Diversity Falls Behind in Athletics

Panther Athletics Middlebury College has made unprecedented efforts to develop a more diverse student body in recent years and those efforts are highlighted by the many faces in classrooms, dining halls and on campus in general, especially in the last ten years. The numbers have soared and the College continues to build its resume of racial diversity. T

his year, the general student body has a total of 2,532 students and of that number, 24 percent identified as a U.S. person of color, which is 628 students who identify as American-Indian, Asian, Black, Hispanic/Latino or Mixed. Ten years ago, there were 2,455 students in the general body and of that number, only 361 students identified as a U.S. person of color, a mere 14 percent.

Despite these advances, the College’s athletic program has not reached nearly the same levels of diversification. In an effort to better understand how membership on sports teams where diversity is low shapes the lives of players, the Campus interviewed several student-athletes of color about their experiences on their team and at the College.

Athletes at the College are often balancing a number of different social spheres: their team, who they interact with generally on a daily basis; those involved in their academic commitments; and those friends they have outside of either of these. For athletes of color, another sphere exists: relationships with non-athlete students of color.

The following accounts come from students with different backgrounds and a variety of experiences before coming to the College. However, each decided to apply and for that reason, each shares a similar appreciation for and commitment to the College.

The Experience

“One of the places we’ve achieved great diversity is through prep schools; like Middlebury, they are investing and changing with the times,” Dean of Admissions Greg Buckles said. Many private schools, including boarding schools and Catholic schools, send their athletes of color to colleges such as Middlebury.

Many athletes of color, especially those from these top-ranked high schools, come to the College to succeed both academically and athletically, regardless of a lack of diversity on the sports teams.

Diego Meritus ’19, who identifies as African American and is a running back for the football team, described coming to the College despite the lack of diversity as almost a no-brainer.

“I chose to attend Middlebury because the opportunities this school has to offer outweighed any other factor,” Meritus said. “I would have regretted the decision to turn down four years at a top-ranked liberal arts school and the potential doors it could open for me.”

Meritus was not shocked after his arrival on campus, because he had grown accustomed to the majority-white campus and locker rooms at his high school.

“Coming from a private catholic high school in Massachusetts, the dynamic with regards to diversity was very similar to Middlebury. There were very few minorities and students of color in comparison to the general student body,” Meritus said. “At times this situation presents challenges for me, but being exposed to this phenomena early on, I was prepared for what was to come at Middlebury. At the same time, just because I am used to being a minority does not mean I am content with the lack of representation of students of color in the student body.”

Jourdon Delerme-Brown ’20, who plays alongside Meritus on the football team, identifies as AfricanAmerican of Jamaican and Haitian descent and attended a private school in Greenwich, Conn. Delerme-Brown, like Meritus, said that the opportunities that come with a degree from Middlebury College far outweigh a lack of diversity. He said his time here at the College so far reminds him of his high school.

“It’s virtually the same dynamic here compared to Brunswick, with respect to diversity,” Delerme-Brown said. “In the past, I’ve learned how to find solidarity between myself and other students of color, while not secluding myself from making friends and being around people who do not share my same ethnic background. This was a crucial lesson before coming to Middlebury because in college, no one will coach you to branch out, you have to take those steps on your own.”

Like Meritus and Delerme-Brown, Griffin Price ’20, who also identifies as African-American, has constantly found himself as the minority on his soccer teams. He said that it is sometimes a challenge, however “you learn that getting along in the locker room is crucial if you want to succeed out on the field. Sometimes you have to ignore the outside noise and come together as a group.” Price, a first-year goalkeeper for the men’s soccer team, attended the Westminster School, a private boarding school in Simsbury, Conn. He and his brother were the only two students of color on the predominately-white team and by his senior year, his brother having graduated, he was the only one.

“I thought about going to a historically Black college or university (HBCU) like Howard and exploring that type of learning experience in an environment dominated by African Americans. But ultimately I fell in love with what Middlebury had to offer,” Price said. “I had never had it easy in my life when it came to race, especially in my sport. Similar to a quarterback in football, the goalkeeper position is typically dominated by white athletes, so I am used to being an anomaly in a sport dominated by white privilege.”

Meritus, Delerme-Brown and Price have all had previous experiences in a predominately-white environments that have helped them transition smoothly from high school to college.

Alex Huffman ’19 and Olivia Bravo ’20 are two students of color who attended public high schools but, like their peers who came from private high s c h o o l s , t h e y had experiences that prepared them for the predominantly-white culture of the College’s athletic department.

Huffman, who identifies as African-American and half-Caucasian, is a guard on the women’s basketball team and went to a charter public school in Massachusetts. Her school furnished the opportunity to attend a camp in Colchester, VT, every summer between ages 11 and 17. Here, she met people who attended Middlebury and surrounded herself with people aware of the College’s academic and athletic esteem.

