e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e good evening and welcome to the JFK Junior Forum at The Institute of politics I my name is Landon Elks and I'm a first year studying economics and government at the college and I'm a member of the JFK Junior Forum committee before we begin please note the exit doors which are located both on the park side and JFK Street side in the the event of an emergency walk to the exit closest to you and congregate in the JFK Park we' like to thank our co-sponso
r the institutional anti-racism and accountability project for helping bring tonight's discussion together please take a moment now to silence your cell phones and join me and welcome Harvey Harvard College undergrad anelie Krishna [Applause] mty good evening and welcome welcome to the John F Kennedy Jr Forum at The Institute of politics my name is anelie chrishan mury I'm a first year studying government at the college and I'm a member of the JFK Junior Forum committee tonight we are excited to
host a discussion that will focus on racial Justice in sports and explore questions such as in what ways have players succeeded in challenging the national status quo by refusing industry Norms how much power do players really have in advocating for a position meaning means risking everything and what can be learned from Sports about refusing everyday practices in American culture tonight's amazing panelists include NECA ogum the 2016 WNBA MVP and WNBA Champion selected first overall to the Los
Angeles Sparks in 2012 WNBA draft and currently serves as president of the WNBA players Association NECA is also an 8 Time wa NBA star five time all WNBA selection five time all defensive WNBA selection and was the 2012 WNBA Rookie of the Year Amber Goodwin is the founder of community Justice and Community Justice action fund and assistant district attorney in Travis County Texas Amber has spent the last 23 years working for advocacy Grassroots and electoral campaigns Rob Parker is a sports jou
rnalist with a 38-year long career Who currently co-hosts a nightly National show with Chris brucer called The Odd Couple Fox Fox Sports Radio he's an analyst for the MLB Network founder and editor of MLB bro.com and also is an analyst for The Challenge on KMBC channel 4 in La Parker is an adject professor at USC and has been inducted to the National Association of black journalists Hall of Fame in 2023 this discussion will be moderated by Ken miles who is the inaugural executive director at the
newly established Penn Center for inclusive Innovation and Technology at the University University of Pennsylvania join us in welcoming our [Applause] guests excellent um thank you so much for having us thank you to Harvard um thank you to khil uh and Erica um I I've known khil since my time in Harlem uh through the shamberg library and uh a past life it feels but excited about this panel this evening and you know what we're here to discuss and be candid about and uh recognizing the time that e
veryone's taken to talk a little bit about the intersections of Sports Justice equity and Legacies of racism and what that means for Progress what that means for where we go from here um and to start off this evening wanted to just pose a question you know when you think about advocacy um what is your current thought and practice around what area you're advocating for and what is the medium that you are choosing to do it through and I'll open that up to the panel I'll start um that's a wonderful
question first of all it's such an honor to be here and um most notably to talk about something like this this is something that has evolved in my understanding as a black woman um and something that I have actually kind of like grown through in my profession and what my profession demands and what it doesn't demand and I'd have to say that that for me advocacy is all about walking the walk and talking the talk um I mentioned this a lot when people ask me just to kind of put it simply you know
after 2020 um I got a lot of requests to go on Dei panels and the biggest question or the most consistent question was what can we do to increase diversity equity and inclusion all of these corporations and big businesses were asking me this and my question was are you doing it at home because if you're trying to do it at work and you're not doing it at home it's not going to be sustainable and that's what the goal is for change is is for it to last and so I try my best to advocate for myself at
home um for my family for my teammates um for the league that I'm a part of for me as a black woman who has a business who is a brand and I try my best to impart that onto others in ways that reflect what is authentic and intentional for them and the best way that I do that is through connection and so um something that I really love and very blessed about what I do is that I get to meet a lot of different people you know I'm in a position where I get to meet a lot of different people whether t
hey're a fan of the sport um whether they're a fan of the team um or I just bump into someone who's never even watched the WNBA but connecting with people um is the best way that I know how to advocate for myself and for others for me um trying to make change and it is an honor to be here as well thank you so much for having me and I've been in the media for a long time nearly four decades and um a lot hasn't changed some things have changed but not as much as needs to change when I think about
my own career if you could believe this I was the first black sports columnist at the Detroit Free Press now Detroit's a city that's 83% black I was the first black Sports columnist for the newspaper when they hired me in 1993 the newspaper was 161 years old so I embraced that and I looked at how can I make a difference we talk about advocacy it's one thing to talk about it but it's also something about making things happen and that's what I've done my entire career as far as mentoring and bring
ing other people to the table we talk about diversity we we need uh all kinds of voices so what I have done throughout these almost 40 years is a I just in 2021 I established a website called MLB bro.com where we uh cover black and brown major league players and my idea was not only to cover those players who maybe don't get as much run as the other players but also to develop writers podcasters content creators who look like those players and who people can relate to we went from a staff of 14
in 2021 I now have 80 people on the staff of color will cover Major League Baseball Major League Baseball has also partnered with us now in seeing what we're trying to accomplished there and then the last thing in in Detroit a place that I'm not from I'm from New York originally but I spent 20 years of my career and in May on May 16th we are about to launch the first all black Sports Talk radio station in the country and we're going to do it in Detroit and the whole premise of this is once again
if we start in Detroit and we can be successful with that station we can be develop a network 20 or 25 other black markets that immediately will give an opportunity of maybe a hundred other people right with diverse voices who now have an opportunity to talk sports where they haven't had it before so I'm all about it but you also have to put up and put in the work and that's what I've tried to do uh along with just talking about it um well I well first of off just very honored to be here um my
