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Roberts Honored with ECC Sportsmanship Award
Bridgeport, Conn. – The East Coast Conference Sportsmanship Award is presented to the ECC team or individual that best exemplifies the spirit of sportsmanship and has conducted themselves with a high degree of integrity, character and class as displayed by a single action or ongoing behavior during a season.
ECC staff members were speaking to the University of Bridgeport men's basketball staff towards the end of last season and they told us of an experience they had during their trip to Roberts Wesleyan College. To us, this was a story of how the challenges of real life can pull apart our communities and campuses but how sport can help to bring those communities and campuses back together. This is a real story of sportsmanship; where student-athletes at one institution came together to help and support their friends and colleagues.
In February of this year, four Roberts Wesleyan men's basketball players, Marcus Gooding, Davon Jackson, Tremaine Carter and Pascal Manigat, woke up to find that their dorm suite had been vandalized. This included racial graffiti that was found on walls and money stolen. Within hours of the discovery, local news came to campus to speak to the victimized students who from the start handled the situation with grace and honesty and without anger. They shared what happened and how they felt.
The college and campus community immediately responded. In President, Deana Porterfield's words, "We were founded on a belief in the value of full community and are committed to providing a safe and welcoming community to all students, staff and faculty. Such racist discrimination and hateful actions will not be accepted."
And from there, the athletic community began their work to assure that all student-athletes knew they were ready to turn the ugly incident into an opportunity to grow and support each other.
• Roberts Wesleyan Athletic Director, Bob Segave, and men's basketball Head Coach, Rob McCoy, and his staff, immediately began their work to assist the team members involved.
• A campus-wide assembly was held involving the President and permitting an open forum for campus community members to share their feelings and thoughts, to show support and start the healing process. As Coach McCoy related, "This was a remarkable risk, with the media still present, but the assembly revealed students, faculty and staff cared." In this assembly, the students who were victimized had a chance to speak in front of over 1000 students, staff and faculty. And, in the words of Marcus Gooding, "Whoever did this, I say, 'I forgive you'.'' This was met with a standing ovation.
• That night at the basketball game against Bridgeport, student, campus and community members came together to support the team in large numbers. The Roberts Track and Field team spearheaded a movement as a show of support by standing for their fellow student-athletes throughout the game and made signs that read, "We stand together". Prior to the game the entire Roberts community encircled the court for the pre-game National Anthem.
• As the UB coaches stated, "Watching the Roberts community come out of the stands to support these young men and each other gave us chills. They took what happened seriously and sincerely. This was bigger than basketball but it was the perfect venue to show all those involved and everyone else that this was an important issue and incident."
And ultimately, this unfortunate incident provided the college the opportunity to continue a dialogue on important societal issues such as racism and inclusion.
Sportsmanship is not always about how one school or one athlete treats another. Sometimes it is about how a whole community comes together to support each other. For this reason, the 2016 East Coast Conference Sportsmanship Award was presented to Roberts Wesleyan College.