“I was not shocked at the lack of diversity on the women’s basketball team,” Huffman said. “Throughout my life, the teams I’ve been on, whether it was basketball or soccer, have been predominantly white. There have been few exceptions, but for the most part, being one of few persons of color is normal for me.”

In addition, Huffman spoke of how her bi-racial upbringing helped her maneuver the environment she has encountered at the College.

“Under the conditions of my parents and growing up with two different cultures, I feel that I’ve gotten more experienced at weaving in and out of the two worlds,” she said. “Some people are just learning that when they come here. All of my cross-cultural experiences have proven that my bi-racial identity is not a burden.”

Bravo, who is of Mexican descent and a freshman on the softball team, attended a public high school in northern Virginia. Bravo also recognized the academic and career benefits of coming to Middlebury as opposed to another liberal-arts school. In Bravo’s case, she too experienced an environment dominated by white culture.

“The public high school I attended was in one of the most affluent areas in northern Virginia and there was very little diversity there,” Bravo said. “So the lack of diversity here at Middlebury was not surprising or upsetting. When I applied I knew of the lack of diversity and was prepared to be in the same environment I had been in for most of my life.”

When applying to the College, Meritus, Huffman, Bravo, Price and Delerme-Brown were all prepared for the lack of diversity they would face on their teams. But not all athletes of color experience the same easy transition.

Another Look

Chellsa Ferdinand ’20, a first-year on the volleyball team who self-identifies as an African-American, and Emilio Ovalles-Misterman ’19, a former football player who identifies as Dominican and Caucasian are two athletes of color whose experiences have differed from their peers.

Ferdinand attended Brooklyn Technical High School — a public high school in Brooklyn, New York, with 5,500 students. There, most students were of Asian descent, however a significant portion of those students identified as African-American and/or as a person of color, she said. Ferdi - nand is also a member of the POSSE program, which is a college access and youth development program that identifies, recruits and selects students from public high schools and sends groups of these students to top universities and colleges across the country.

Throughout high school, Ferdinand was surrounded by people of similar experiences of growing up in the urban metropolis of New York. Within her POSSE group, she found solace with friends who not only shared her skin color but the experiences that have come along with it. Now at the College, she struggles to find the people who have had the same experiences as her and can truly understand the differences she’s faced throughout her career.

“Students of color often exist in two communities, one where they lend themselves to assimilating to those around them and another where they can be their true cultural selves,” Ferdinand said. “You have to constantly be aware of things you say and who you say them to. I think many athletes of color have to battle with those two worlds in this predominately-white school.”

She went on to articulate her experience of being the only of person of color on the volleyball team both in high school and in college and the difference in camaraderie among her teammates then and now.

“Being the only Black person on the team is a weird experience, but I’ve known it before,” she said. “On my high school team I was the only Black student, but looking back it didn’t feel like that, and I think in part that had to do with the fact that those girls were used to being around other students of color all the time. At Middlebury, it is not the same. On one hand, I love my team so much. I am able to share jokes, bond with them and train with them all the time. But on the other hand, my teammates share something that I do not: being white.”

Ovalles-Misterman attended St. Francis High School for four years, a private catholic high school with a graduating class of less than 10 people of color out of 120 students. However, after missing his junior year of football due to a severe tear in his patellar tendons, he opted to take a post-graduate fifth year of high school at Phillips Academy Andover in Massachusetts. It was at this prestigious boarding school that Ovalles-Misterman first learned about the College.

“Prior to Andover, I didn’t know a single thing about Middlebury or any other prestigious universities outside of the Ivy League and Patriot League schools, and I only [found out] about them because there were a few kids that ended up going to those places,” he said. “I was never made aware of these schools at St. Francis, partially because I only thought about football and partially because my counselors only tried to sell local schools to me despite the fact I had grades to go further.”

It was his time at Andover that ultimately led Ovalles-Misterman to seek out the College. However, he struggled to see the College as the place he truly wanted to be and as he spoke of his experience, the uncertainty of the College’s white-dominated environment came forth.

“Middlebury wasn’t my favorite place when I came to visit — it was cold, in the middle of nowhere and I don’t think I saw one person of color the entire time I visited, which really scared me,” he said. “The thought I could be going to an institution that was whiter than the places that I had come from was pretty daunting. But fast forwarding, my decision to come to Middlebury was mainly dependent on my financial aid package.”

Ovalles-Misterman’s experience with the football team parallels Ferdinand’s sentiments toward her team and the difficulty that arises in dealing with a team that is predominantly white.