name is Amber Goodwin I would say I've been an advocate my entire life um I think I would say it's in my blood my sisters and parents would say it's cuz I'm a middle child child and I always had to advocate for things either up or down um and a in a family full of sisters and girls um but I I grew up um uh in a small town in in Texas very racist town just if anybody knows about Midland Texas you probably would would know that there's a lot of racial issues um when I got there and I was going to
school growing up in the 1980s um you know my the school that I the high school that I was going to go to and that I was going to swim for um the the School flag was the Confederate flag um this is the 1980s this is not the 1950s this is not the 1960s so it was a huge fight and I went to Roberty Lee High School which is still wild to say and it didn't change until 2020 when everybody cared about black people for like three months and so that's when we got it to change from Roberty Lee High Schoo
l and so I think I've always been an advocate but I think growing up as a swimmer um and being one of the only black swimmers in the country um growing up in the '90s and the early 2000s um I was a scholarship swimmer um at Florida State and I still to this day I'm still one of the only black swimmers that a lot of different uh especially division one or just division schools have had across the entire country and so always had to Advocate as a student athlete and now as an attorney um I'm still
less than 2% of all attorneys which is usually the first and last sign of advocacy legal advocacy or criminal justice advocacy in this country are attorneys and there's less than 2% of the entire attorneys in the country are still to the state day black women less than 5% are black people in this country and it's even worse for latinx people for lgbtq people and so um there's still these big and the numbers are not getting better by the years the week up and down but you know I you know I worke
d and advocated on so many different issues that I don't want to say are softball issues but I worked on issues like healthcare I'm like everybody wants Healthcare did things like that worked for elected officials like Obama that like people loved and then I was like I'm going to take on guns and I live in Texas and so that's what I work on now and it is um I would say it is my life's work uh to Advocate on I have very much uh the unearned privilege of never being I I've never been shot myself n
o one in my immediate family has been shot but it is a Public Health crisis that deserves advocacy every single day and so that's a lot of the work that I do as an attorney and then organizationally is just making sure that we really understand the intersections of such a tough issue that it's really hard for people to understand unless you've been directly impacted and I don't want people to be directly impacted by gun violence I want people to feel empowered um and have this the self-determina
tion that I feel now about how I want to show up as an advocate I don't have to just show up when there's a mass shooting I can show up whenever there's really good things that are happening in Boston that or that are happening in Austin and so um a lot of the advocacy that I work on is just making sure that um we're we can show up as our true selves but also have self-determination to figure out what advocacy actually looks like cuz it's never going to be cookie cutter is never going to solve a
ll the the tough issues that we're working on um in this country when I hear showing up as your true selves uh NECA I would you know want to acknowledge the leadership role um that you've played um as three-time wnbpa president since 2016 yes and you know a lot of players a lot of areas of of issue um a lot of areas is ripe for policy change how have you kind of been able to lead in that effort how have you uh formed a sense of policy Direction and shaped policies that have been transformative p
articularly um over the past few years when we've had incidents of uh State sanctioned violence and police shootings uh when we've had the need for calls for economic empowerment and pay equity um how have you thought about you know what was a what was it like to shape the black lives uh matter agenda from a WM BPA perspective what went into that um I mean I I always like to say that um our I guess our movement was met by the world's moment you know as Amber was saying you know those three month
s that people all of a sudden cared um it seemed as though that was the time that we had always been prepared for um when I was elected in 20 2016 shortly after um phando Castile was murdered in his car and players had had enough at that point and they had decided hey we're going to do a media blackout and we're going to make t-shirts um it started with mini in New York and there was not a lot of positive reception from that from in a security of the local police from fans from our own league an
d it was just one of those moments where the repercussions didn't really matter and it was all about what was most important to be communicated in that moment you know we we have a platform of sports and um you know there's always that saying of shut up and dribble and my response to that is I wish we I really wish we could I'm sure Amber wishes she wouldn't have to come in every and talk about people getting killed in a public health safety safety crisis and so what we can do is use our platfor
m and in that moment we did response changed our current president at the time was instilling fines um to which they were reversed because it just became a we a um a a League wide understanding that this was bigger than us and that we had a platform to amplify this and uh you know we learned our lesson I guess as a league and its players when 2020 came so you know we're met with a pandemic in which women and people of color are highly disproportionately affected by this um not just by Health dec
isions being made and those that are dying from the Corona virus but also by those losing their jobs and we represented every as aspect of what was happening to the minorities that no one really cared about along with Brianna Taylor getting shot sleeping in her home all of these all of these people that are being affected by this is what our league is comprised of and so after 2016 my goal at least I wanted my I wanted my legacy as a president to just be that of communication and education and s
o um in 2016 we were able to to mobilize a way that garnered a collective understanding amongst the players and then in 2020 that's when we really decided to strategize we had uh we had a very unique situation faced in front of us where we weren't sure if we were going to have a season in a league where people are just telling us to be grateful for us having a league in the first place let alone us trying to negotiate our own Equity um we're we're on the heels of a CBA where we were able to nego
tiate more compensation and salary but not at all where we want to land land and then you know one of the demands of the players was that if we're going to have a season and if we're going to get 100% of our pay the only other demand is that we dedicate our season to the say her name campaign and through that through creating our Jedi committee um we were able to get League members and Pa members to come together and create programming create education um in a in in a season where everyone was a
