Dwyane Wade’s comment about HBCU basketball programs being “in the dirt” has created a lot of discussion in the last few days. First, Dwyane Wade should have a seat, he’s not canceled, but he can’t come back into this proverbial game. The word “dirt,” when equated to one’s overall being, suggests that you are either filthy, uncivilized, or both. HBCUs are not that.
I don’t think Wade has any malice in his heart for HBCUs but his tongue revealed his inner truth. He sees something fundamentally inferior with the black college athletic experience and he’s assigned that belief with a large wet blanket to every HBCU. That’s his implicit bias, it jumped right out of his mouth before he knew what happened.
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More than one kind of HBCU
I’m preaching to the choir here, but ignorance reveals itself when people lump all HBCUs together as one monolithic operation. HBCUs exist at the NAIA, Division II, and Division I levels. I have been to HBCU basketball games with facilities that range from a middle school gymnasium to ones with seating capacities of nearly 10,000 people. Yes, some HBCUs are at the ground level of college athletics in regard to resources, but there are many levels to this.
So would a top high school recruit derail his potential NBA career because of HBCU facilities? Let’s examine. Ja Morant and Zion Williamson did not follow in the footsteps of their parents and attend HBCUs. Morant’s father was a basketball player at Claflin and Williamson’s mother ran track and his father played football at Livingstone. Morant chose to play at Murray State in the Ohio Valley Conference and Williamson of course spent one season at Duke University.
Trading Places
Morant averaged 18.7 points and 8.2 assists per game in two seasons at Murray State before becoming the twelfth player in school history to become an ABA/NBA player. I can not see a scenario in which Morant’s career would have been dramatically different had he instead played at Tennessee State University. He played in a handful of games on ESPN2 and ESPNU during the regular season for his two years at MSU. The majority of his media coverage was actually on Froggy 103.7 FM.
His larger than life moment came during a first-round upset of no. 3 seed Marquette, Wade’s alma mater, in the NCAA tournament. With 17 points, 16 assists and 11 rebounds on TBS, a star was born. It’s a mid-major dream come true, HBCU or otherwise.
Zion Williamson was already a star before he ever set foot on the Duke University campus. Millions of people had already watched this man child dunk over scores of minions on YouTube and Instagram for the entirety of his high school career. Somehow the television production trucks managed to pull all of their cables and cameras into the 9,291 seat Cameron Indoor Stadium and capture his shoe busting high wire act. They even found a way to accommodate President Barack Obama at courtside.
What would have happened if Williamson decided he was going to be a trendsetter and play at Florida A&M instead? Every night an additional 348 people would have seen him play in person. The Al Lawson Center at FAMU seats 9,639 people, just a tick more than the Crazies in Durham. Don’t kid yourself, it would have been a sellout every night and ESPN would have leveraged their chips to get in on the action. And yes he would have still been the no. 1 pick in the NBA draft.
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Just win baby
It’s not just facilities, it’s about being a winner right? Okay. Do you remember Ben Simmons’ 2015-16 college career, because it was very forgettable? Simmons averaged 19 points and 11 rebounds during one season for a disappointing LSU team. The team had high expectations with a stacked roster, but a 71-38 loss to Texas A&M in the SEC quarterfinals displayed the team’s dysfunctions. Despite a 19-14 overall record, the team elected to turn down an invitation to the NIT Tournament. They were over one another, particularly Simmons. Yet, he was still the no. 1 overall pick in the NBA draft. Why? Because talent trumps losing and dysfunction.
His coach at the time was Johnny Jones, who is now the Texas Southern University coach. If a player of Simmons’ talent came along today he could play for Jones at Texas Southern and receive the same level of coaching that Simmons did. He would play in the 8,100 seat arena at Texas Southern and he actually might make the NCAA Tournament. Texas Southern has been known to do that. His team certainly wouldn’t have turned down an invitation to the NIT Tournament.
D.Wade was correct about a few things and we in the HBCU community want to see a few things happen our objective in sports especially basketball and football .Our objective in basketball is to put together a team at one of university that can make the final four , in football we want a team from one of university that can play and beat teams in the P5 conferences such as alabama,Ohio State,LSU or a Notre Dame. we in the HBCU community don’t want to be phase out at the table we want a seat at the table and some of the hundreds of millions of dollars that’s being generated by players of color for these P5 school and for this to happen for us we have to get some of these top HS recruits.D.Wade was correct Howard univ. was 4-29 last year and there basketball gym has a capacity of 2,700 and the future of HBCUs high profile recruiting hangs on the success or failure that this kid has at this university because parents and other high and low profile recruits are paying full attention to this move.This isn’t like the 60s and the 70s your only choice was an HBCU today you have the choice of any university in the U.S. which is much better for the university that’s competing and the athlete so if we in the HBCU community don’t get this right the first time there want be a second or third time.I don’t know how many wins one kid can add to a 4-29 record maybe 8 more so now we 12-21 and still out of the NCAA tournament so we in the HBCU community are back in the same position as before nothing changed.If we in HBCU community want these top recruits and want them to be successful and achieve the changes that they are trying to make we have to send them to our best school that can make this happen for them not somewhere to make a record better ,if we happen to get five 5star basketball recruits that want to play at an HBCU we can’t send them to different school they all need to be at the same university if they all go to different school then our chance at failure is very high but if they all go to the same school our chance of success and victory is very strong and at this moment in time that university for basketball is TEXAS SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY.If we in the HBCU community don’t want to be left out in the cold again on draft day we have to come together as one. The only conference that’s a danger to P5 conferences for recruits at this moment are the HBCUs because the only thing that can Trump money is Love.