“I don’t in any way regret playing ball at Middlebury and I am forever grateful to the staff and to the team because I knew they would always have my back. I always have a lot of love for those guys, ” Ovalles-Misterman said. “But the thing that affected me about the lack of color was the team culture was dominated by whiteness — it was a different vibe and I found it difficult to find my niche within the team. It just wasn’t a place I felt like I could go to forget about all my other issues.”

Limitations to Diversity

A op-ed piece published in the Campus last February titled “Deconstructing College Athletics,” explored how the NESCAC has limited coaches who try to recruit students to certain forms of communication, setting budget reservations for travel and lodging expenses and setting an extremely high bar for academic standings.

These policies, which aim to ensure academics take precedence before athletics, are a major factor in consistently homogenous sports teams. The majority of students of color who come to the College to play sports have either gone to a prep or private school where they have already adjusted to academic life where they are in the minority, or they have learned of the College through a leadership program such as POSSE. For students without a prestigious high school experience or the support of a leadership program, the culture at the College can come as a shock.

Although the Admissions office is able to pick and choose students based on a number of factors, the Athletics department is prevented by NESCAC policy from approaching potential student athletes who might not otherwise apply to the College, as is common practice in sports recruiting in other divisions across the country.

“At a NESCAC level, we’ve had diversity task forces working for the past ten years that I have been here,” Director of Athletics Erin Quinn said. “However, as a conference we have struggled over the years to balance the core principles of the NESCAC with the need for greater diversity among our teams.”

The NESAC mandates that a coach cannot come up to any player, without previously being contacted first, and pitch the College to them. This puts the College’s diversity initiatives at odds with the goals of the admissions office because of the lack of information that many students of color have regarding the College.

Buckles also noted the problems of the NESCAC policies that hinder the College’s ability to truly diversify their athletics, while the numbers of the general student body have gone up.

“If you look back historically, athletics have provided a very significant portion of the number of students of color represented at the college,” Buckles said. “Now the numbers have flipped as the College has made great structures in the general student body, but athletically, the numbers have not kept up.”

Chief Diversity Officer Miguel Fernandez spoke of the struggles of expanding diversity initiatives when NESCAC recruiting politics are so strict. “Our coaches recognized the lack of diversity and tried to work on it, but the numbers don’t show it,” he said. “The limitations put on NESCAC teams with respect to recruiting makes it very difficult to reach out to athletes who are not aware of NESCAC schools.” Many of the athletes of color that are recruited to Middlebury often enter without the help of a leadership or mentoring program such as Prep-for-Prep, Jack & Jill or POSSE. Often, those students who have the benefit of being a POSSE member and an athlete form tight bonds that their peers miss out on. Fernandez explained how administrators viewed the phenomenon of athletes of color and how the NESCAC has increasingly shaped one kind of athlete of color to come to Middlebury.

“The athletes we recruit have been at predominantly white high schools. They have kind of been through this before — not to say that it eliminates all problems — but they have lived through it and they know what they are up against. It is not a shock when they get here,” Fernandez said. “On the other hand, when we get the rare student of color who comes to one of the College’s teams from a predominately minority school, we, as administrators, are really just shocked.” Moving forward Each minority athlete who was interviewed agreed that an environment with more people of color teaches people how to interact with different cultures and is a positive experience, not only throughout the athletics program but also in the general student body. Ferdinand says her experience has been pleasant but, “Middlebury is just not as diverse as it says it is. There needs to be more students of color, plain and simple. Without having a group here such as POSSE or even your sports team, it is definitely more difficult to find your place here.”

Delerme-Brown also agreed with Ferdinand’s sentiments and reflected on what a more diverse Middlebury would look like. He said that an increase in culture can positively affect the experiences of others around him and hopes that the College notes the importance of expanding their diversity initiatives.

“Personally, I would never say no to more students of color, period,” Delerme-Brown said. “From an athletic standpoint, a more diverse locker room can be an improvement for everyone on the team. By having more people of color other students and fellow athletes can become more cultured, which is something I find important and somewhat of an unappreciated gift. Let’s bring more culture and diversity to our teams and to our school because we can bring new levels of ideas and experiences.”

Price also expressed his thoughts about the benefits of engaging with more people of color. He respects the challenges that any person of color has to face in college and in the real world, especially a person of color who is also an athlete. Price wants to see more of those people come to the College.

“Making an effort to attract and accept more students of color, not just athletes, benefits those students but also benefits our student body as a whole,” Price said. “What is unique about being a student-athlete is that you are expected to uphold the same academic standards as your peers while participating in our sports. When a minority applicant shows that level of determination to fight against the inherent inequalities that persist in their daily lives, to work hard not only in the classroom but on the sports field, it should be accepted that those people have what it takes to survive at Middlebury and we need more of those people here.”