t the same place at one time it was really like the stars had almost aligned so we were able to educate ourselves organize and mobilize in ways that yielded us being able to collaborate with the African-American um forum and we were able to get people to understand the importance of filling out their census we were able to get our players and their communities to understand the importance of voter registration and then ultimately voting um to which we felt as though we had to show the example of
the importance of getting elected offical officials that represent Who We Are by figuring out how we could impact an owner at the time who was contradicting our very existence for the political advantage of her re of her election I won't say re-election because she was not elected in the first place and since 2020 we've never said her name but everyone knows who she is and we decided okay what can we do to figure out how we can make a change and we started doing our own research as you as you w
ould as any as any citizen would who are the candidates what do they represent and we discovered Raphael waro and so we said hey if that's important to her voting is also important to everyone let's demonstrate how important it is to elect people that represent our values as a community and we were able to really change history in a way that we weren't anticipating um but we did it together and I would like to emphasize we did it as women together and I think that that's very important because t
he idea that feminism is exclusive to women is wrong Fe feminism is all about equity and equality and it's all about anyone believing in that and we had a lot of different people who were advocates for us we had a lot of allies both in the feminism space and also in the racial space because there were a lot of moments in that bubble that was very heavy for us and we had to we had to have hard conversations amongst ourselves like hey um you know I had to tell Sue I was like there's there's a lot
that I'm dealing with I need you to handle this and we had a lot of different moments that demonstrated what we were advocating for and it just was because we allowed the space to listen to those who don't always have the platform amongst ourselves amongst our communities and use that as a way to educate ourselves about what what we can do to move forward so that all boats rise we weren't thinking from an individualistic perspective and then of course we sought out the experts in their fields fo
r us to figure out how we could use our platforms to Advocate and force change in a way that benefits the people that look like us and the people that we represent and it's something that I'm very very proud of not for me individually but I'm just really happy that people were paying attention I think we were just in a moment where all eyes were on us and um it's something that I'm not sure could ever um could ever really be forgotten in in in a politically and social politically historical cont
ext well yeah I just wanted to players have the ultimate power in this country they really do and most of it is wasted it's one of the most uh toughest things to see as a reporter who's cover sports for almost 40 years because we've seen the examples of how you can force change Donald Sterling in 2014 is probably the greatest example okay Donald Sterling was allowed to exist in the NBA as an owner he had a long chronicled history of lawsuits where in Los Angeles where he wouldn't rent to black p
eople or Mexicans it was well documented it wasn't and yet he was allowed to be an owner because black because because people looked at him and said well he's got a team that has 12 black guys and he's paying him millions of dollars so that was the justification of allowing him to do that and then finally we got a audio tape where we heard it for ourselves and there was no denial of what he was saying and players said what we'll stop the money they threatened to not play the playoffs and guess w
hat happened Donald Sterling was removed like that that's the power of the players they do have power the reason that you get pushed back with shut up and dribble is because they know how powerful you really are the NFL players they have a terrible CBA terrible Health Care terrible pension you know why they won't stop the money you want change in this country stop the money stop allowing people to make money off of people who look like us right without being held accountable that they have to tr
eat us a certain way so if you know an organization doesn't hire minorities or whatever it may be then as a free agent you have to let them know I will never go to Charlotte I'm just throwing out of place not cuz we're in Boston and don't forget okay Boston Jackie Robinson was what year 19 what 47 the first black player in Boston was what year anybody know 54 no 1959 12 years after Jackie Robinson okay 12 years after Jackie Robinson but my point is that there is power because the the black athle
te male and female in this country that's why they're always saying be quiet don't say anything because they know you have power and until the players utilize it and stand up and and and not use the excuse of making that's easy it's to pay off money you can't say anything you're making $30 million a year right we're treating you great that's all that matters why would you why would you say anything you got to say something if you know it's wrong that's it Amber I wanted to ask you you know engag
ing with athletes in the ways that you are um in what ways are are the lived experiences of athletes um kind of coming to the Forefront around some of the advocacy areas that you focus on particularly when it comes to gun violence how has that shown up in your work it's shown up incredibly especially in the last couple years I also just want to take a moment to acknowledge NECA because you kind of glossed over your leadership and how incredible it was what you guys did I think especially as blac
k women we are disregarded in this country and especially our leadership people don't listen to us and so I know you had to give up probably maybe it wasn't Financial maybe it was but like you had to give up a lot to take a stand and so just want to thank you for that because I know that it took a lot so I'm going to give a round of applause you guys um we need to be giving people their flowers when they're doing incredible work um so I would it it's been a really tough issue because I think exa
ctly to your point the reason why there are so many guns in this country is because of money um being in the business of gun violence um is now codified into law there's laws that preclude us from actually being able to go after the people who are manufacturing and getting all these guns to flow in and out of our communities um there is no impunity for a lot of these gun manufacturers who were working on it from a local level trying to change different laws but it's been really incredible I woul
d say probably in the last four or five years but in particular um this last year we've been able to work with a lot of the players associations but with um particular with the NFL um players Coalition um which was started by Anquan Balton which is so kind of crazy um 26 almost 27 years ago I started college um and Anquan Balden and I uh he was the cap or I was captain of the swim team and he was captain of the football team at Florida State and so we met each other almost 27 years ago and at Fl
