Howard College Swim & Dive Staff Makes Historical past
Supply: The Washington Submit / Getty / Howard College
Who stated Black individuals couldn’t swim? Howard College’s swim and dive crew is making an enormous splash and historical past on the identical rattling time.
The Howard Bison have made historical past after turning into the primary all-Black swim and dive crew to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated, incomes a well-deserved highlight within the sports activities publication whereas kick-splashing the concept that Black persons are no followers of water and swimming.
Howard is the one Historic Black Faculty or College with a swim crew. Whereas racking up wins, The Bison are additionally breaking data.
Sports activities Illustrated highlighted the crew to kick off Black Historical past Month to highlight the crew’s accomplishments within the predominately white sport. The journal spoke with the Bison’s coach Nic Askew.
“That is about our mission as a college and the message we need to ship as an HBCU…,” Askew informed Sports activities Illustrated. “This isn’t a bunch of Black individuals in a pool; it’s younger Black women and men succeeding in a sport that, for years, has shut them out of this expertise.
The Howard College Swim Staff Options Athletes From Totally different Nations
Per Hilltop, the crew brings collectively many athletes from completely different nations within the Americas and the Caribbean, with every crew member already being completed athletes earlier than becoming a member of Howard’s crew.
Blavity spoke with women’s team captain Raychel Fauntroy, a Miami native who’s a senior at Howard College. She has been swimming competitively for the previous decade.
“We love what we do. We selected a sport and caught to it for round 10+ years, which most of us have. We adore it a lot … there are individuals on the crew keen to show individuals tips on how to swim and water security,” she detailed. We volunteer at swim golf equipment and train them suggestions and methods to achieve success. I’m proud to say that I’ve been part of the crew and am very grateful to have had this expertise. Howard College swim and dive has a familial bond and a crew not like every other,” she informed the web site.
At the moment, the boys’s (6-2) and girls’s (5-3) have a good chance to seize the Northeast Convention crown.
Black excellence we like to see.
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Photograph: The Washington Submit / Getty