The “Big Life Series,” a cornerstone initiative by the Big Ten Community & Impact Team, was among the commitments to diversity programs introduced during Kevin Warren’s short tenure as the conference’s first and only Black commissioner (2019-22).
The series, now in its fourth edition held July 18-20, included a huge contingent of Big Ten athletes and staff and participants from four HBCUs, over 150 in total, from all 18 Big Ten schools and 25 different varsity sports. They toured Black historical sites in Selma, Tuskegee, and Montgomery, Ala.
The college student-athletes visited the Tuskegee Airman Historic Site, First Baptist Church, the Alabama Department of Archives and History, and walked across the historic Edmund Pettis Bridge.
Gopher volleyball’s Calissa Minatee and Tara Garvey, a Rutgers volleyball player, were among the group.
Garvey is a senior from Ancaster, Ontario, Canada. She said after the Sept. 28 Minnesota-Rutgers volleyball match at Maturi Pavilion that as a Black Canadian, the Selma trip was very beneficial for her overall growth.
“I definitely think growing up in Canada,” she admitted, “we don’t really pay too much attention to American history. Being Black in Canada and also going on that trip, being in Alabama and seeing the South, I feel like I could really feel the pressure of [U.S.] Black history and how deep it was.
“I think sometimes when I am in Canada, I’m a Black woman, but that doesn’t necessarily identify me as who I am. But being in the States, I just felt really connected with the ancestors.”
Garvey, Aspen Maxwell, Zora Hardison, and Imani Howell are the Rutgers’ Black players. Along with Minnesota’s Minatee, Jordan Taylor, and Lourdes Myers, that’s a grand total of seven Sistahs playing volleyball at The Pav. It’s been a refreshing sight to see at a college volleyball match, which remains mostly seen as a white sport.
Garvey played at Villanova (2022-24) before she transferred to RU this season. Maxwell is among the Big Ten (1st) and national (18th) leaders in points, second in total kills, and fourth in service aces in the conference this season. Hardison leads the team in blocks.
Having Black teammates and seeing Black players across the net isn’t lost on Maxwell. “It was always something I looked for in a college. I wanted to see people on the team that looked like me,” the sophomore pointed out. “I know it was really comforting with me.
“And Tara transferred at the same time — it’s like OK, there’s somebody that looks like me,” she stressed.
Rutgers also has Erica Kesseh as the strength and conditioning coach, a Black woman who graduated from Minnesota-Duluth, now in her third season. Both Garvey and Maxwell marveled on Kesseh’s impact on them in their development as players.
“I think Erica has done such a great job with making sure that everyone has their own strength and conditioning that they are working with,” said the senior Garvey. “I honestly feel I never really had a program that was so individualized.”
Added Maxwell, “It’s very individualized, and I think that it’s targeted to our positions. It’s helping us become more athletic players.”
When told how many PWI volleyball teams, such as Rutgers and Minnesota this season, have featured multiple Black players rather than one or two, “I definitely also think it’s growing,” surmised Garvey, an outside hitter. “Now I also realize that a lot of Black people are in the middle position — you see outside, you see right sides, you see liberos, you see Black people in these positions.”
“I think it’s growing every day, and it’s nice to have little girls seeing us on the court, knowing that we could do it,” concluded Maxwell, an outside hitter/right side, on diversity in the sport. “They could do it too.”
Charles Hallman welcomes reader comments to challman@spokesman-recorder.com.