orida State um and um now he started this NFL players Coalition many many years ago working on a variety of different issues and we're getting to work with them now on the issue of gun violence and what's been the the the coolest part about this is they could just take photos Right Neca people could just ask you to take photos show up at events and it' be super I don't want to say easy because it takes time and time out of your day um but the real hard stuff is making these hard calls and and sp
eaking out whenever it's not popular and so on the issue of gun violence I wa will say it has been harder because there is so much money behind the scenes from a business perspective in sports people love their guns I will argue with anybody all night long about the Second Amendment and what it precludes and what it doesn't but um a lot of the issues that we in particular work on with um NFL and also and some respect some NBA players and other leagues um is on issues that are this public health
approach that doesn't actually have any sort of impact on the Second Amendment um and so we've been able to work we were at the Super Bowl doing different events there working actually in the community in Vegas and we'll be doing it across the country um but the I think the coolest part about um specifically working with Anquan and Malcolm and the folks at the NF players Coalition is that they were like we want to do we want a Lobby um we want to actually go to Congress we want to go to our loca
l elected officials and we want to work on prevention um and not just on what may just be kind of the sexiest thing that's out there which I don't know if there's anything sexy about gun violence but like not whatever is not in the media they want to actually be working on preventing gun violence before it starts and so that's been really incredible to hear from players and from people that are doing this work and also I mean this is what we used to call ourselves but also from non-revenue gener
ing sports like swimming like we're able to work with a lot of people in swimming and and other sports that maybe are not um the sports that everybody watches all the time but there's still athletes that are out there this is an Olympic year and so we'll be working with a lot of the um folks that are uh either going to the Olympics or have or or former Olympians um to make sure that they're using their platforms on uh on the issue of gun violence and how we're preventing it across the country w
e've talked a lot about um present and there's also the future of sports which involves uh student athletes for a lot of uh folks who have been student athletes on the stage um you know there's a huge power shift there's you know the Wild Wild West was what you referred to it earlier um name image and likeness and how that conversation on what is emerging for student athletes is is changing the game in terms of where power EX ex and how that's shifting and I wanted to get a perspective on some o
f the trends that you're you're noticing and observing in that space how that might be shifting a power Dynamic but also some of the considerations that are also emerging around restricting that uh that power o and that opportunity um for financial gain and benefit for uh this next generation and current generation of of student athlete sure I mean I mean um we were talking before we hopped up here about how nil is the Wild Wild West and I was talking with the women's basketball staff about how
disadvantage it it seems open because all you know all bets are off but you have schools like Harvard I went to Stanford you have schools like Stanford where they're disadvantaged because say for example we don't take grad transfers you know the the portal means nothing and I think every day about kids that are in that portal and aren't they're just at home um and it may be because of talent it may be because of fit um and then you know those that are or aren't in uh in institutions you know the
opportunities that are available to them are dependent on a lot of things they can't control um and you know I think it's amazing I think it's important that these athletes are being compensated for their name image and likeness but you know they there's there's always going to be something systemic to something that's new and um you know prior to nil I experienced a lot of that a lot of the women in the WNBA still experience a lot of the the disparity in Opportunity um allbe it now you know as
they're in college there's a little bit more control uh but ultimately um you know I have the perspective of a women athlete and of course you know like you said players have the control and they have the platform but there's also a level of control that they don't have based on things that they can't that they can't change you know being a black athlete being a black women athlete I mean the fact that there still hasn't been a black swimmer at your school is insane you know um and and then als
o too you know if we were to put ourselves in the shoes of a lot of these young athletes you know who's to say that you would have as many ni deals as someone who just appeases the crowd more even if you were more talented and so so um you know I see a lot of different changes happening I think it's very early on to kind of really tell where it's going to go but I do know that um you know I'm probably going to shift it a little bit more towards like uh gender Equity but um I do know that in spor
ts today um that a lot of these women depend on their endorsement deals yeah we we we our endorsement deals are over 80% of what we make compared to what we make playing the sport that gets us the endorsement deal um the engagement is two times more than likely for a fan to pay attention to a women athlete um and when it comes to endorsements and Brands you know we're talking to a lot of these businesses and uh organizations that want to put their products on different players uh and it and it's
it's increasingly so that more people pay attention to brand BRS on women athletes and um a little bit under half of those people or half of the people that are PTI to women sports are going to are going to serve as the purchasing power of the impact of these women and it's still the question is still how do we follow women's sports like what do we do and I always tell people the blueprint exists obviously you know it existed first for white men and then of course um you know then black men and
even still there's a lot of disparity in that um but you know when it comes to black and brown women um lgbtq uh members and those who are trying to just play at a high level the disparity is still very much very much not where we want it to be and um the racial the racial experiences of those athletes affects their livelihood um but I do I do have uh a push back sure and my my biggest issue too again is and this Sports Forum is supply and demand and women have not supported the WNBA and some o
f these Sports enough to me they more women than men in this country when they when the attendance is 6,000 that's the average of the WNBA the powers that be that pay the money the the TV raitings numbers and all those things are are concrete they are because when there are women who are playing and they're getting ratings and numbers people pay attention and I'm I could probably ask the women in the room have they been to a WNBA game the League's been around for almost 30 years I talk to people
