team was primarily of African-American makeup, but many of their players were football players keeping in shape with a spring sport--only 20 miles away, with a completely different attitude towards the sport.
The point that I guess I'm making here is that Lacrosse isn't a country club sport like tennis or golf, which has, through economic devices, long managed to maintain a certain degree of segregation, Tiger Woods, the Williams sisters, et al. notwithstanding, but rather a sport whose microscopic regional appeal leaves it as alien to the overwhelming majority of white, asian, latino, etc. people as it is to African-Americans.
Also, in a brief post-scriptum, I find the almost Kafkaesque rules of women's Lacrosse baffling. This has to be the most intensely regulated sport ever imagined. I'd prefer it if they let the women just put on the pads and helmets, deepened the pockets of their sticks, and just beat each other up like the men do--women need an aggression outlet too, why should we let old, patrimonial sensibilities prevent them from doing so?
I love lacross! Great story! I've always wanted to play.
What's the blackest sport in America? Basketball? What's the yellowest sport?
I'm glad to see a story on this topic, especially since I played on Howard's team from 1999-2003. There were a lot of challenges being on the only collegiate African American lacrosse team, but they include some of the best experiences in my life. I too am working on spreading the sport into more diverse areas. In fact I have been coaching an inner city high school lacrosse team for the past 6 years to girls who have never seen a stick before; a few have gone on to play on the collegiate level. I continue to support Howard's lacrosse program and a few alumnae players, including myself, are looking to contribute to the team's growth. I hope you finish the season strong!
I am African American who played at Syracuse University and on the US Men's National Team. I am currently doing a series of stories on playing lacrosse at Syracuse in the 1980s on my blog. I am also an historian and culinary writer so the blog is largely lacrosse, food, and history woven together. Great article and this one I most recently posted will give the readers some more historical context. By the way, while I attended Syracuse my brother attended Howard.
http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/2009/10/black-lacrosse-players...
Ladies of the Root,
Very good topic! I am a Black male raised in NW DC and went on to play in college at the highest level. I of course knew of the Howard womens team and am really happy to see they are getting credit. They draw close similarities to the all Black team Morgan State had in the 70s. There is a real trickle-down effect in this case as one of the members of that Morgan State team, Dr. Myles Harrison, taught the sport to his son, Kyle Harrison. Kyle is a 4x All-American from Johns Hopkins and the present icon and role model of the sport.
Lacrosse is the fastest growing sport in America and continues to expand its market share in to other territorial sports like football and baseball. Hopefully we will see more HBCU's field lacrosse teams.
Harry Alford III
Lacrosseplayground.com
I am a little confused that there was no mention of Native Americans in Lacrosse and the issues they have had and continue to deal with in the sport.
It's odd that a sport invented by the Iroquois should now be considered "the whitest sport in America." One very successful team from Canada, the New Westminster Salmonbellies was made up almost entirely of native North Americans.