Contrary to popular belief, the first Black athletes in the United States may have actually been jockeys.

Slaves of African descent became involved in horse racing in 1607 and dominated the sport until 1910 when Jim Crow laws excluded Blacks from the sport. The predominance of African Americans in the sport of horse racing blurred many racial and societal lines of the time period.

Many people credit Jackie Robinson with breaking the color barrier as the first African American in professional sports when he integrated baseball in 1947.

In 1957, Irwin Holmes and Manuel Crockett became the first African American athletes at N.C. State as members of the track team. They were also the first African American athletes to integrate the ACC.

Naturally, the rise of the athlete has had an impact on Black culture.

“I would really not characterize it as a positive or a negative influence,” said Dr. Tracey Ray, director of Multicultural Student Affairs. “For the last century plus, athletics was one of the few areas that African Americans were allowed to excel.”

Athletics and Academics

Overall, graduation rates for Black athletes have improved over the years. But a 2008 study conducted by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) shows that a wide gap remains between the graduation success rates, (GSR) of White and African American student athletes.

Dr. Richard Lapchick, the author of the study, stated the most “disturbing” information involved the GSR’s of football players.

Data obtained from the study shows that, at N.C. State, white football student athletes have a GSR of 86 percent, compared to just 50 percent for African American student athletes.

According to Jamaine Clemmons, a former defensive lineman for the Wolfpack, academic achievement is the responsibility of each individual athlete.

“Some people have the priority of coming to school to get a degree and some people have the priority of coming to school to be a professional – they want to go to the league,” Clemmons, a mechanical engineering major, said. “It just depends on the mindset of the athlete. No coach really can do anything about that. It depends on how a person sees his future and how it relates to him.”

Recently, USA Today published an article about the prevalence of “clustering” in college sports. Clustering occurs when several players of the same athletic team are enrolled in the same major.

For example, at State, more than 50 percent of the African American juniors and seniors on the Pack’s football team are majoring in sports management or parks recreation and tourism management.

According to Isaac Owolabi, a Park Scholar and aerospace engineering major, “there’s definitely some negative stuff going on in college athletics.”

“It’s not that they’re not capable of doing majors that are more diverse or more challenging,” Owolabi, a junior, said. “It’s not to say that [those majors] are not good, but I doubt that a large percent of them are all interested in the same field. If you have people pressuring you take the easy road, than you are more or less going to take their advice without any better guidance.”

The TIDES study also mentioned that the overall GSR for African American football players as a whole – 59 percent – is much higher than that of the 38 percent GSR given for African American male students as a whole.

Additionally, a different TIDES study showed that African American male and female basketball players graduate at a higher rate than African American male and female students who are not student athletes.

Role Models and the Media

Angelina Blackmon, a senior on the Track and Field team, said being a student athlete has given her qualities that “are important to any kind of success in life.”

According to Blackmon, athletes are obligated to act as role models.

“For black athletes, I think there is a certain urgency to be a respectable and positive role model,” she said. “The great African American intellectual and author, W.E.B Du Bois wrote about what he came to call the talented tenth. His theory was that every race has a fraction of exceptional individuals that will lead and elevate the masses of the race.”

With today’s constant stream of media, athletes are receiving more face time than ever before. And sometimes that attention is isn’t positive.

According to Owolabi, the “media is a bit harder on African American athletes.”

“There are many athletes that do a good job of being professional and putting up a good image,” he said. “But sometimes the media, because they want to raise ratings, they go straight to the controversial stuff.”

Beyond Sports

Clemmons said a drawback of the prominence of athletics is that some African Americans are stereotyped.

“A lot of people now think that ‘if he’s black or African American and he’s tall, then he must play basketball,” he said. “They just assume that all African Americans are good at sports. Sometimes, sports as a whole overshadow that fact that there are intelligent African Americans as well. It brings us to the forefront, but that comes with some consequences.”

But Clemmons also said his experience as a member of the football team has positively shaped his life.

“I can see it in my schoolwork, on and off the field and in class,” he said. “It’s structured my college career. I thank God for giving me the opportunity.”

According to Ray, the integration of professional and collegiate sports has created more opportunities for African Americans.

“A door has been opened,” she said.