all the time females have you ever taken your boyfriend on a date or your friend or whoever to a WNBA game I most of the women will they've never been the one well this is what I'm saying when you talk about the inequity of it is that women have power to make what they do important but you have to lead the way if you're if you're waiting for men to embrace the WBA and Philly Arena it ain't GNA happen it it's not so my question to you is this why do you think that is so I have no idea why women
won't support each other I I I don't my um like I don't men set up the system that probably is precluding women from being able to be a part of system so they set up they set up they stop women from buying tickets no but there's probably different reasons the same systemic reasons that it that precludes women for being a part of different parts of society are probably the same but I'm just asking I'm just asking about buying tickets to the WNBA is anybody stopping anybody from doing no but I wou
ld also say what's the problem with men buying those tickets there's nothing wrong with men there's nothing wrong with it's not I'm not it's not a either or it's not an either or but but I'm just saying you you can't 28 years later into the league you have 6,000 attendance okay and I'm just saying if that number was 15,000 okay you guys would be making way more money if your TV ratings were up you'd be making way more money I'm not here to bash the WNBA what I'm saying is where is the support fr
om women who enjoy basketball and and that's I believe why the WNBA has never reached this full potential is because women haven't embraced it that that's all I'm saying can I just can I just say something yes that's all I'm saying okay so to to ambre's point so firstly the system is set up by Men We Got Started from the NBA right I I get that okay so who who are the owners who are the presidents but but who are the people making decisions my sister works in TV I get it she tells me who the peop
le are deciding what segment is important you know she advocated for me to announce my to announce myself on ESPN that I was signing to Seattle that was a woman advocating for a woman who was not in the position to make the decision without her interv those people who are making those those decisions if if they sell out Madison Square Garden or the Brooklyn Nets arena bar clays for a WNBA game that then they can't deny you that's what I'm trying you can you can no no no no the powers that be I I
get that they might not be interested but guess what if the numbers are there and I'm going to give you the perfect example I used to watch the news as a kid let me just give you this one example well I wasn't finished with my side okay I'm sorry so no no no so what I was trying to say was no it's okay what I was trying to say was the people that are making the decisions are making it accessible correct mhm the NBA 28 years into its existence was not doing the numbers that we're doing right now
now granted we always like to say hey don't compare apples apples to oranges but don't you think that one if the system was not created by the men and you're telling little boys oh you can grow up and play in the NBA and you're also telling little girls oh you can grow up and play in the WBA rather than oh you can grow up and have a great family you can grow up and find a good husband that that that breeds the loss of Interest over time so there's things that are not quantifiable that lend to y
our opinion or maybe even your metrics that women are not following the WNBA now I will I will contradict you with this okay years ago they were saying that at the age of 14 young girls were dropping out of sports seven times more likely than boys that has flipped y that has now flipped today boys are dropping out of sports faster than girls are because of the accessibility of the sport to people who may not have believed that that was even an opportunity or was even something that they could be
exposed to so that's why Amber was trying to say it's systemic and it's not just about the numbers because the numbers are going to be low as long as it's hard to find our games right if it's easy to find our games the numbers will go up so when you say okay I don't want to I don't want to turn this I I want to I want to say you know this is obviously a a a a passionate conversation and when it when it comes to thinking about um exposure that point of exposure you know what is it in what ways h
as has exposure shaped all of your lives for the industries that you're a part of for the advocacy that you are day in day out um out there hitting the pavement around and kind of as you look into the Horizon what do you want your legacy to be as a result of the exposure that you've had across your industries I mean I just want to lead by listening you know and I want my legacy to be that of contagion you know I think that it's important not to shy away from conversations like this because I'm l
earning something from you and I hope you're learning something from me you know that's what that's what this Legacy is about it's not just about oh I did that oh we did this oh that happened when we were there it's the sustainability of it it's the it's the education of it it's Us opening ourselves up to things that we don't understand or Us opening ourselves up to a perspective that we wouldn't consider otherwise but most importantly ensuring that those who don't always have the opportunity to
represent themselves have the space to do so to create a more Equitable community and world that we live in that's that's why I am in the media uh when I was a kid and wanted to be a I grew up in New York I wanted to be a sports columnist in a newspaper I wanted to have my picture in the paper every day when I was growing up there was nobody black or had a sports column in the newspaper so how did this kid decide that this is what he wanted to do I wanted to have a voice I wanted to be able to
to to uh be able to give a different point of view at one point the worst thing that ever happened in the media is that everybody was a 50-year-old white guy so the perspective was always the same so I thought to myself I could bring something different a different trail that I walked a different experience that I had along into that and then my legacy I've always looked at it mentorship and to be able to establish and build and grow as many others who have the same passion and want to be heard
in this world that's my only goal it's not about what my career is and what I've done but if if I can nurture along some other people who will get to uh learn and and uh have their own careers and have a voice yeah I mean I would just say in all aspects of my life like I've always thought my parents have always told me that you can't and they're not the first people to see this they're brilliant but they're not the first people who came up with the the phrase you can't be what you can't see and
or you can't think about right I had my parents are in their 70s and they have no idea how to swim and they put me and my sister into swim practice and they just did it for survival because they said if we're because we were living by the water they were like if we something happens we need our girls to be able to save us right cuz my parents were terrified of the water and they still are and then as soon as they found out I could get a free ride to school they were like you're going to swim the
