Tackling people on a football field is instinctive for Dominique Price. Choosing a place to sit in class, on the other hand, can be a bit more difficult.

Looking to the left, Price, a black Northwestern football player, said he might notice a group of other black students clustered together. Looking to the right, he might notice his teammates in another section.

And that’s when it starts.

“You have to ask yourself, ‘Where’s your loyalty?'” said Price, a Weinberg junior. “It’s two different aspects of your life. I mean, you spend time — lots of time — with these people and at the same time, you are these other people.”

Torn between the call for a united black community and the need to create a sense of brotherhood among members of his football team, Price enters a dilemma many black student-athletes face.

“I would like to see them around more often,” said LaSandra Houston, an Education senior who is black. “A lot of people think they don’t care about class and they don’t care about other black people. People say they’re ‘dusty.'”

“Dusty” — a term some would argue is the worst insult a black student can say to another — is a phrase used to label black students who do not participate in events sponsored by black student groups, don’t spend time at the Black House or don’t sit with other black students in classes.

It is said that these people, therefore, shake off their blackness, as if their skin color was “dusty.”

The threat of “dustiness” looms heavily over many of black athletes, who sometimes sacrifice their social lives for extra drills at Ryan Field, studying at the library or icing a sore leg.

Their time crunches force them to stray from active involvement in black student groups. Their physical size alienates them from non-athletes and professors in their classes.

Although black student-athletes generally enter college with a genuine interest in being social and excelling academically, their difficult course schedules lead them to feelings of isolation, sociology Prof. Marika Lindholm said.

“When things get tough, you dig in deeper with your team and that becomes even more insular,” said Lindholm, who taught a Fall Quarter class on race and sports.

“It’s sociological,” she said. “We’re talking about structures here.”

These structural problems exist at NU. Stereotyped as the “dumb jocks” who breeze through their classes in the School of Communication, athletes are disconnected from the campus community. Black athletes have to deal with such characterizations, as well as the added stigma of being apathetic to the concerns of NU’s greater black community.

With their faces and jersey numbers gracing the screens of sports networks and the pages of various publications, athletes are some of NU’s most public figures. Still, many black athletes feel forced to turn away from the community they think should know them best: other black students.

‘WE’RE JUST AT PRACTICE’

At the African American Theater Ensemble’s annual New Student Week event, “The Ritual,” football captain and running back Jason Wright delivered a strong message to this year’s freshmen.

“Don’t call black athletes ‘dusty,'” the Weinberg senior said. “We’re just at practice.”

As a freshman, Wright said, he used the word to discuss people whom he thought didn’t care about other black students on campus.

Then, Wright said, “It became personal.”

Some black students started complaining that Wright barely visited the Department of African American Student Affairs, widely known as the Black House. Others didn’t even know who he was.

Wright himself was being called “dusty.”

But athletes aren’t systematically or inherently engaging in self-segregation. Even if a student-athlete wanted to be involved in black student life and organizations, Wright said, “The athlete’s schedule doesn’t provide a lot of time for things other than their sport, teammates and study.”

“I understand the black community’s frustrations because there are a few black students on campus, and ever fewer are concerned with social issues,” he said. “But the members of the black community have perpetuated this gap between the athlete and the regular black student.”

BREWING PROBLEMS

The rift between black students and athletes is rooted in problems stemming from campus placement to myths of sexuality and deviance.

Four years ago Weinberg senior Candace Walker participated in the Summer Academic Workshop, a program designed to familiarize black and Latino freshmen with NU.

SAW students and athletes training for the new season shared housing four years ago — which contributed to animosity between the two groups.

“(The athletes) were always getting people in trouble and making them get write-ups,” Walker said. “After a few times, a lot of the black students decided they weren’t going to deal with them.”

When the academic year started, black freshman athletes were placed in North Campus housing. Living in Sargent and Lincoln halls put athletes closer to their training grounds but far from the Black House, widely considered the center of the black community here.

The displacement led to the idea that black students and black student-athletes lived two separate lives. The misconception held that non-athletes focused on studies, while athletes came to score touchdowns and slam dunk.

Tensions grew as the two sides would meet in the Norris University Center each Saturday night for parties sponsored by historically black Greek organizations, said Jitim Young, captain of the men’s basketball team.

At the parties, Young said, black athletes functioned as a community unto themselves — dancing with each other and hardly branching out. And when the male athletes started attracting females into their social circle, resentment grew from the other black men.

The resentment resulted in rumors that black athletes were “dogs” who demeaned black women and chased the skirts of white women.

“They felt threatened because females love athletes because we’re strong, competitive and good-looking guys,” said Young, a Communication senior. “We felt like they didn’t want us, so we stayed by ourselves.”

Geography, stories of distrust and perceptions of entitlement mix together to concoct a prejudice that is still hard for athletes and students of any race to counter.

Still, black students and black student-athletes find themselves tied to each other through sharing a history of oppression, which leads to a constant tug-of-war in athletes’ minds: Do they choose to give back to the black community, or do they choose to turn away from a community that stereotypes them as “dusty”?

