I’m a girl who isn’t ashamed of her first-generation college student identity, so I knew something was wrong when I didn’t want to wear my Williams College First Gen t-shirt to practice. Don’t get me wrong, I love my teammates and for the most part, in general themselves everyone is polite and will ask how you’re doing. However, I feel like I am telling them what they want to hear. I know it it is wrong to assume that everyone on my team is well off but that is just what the team culture leads me to assume. Either everyone is well off, or they are just as good as I am at hiding themselves.
Oh, and a next thing. We never talk about race on our team. Which makes sense since I am the only Black female in my year. And the men’s team only has one Black male in the sophomore class. Why should they facilitate discussions that are going to make pretty much everyone except the few Black kids on the team uncomfortable?
Recently, a lot of POC track athletes have been quitting and I think that’s why. Everyone is welcoming and all but it’s really hard to foster friendships with people who you don’t think you can be your real self around…and if you aren’t good friends with your teammates what’s the point of being on a team? Well, at least I think that’s why people are quitting. It could just be because track is hard as hell and Williams, in general, is hard as hell.
My team dynamic is a bit different. After practice every day, I duck out on team dinner which pretty much all my teammates attend in Driscoll dining hall and join my best friends/suitemates in Paresky. We unwind, make jokes and laugh. I tell them how today, one of the girls on the distance squad thought I was a prefrosh because I she thought I looked lost. I tell them how upsetting that is for me since I knew that girl’s name and have cheered for her while she was running races. Why doesn’t she know who I am? That’s fine though because when I walk over to the starting line of Towne Field house, where all the sprint, power people gather. I am reminded of why I am on this team. It’s because even though my teammates may not fully understand me, or I may not fully understand them, they love and support me the best they can. If I am not sure I will wake up in time on the meet day to catch the bus, I can ask any one of them to give me a call to wake me up. Whenever I am injured and I start to lose hope, I get so many pep talks, so many encouraging words.
Yeah…I don’t spend every waking moment with my teammates because sometimes they are not what I need but when I do need them, they are always there.