rest of your life at least until you're 18 or no till you're 22 um but I I think that that you know just that it it's incredible to see just to physically see I mean I was going to joke that like I didn't know that much I knew about basketball growing up and everything but I didn't I knew that that WNBA existed but I think there are a lot of people who were around my age that also a lot of things changed when we saw Love and Basketball which sounds like ridiculous but like seeing that movie cha
nged so many people that are in our mid-40s right of like actually seeing that even though we knew that this existed ahead of time um and I'll I'll say also that um there's a quote um Erica Alexander she was cousin Pam on depending on your age she's cousin Pam on uh the uh on The Cosby Show but um she they were talking about black people and like science fiction and whether or not black people liked science science fiction or not and you know she was on the red carpet and she said this quote fro
m her husband that I love specifically talking about black people in America so we're talking about race and sports and I think this is important um for black people in America um the past is painful depending it doesn't matter what age you are but the thinking about the past of what we've gone through in this country whether it's Sports and swimming and basketball well just everything being a woman past is painful the present is precarious right like things happen all the time but the future is
free right like we can do and we can make whatever we want and so I was telling someone earlier that like I'm working on a project where we're we're working with students young students from a middle school in DC that had four people that were shot Middle School four people of the students were shot last year and so meeting with some folks actually in DC tomorrow um and we're talking about Bridging the digital because they're working at like a digital kind of school where they're working on a l
ot of different things we're going to be working on coding with them we're also going to be teaching them swim lessons and we're also going to be working with them on preventing gun violence I was like I don't know how this is all going to figure out in my head but I have the freedom to be able to do that and these kids are going to turn into Advocates they already are because they advocated for themselves that they want to live in a life free from gun violence and right now their conditions tha
t they're in the material conditions that they're in are not ones that they made themselves and so my hope through advocacy in the future future is that kids can can dream the way that I was able to and have the freedom that I did um to be able to think about like adding the digital divide and swimming and coding and all these different things together and trying to figure out innovative ways outside the box to think about advocacy especially whenever it comes to what we can do with sports and t
hings outside the box like swimming too with that being said we're going to open up uh there are mics right over there and also there are mics um in the upper area so if you have a question uh find your way to a mic and uh we'll take them as they come in yes sir oh is this Mike live yes it is it's live okay uh some people would say that the worm may be turning with respect to women and men in basketball with the fact that the March Madness wom's Tournament is more exciting attracting more attent
ion we watch the games and the women are hustling up and down they full of energy these guys are loping along losing by two points so what do you have to say to that phenomena maybe this is the year and part of the problem we have here in Boston we don't have a WNBA team we we got to go to Connecticut M hean son now I I have some friends in high places that may change but would you care to comment on any of that you guys have TVs right okay okay I'm just making sure oh yeah absolutely um I mean
I think that uh what people are experiencing right now in women's sports has always been happening it's just people are now paying attention to it and once something is hot people want to put it everywhere right it's the accessibility you know so um you know in times when we wouldn't be on TV now we're on TV um the exposure also from athletes is changing things uh you know we saw what happened when they were showing what the inside of the you know the tournament looked like a couple years ago an
d that brought what was obviously a problem to the public where there was a a level of accountability that had to that had to change you know and and now it's no longer you know women's final four now it's March Madness March Madness you know and I think it's just kind of a matter of time I'm excited about it um but but I think also too when it comes to you know supporting and um finding ways to to stay connected even though there's not a WNBA team here you got Harvard women's basketball you kno
w like you there's women's teams everywhere panding to the crowd no there's women's teams everywhere and um finding a way to remain connected I think is just really important and I and I think it's also important to note that you know in what we experienced here like us having a very healthy conversation around like our different understandings that's a perfect example of where like I try to say feminis feminism is not exclusive right you know what I'm saying like it it takes Advocates that are
men to also show why this needs to be happening I agree and so and so I I just um I just want people to understand that we have different perspectives we have different understandings um but your experience a lot of times supersedes anothers in this in this and I mean that by like in this Society if you think about yourself there's usually almost always someone else who's lower on the totem pole and that's something that I always kind of consider it's something that really came to my mind in 202
0 because I had a family member that was like but you're Nigerian they're not going to know you know you're Nigerian you're not black and I was like if I'm walking up the street they just going to see a black girl you know and so you know whether it's white men men white women black women latinx lgbtq you just have to consider that when you when you think about the whole something as simple as watching women's sports you might be having a game on and you might expose it to a young boy who likes
basketball who just likes basketball and so that's what I love that's what I love to see about the rise of women's sports it's not the acknowledgment of one's beauty is does not equate to the absence of your own and that's what I'm experiencing with women's basketball right now well thank thank you very much and just uh a shout out to Harvard women basketball the women were in the ivy league tournament and the men stayed home so thank you I would also just add to that that I think it's it's impo
rtant that we always continue to think about the role of race in the rise of these Sports too and what that can do that's really great um we work in Texas on things like the crown act and it's really important um and but it also needs to be enforced and so as we're thinking about having more women that have exposure about who we're uplifting and who we're platforming because everyone deserves to get platformed but you know we're we're trying to promote equity which is different than equality lik