Zack Strief, a white football player and Communication junior, has noticed a desire for black athletes to contribute to their ethnic community — an uncommon goal for white players on campus, he said.

“I definitely feel like the black community has more of an outreaching relationship with every athlete,” Strief said.

NOT JUST RACE

The large number of black male athletes at NU give them some solace when dealing with racial issues because they do not have to exclusively deal with white teammates. NU’s black female athletes do not have this luxury, as their low numbers restrict their social outlets.

“So many of the athletes are black males, so they have more opportunities to meet people,” said Ifeoma Okonkwo, the only black on the women’s basketball team. “There aren’t many black (women) athletes.”

According to NCAA statistics, eight black females played a varsity sport at NU in the fall of 2002. That same year there were 44 black male athletes at NU — constituting more than 25 percent of NU’s undergraduate black male population.

Because black female athletes are so far and few between, Okonkwo said professors won’t know the women play a sport until they miss their first class because of a roadtrip. In addition, other students hardly recognize female athletes because mo
st students don’t follow women’s sports.

At NU it is rare for a black female to have a black teammate. Okonkwo is the only black on the women’s basketball team, and Education sophomore Sheila McCorkle is NU’s lone black softball player. There are three blacks on the women’s soccer team.

Black males, on the other hand, usually have several other blacks their teams. There are four blacks on this season’s men’s basketball team. This year’s football team had 41 blacks.

Okonkwo said these factors all contribute to the perception that black female athletes are “dustier” than their male counterparts.

Eradicating the “dusty” label becomes harder for black females. And because they are often the only black on their teams, black female athletes have fewer chances to meet other black students who can introduce them to other black peers.

“As soon as I came in, I was already with the athletes, and it was hard to permeate that other group,” said McCorkle, an Education sophomore. “I already had my friends, and they already had their friends.”

Being a minority on a team can make for interesting conversations during practice, soccer player Lauren Johnson said. The Communication junior said she and a teammate bonded over the fact they both liked to crack their knuckles.

“(My teammate) said to me, ‘I’m a cracker, too'” Johnson said. “I asked her (jokingly), ‘Why do you have to bring up the racial thing?'”

At other times, many of the women said, their color makes them feel alone — no matter how wonderful their teammates are.

‘Banning Together’

Instead of confiding in her teammates, Okonkwo said she turns to staff members to help her cope with racial issues.

One of those administrators is her athletic advisor Steve King, who is black. King, a former Michigan football player, said he often provides black athletes with advice on balancing academics with social involvement in their communities.

“Most of the time, I tell them take off their blinders and go meet people,” King said. “Especially when they’re younger and have more time to spend at places like the Black House.”

Price of the football team said he took King’s advice last year when he and three of his teammates left their North Campus dorms and moved to the Foster-Walker Complex, located directly behind the Black House.

In the wake of several incidents of bias in the dorms over the past year, Price said black people at the Plex began “banning together.” The gray pavement of the Plex’s parking lot soon replaced Ryan Field’s green turf as the home to his most memorable moments at NU.

“We had so much fun there last year,” Price said. “We had parties, barbecues — we’d play hide-and-seek.”

Now, he and Essex have started the Black Student Athlete Association to help other black athletes “bridge the gap” between them and black students.

But Price’s organization is just one of the many steps helping to redefine the relationship between black student-athletes and the black community as a whole.

Carretta Cooke, director of African American Student Affairs, said she has observed a difference in the relationship between older black athletes and black students.

“I’ve noticed that, especially within the last year, there’s been greater visibility among some of the black athletes,” Cooke said. “And having that kind of visibility speaks a lot to younger athletes. They need to see the older athletes do it.”

Cooke credits this heightened presence in part to athletes joining historically black fraternities and sororities. The current presidents of NU’s three historically black fraternities each have played a varsity sport at NU.

Wright, who pledged Alpha Phi Alpha during his sophomore year, said “going Greek” allowed him to shake off the perception of being dusty.

The six black Greek organizations on campus seem to play a significant role in the social life of the black students. In a week a black fraternity or sorority might host speakers, hold game nights at the Black House or throw a weekend party at Norris.

Because the organizations are responsible for a number of programs during the year, they are powerful organizations within the black community.

And with the increase in student-athletes membership in such organizations, black athletes are more inclined to attend social events with their Greek brethren. This makes it easier for black athletes to meet other black students.

But the easiest way for black athletes to meet other blacks might be through understanding and supporting each other, the basketball team’s Young said. A simple smile at athletes walking down Sheridan Road or a loud cheer for them during games can mean a lot to a black athlete, he added.

“The black athletes on campus love black people and respect our black women,” Young said. “We never forget about the black people here. Black people get stereotyped enough, so we don’t need to stereotype our own.”

Isolated. Lost. ‘Dusty’?

Daily Sports takes an in-depth look at the relationship between NU’s black athletes

and the its black community as a whole.

Today: The social dynamic between black student-athletes and black non-athletes

on campus

Thursday: The impact that having a disproportionately large number of black male athletes has on the entire black undergraduate population.