e I don't want to be a white man right I want to I want the same things that a white man has that like a rich white man has and so I would like to be Equitable in that sense I don't want to be the exact same as him I want people to see me as a black woman living in society um and so um I think that it's really important that we celebrate women all different types of women that are going to be you know some people will be really palpable to the news and people will really love them and some peopl
e won't but I I think especially as like I spent a couple hours a night on Tik Tok I'm not supposed to but I am on Tik Tok every night and you just see I go straight to to the comments and I'm like okay well I need to like comment here because they don't like that black woman or they don't like this person's hair or something like that that's not healthy so I'm not telling you guys to do that but I am saying that you you see it and especially because things go viral so much right now that I want
us to also be careful and aware of what can happen um if we aren't careful about what Equity looks like in terms of race and sports especially whenever it comes to women but also just men as well as as you know the Olympics are coming up so many different things and so um it's almost a double-edged sword sometimes there's a question over here hi my name is tenzen and I'm a sophomore at Harvard College first of all thank you so much for being here this is an incredible panel I'm so glad we're ge
tting to hear about uh about sports and the intersection of sports and policy my question is about another aspect of public health and its intersection with sports particularly CTE and football um and I'm wondering what you what what perspectives you all bring to the debate over allowing children to play football and especially in in the light of recent studies about how many children have have died um from just playing as children and then even stopping after um after after their childhood care
ers um have passed away in recent years whether or not we should even allow football programs in elementary schools middle schools around the country and how you think we can um incorporate education to families that hold Sports at such a high level um and who see it as access to money an opportunity for their children to go to college and to have access to careers in the NFL I I have a coworker on Fox Sports Radio Ephraim Salam he played 14 years in the NFL and uh has two sons he he will not al
low them to play football even though he made a living for his family playing football because he said I know how I feel every day and I don't want my children to go through that so there's a there's a big debate and there are people on the other side who say look at me I'm good and I played 14 years in the league and I'm okay but you the numbers have gone down for kids playing football where parents have just stepped in and said that this isn't what they want um it's it's it's it's not going it
's going to be interesting as as we go forward I do believe though as the country becomes more bright uh that soccer and baseball will eventually I know nobody wants to believe it but I think soccer and baseball will be the bigger Sports going forward I do believe that well even in even in soccer right now they're suggesting that headbutting the ball um the headers right exactly they give you a concussion the implication and then there are conversations on can technology offset some of the those
harms and it's definitely an area rip for uh debate and and perspective shifting um and there are a lot of different perspectives when it comes to uh the willingness to kind of allow um this next Generation to participate and it's it's a Hot Topic up there thank you thank you hi thanks so much for this panel uh my name is Jack I'm an undergrad at the college uh I'm wondering all of you kind of hit on athletes collective bargaining power um whether it's fighting for equal pay or fighting for pol
itical representation you know we talked about male and female athletes that kind of use their role to push for something that they cared about I'm wondering if you have any advice for athletes in leagues or sports that haven't had that you know mobilization so far like you mentioned for example the NFL where the collective bargaining isn't as strong why do you think that is and what advice do you have to get past barriers to Collective mobilization no you can go ahead no I'm going just say unti
l they stop the game it's not going to happen yeah until they go to the Super Bowl and tell the commissioner when everything's set up that they're not playing that day we saw it in baseball they stopped the World Series in 1994 guess who just sign because they didn't like the way the owners were doing financially collusion and not paying them guess who signed a $700 million contract this past off season show Otani with the Dodgers they they damaged the sport for a little bit by doing the stoppag
e but they did get what they want same thing the nil you talked about it in college and the ww west until college players are collectively bargained for as a group not as individuals they will always be taken advantage of what's been done to most college athletes and this is why you see the Nick Sabin and all the old guard coaches starting to retire because they don't have complete control over the kids anymore and they don't like the system because they because the kids can walk out on them lik
e they've walked out on the kids all the stuff that they they've done they've made Millions there used to be a time when kids if they took a pizza from a free pizza they got kicked out of school off the tea I mean this is like like mindboggling but this is the stuff that went on and now until they have a collective bargaining where I can't remember the school that that wanted to unionize just recently I think they yeah Dartmouth Dartmouth yeah okay this is what needs to happen because you can't
do it as individuals you got to do it collectively and then you can work through the nil and make some sort of system but you can't allow the college coaches and the universities to work in your best they're not going to work in your best interest people got to remember even the nil money is not coming from the University they're not paying the kids they've refuse to give the kids a dime the NCAA March Madness $6 billion TV contract players get nothing from that those are real how I I would also
say I'm happy to also share with any in law school I did my kind of it's quot kind of like a thesis but my final paper on the arbitration process in the NFL and how it is inherently systemically unfair to the players because it's the system right it's it's the colle collective bargaining but if their system of like how you like say you blow up the entire thing say you still have this like contract arbitration a process that you have to go to and is that the right process I'm happy to share with
anybody um but it's um there's also some systemic Pro major systemic problems with um what what you agreed to um and how that has to play out so regardless of what if everybody walks off or not um there's still some some things that are set in place that are just inherently unfair to most of the players too and just to top it off in 2020 we were able to successfully negotiate a collective bargaining agreement after having basically what was the the same CBA for a couple decades and I you know a
lbeit we do have a smaller cohort we did it by first just like educating ourselves you know I think that there's a lot of weight when it comes to collective bargaining and really too you're entering a league where you're just trying to figure out what team you're playing on and there's so many responsibilities as a professional athlete and so when we were met with that with the opt out option um in 2018 uh I just told our executive director I was like I just want people to be educ I just can you
just give us a cliff notes of what the current CBA looks like and the only ass that I had of the players was we need to be engaged I don't I don't care what you vote I just want the voting turnout to be good and that led to us being able to successfully negotiate a CBA where we had over I believe it was 98% of the players that voted we're not even talking about the result because as we know in this country When there's less votes the it's not it doesn't represent the grand scheme of things it d
oesn't represent the overall population and so um we did our best to read our CBA see what we wanted to change and then through that you have negotiations which is quite daunting but to both of their points athletes really do have the power um but it's harder alone that it is together and you just have to make sure that everyone is on the same page it doesn't necessarily mean everyone has to agree because once you start off hoping that everyone agrees that's when things become a little bit more
complicated you just have to make sure that there's a platform for people to express their needs their wants what's going well what's not going well assess the assess what you have in front of you and then figure out what you can do moving forward I always say that in cbas everyone's not going to get everything that they want but everyone will get something that they want and that goes for the league side as well well when it comes to the professional athlet so I think that um just keeping those
like simple things in mind can be very important but I see I see these universities that are that are unionizing and I I really do think that the strength would be is if you know we had a a union Coalition of professional sports that could Advocate on behalf of the University of the college players so I'm mindful that we're at time but I also see we have two Folks at the mic if you might be able to both pose your question questions and then we'll wrap after hearing both of your questions thank
you absolutely thank you guys for coming I appreciate it um my name is k tobert one of the track and field coaches here at Harvard um your passion your intensity your intellect about this really shines through um two things one is I have a young daughter she's four and a half so we try to put her in swimming and ice skating exposure to to things that you might not otherwise see young black girls and so I appreciate your points and your perspective um my question is actually about baseball um gro
wing up I um watched Reggie Jackson Willie Randolph Dave Winfield Rod Karu and so on and so forth the senior Ken griffy and I could never have imagined that I couldn't name 10 black players in the league you know is there any real interest on the League's part um to reverse that Trend to get it back to where there's a robust group of black players playing Major League Baseball again well two and we're going to grab one more question yeah um my name is KLA I'm a graduate student here and I wanted
to ask about changing the power infrastructure going off of um the previous question about having more um head coaches like we see rules like the Rooney Rule in the NFL where it seems pretty performative and there aren't um actual candidates that are chosen that are minorities or are black so I was wondering how you change that power infrastructure to actually have um owners that are have played the sport and or understand the sport and aren't just um from backgrounds that aren't really applica
ble you can the baseball so they they uh about 20 some odd years ago uh baseball basically outsourced the jobs to Latin America and it was just economics again we talk about financial they were tired of paying people bonuses so they set upmy in Latin America baseball will pay you once you become a star what they didn't want to do is pay young kids in the minor leagues who they H to make to the majors a $10 million bonus and then the kid doesn't pan out so what they did was they did that and that
's where you know you have a a huge influx and you got to remember too there are plenty of young black players now currently in the minor leagues on their way up that's good news uh when you talk about naming 10 black players sh Otani might be on everybody's mind obviously $700 million two-way pitcher and a hitter but Mookie Betts and Aaron judge are black players who are as big as anybody else in the game currently not as many I'm I'm I'm with you on that but I see do see the tide has turned an
d that we we are getting more and more black players playing baseball and at one time I think the Michael Jordan effect had a had a big impact on it everybody wanted to be like Mike and you got to remember baseball you got to go to the minor league for a couple years they want to go to college for one year or High School get right into making big money and being a pro and not put in that other work that it takes to be a baseball player it's a lot more it's a lot more work the other question yeah
and then to your question I mean as a player sometimes it seems a little bit daunting to feel as though like I can have any type of influence in that um but you know as Amber and I were talking you know things are systemic you know and I think that because of how for example our league was birth um a majority of the change makers or the decision makers are white and male um and it comes it it comes with um with with great progress of a league you know the success of a league um I I think in our
WNBA it exposes to A diversity of representation and I think as long as the players speak up about it as long as um there are people in positions who can make those decisions those things will change um but that's really what will cause the biggest shift uh especially for women in sports and for women of color and sports and for me personally I do think it starts with women being in sport um because when women are in sport you know the only option shouldn't be that you should play you know it c
ould be that you're someone like Amber who is really making some serious change but I I I'm I could maybe speak and say that a lot of what you learned as an athlete you still apply to what you do today and they said that I think it's over about is it it's it's definitely over 50% of women um who were athletes or who were in who are in sea Suite positions were athletes and they have that perspective of a team and competition um but I do think it definitely starts with the availability the accessi
bility being and seeing so that young women can know that there's different ways to be involved in sport and thus change the representation of those who are making the decisions for the people that um are an overwhelming representation of the minorities of our [Music] communities so to NECA to Rob to Amber to The Institute of politics to I thank you thank thank you than thank you thank you e
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