Jackson, Johnson Look Back at Black Student-Athlete Summit

At the start of 2021, Dallas Jackson of James Madison baseball and Michael Johnson of JMU football represented the JMU Athletics at the 2021 Black Student-Athlete Summit, hosted virtually by The University of Texas on Jan. 6-8. The two Dukes were the first student-athletes from JMU to attend this summit, having been chosen after long and extensive involvement in diversity and inclusion efforts within the athletics department.

Thank you guys for talking about this experience! What connected you to this summit in the first place? How did you get the information?

Dallas Jackson: For me it was through [Asst. A.D. for Student-Athlete Leadership] Meredith [Crawford] - she sent both of us an email about the Black Student-Athletes Summit. I heard about it before and heard of athletes attending, but didn't look into it until hearing about it from Meredith.

Michael Johnson: Basically the same way for me; I heard about it through Meredith. My mom told me about it in the past but I never did any research and had just heard of it.

When you found out about it what were you hoping to gain from the summit?

MJ: Mainly, I was going into it in hopes of gaining more connections and seeing what people have done in the past themselves. I also wanted to help JMU Athletics and my main focus was to get things JMU could do, like intangible things, back onto the table in order to improve our university and our athletics program.

DJ: For me, going into the summit: the biggest thing was networking. I know there are thousands of other athletes that are doing big things for their universities and organizations, so networking, trying to figure what they are doing at their universities and find out what works and what does not work. Like Mike said, I wanted to bring back ideas that work to implement here to help us. I definitely went in with an open mind as well. We met with a lot of administration and staff of other schools, other athletic directors and coaches from different teams and that was definitely a big plus with that as well.

What is the mission or the goals of the summit?

DJ: For the summit, it was based off two different tracks: a professional track and a student-athlete track. The professional track was more staff and sports administration, AD's, coaches, academic advisors - of course, the student-athletes track was for student-athletes. They both had different purposes and goals. For student-athletes, it was more ways of bettering yourself as a leader on and off the field - there were different seminars each day that went over specific purposes and titles to what it was trying to accomplish. So, I think the biggest thing was just really building your toolkit and your leadership skills to bring back with you to whatever school that you attend.

MJ: Yeah, their mission statement was to come together and engage in solution-focused dialogue around the challenges and opportunities associated with black student athletes.

What was the day to day of the summit? What was the involvement you guys had and what did the summit involve?

MJ: Like Dallas said, we split up into professional track and the student-athlete track and the two of us went into the student-athlete track. There was a series of zoom calls throughout the entire day and they were about an hour apiece all throughout the day until about 6 p.m. They'd take you throughout many different seminars talking about different things, like there was one about mental health and getting outside of the athlete bubble - realizing that you are not just a student-athlete and things of that nature.

Was there anything you saw at the summit that you had not thought of or was new to you guys?

DJ: Yeah, every day I felt there were new ideas being implemented in our group chats. People were speaking and just listening to some of their stories. One of the biggest things that was very eye-opening to see was how other schools all over the country are really trying to get their student-athletes to study abroad. That was a big topic that was brought up during the student athletes summit: getting athletes passports before they graduate. So it was lots of things that you might not necessarily think of as a student-athlete because everything is so much on the field, but there were so many things that schools are doing off the field to allow their student athletes success when they graduate.

MJ: Yeah, that was good. One of the things that I really think they tried to drive home was the idea of being prepared after college. They said one thing that I really loved- and I know Dallas liked it too - that every student athlete needs to have a full-time job offer, you need to have an acceptance letter to a graduate program, you need to have a scouting report of yourself and your individual skills that you have, and then you need some type of entrepreneurial idea that you want to launch someday. I think that's a really cool thing that JMU could get our athletic program to really promote and drive that into our student athletes minds that you should try and have all four of those things when you graduate.

DJ: On top of that, like Mike said, they are really trying to prepare you for both outside of school and being an athlete in school and really setting the standard and harping on setting the standard high. Like, everywhere you go, they were talking about teams that travel with resumes and cover letters and different things that represent them because you never really know who you might come across. So setting the highest standard when representing your university, looking the part and carrying yourself like a professional.

Back to JMU, did you hear anything they brought up about the summit? What kind of things is JMU doing slightly ahead of the curve that are helpful and beneficial to everything?

MJ: For one, we are trying to get out there and trying to talk about it - like the unity statement we released. Another thing is, we had a meeting a couple weeks ago where we talked with a few administrators - Roger Soenksen and Curt Dudley and a few others - and we talked about ways we could get that out there. We also mentioned that there could be a class that people could take to understand diversity and issues of race and blackness and things like that, just to educate the community and the student body more. I feel like we are getting towards that and there is evidence of that.

After 'going' to the summit, what do you think are the best or next opportunities for JMU Athletics to continue making progress and keep pushing forward in this area?

DJ: We've already implemented some things - for Martin Luther King Day, each team did MLK quotes and that was something that we got straight out of the Black Student-Athlete Summit and brought back - an idea that another school implemented that could and did work here. Honestly, it's huge having the resources and the network to reach out to other student-athletes at other schools to help branch ideas, because I think - as a student-athlete - all the ideas are not going to come from the administration.

As a student-athlete, we see a lot of different things through social media and through other athletes at other schools and I think that is where it starts. There are a lot of ideas that I have brainstormed, but lots of them have been established through the Black Student-Athlete Summit through what I have heard other schools doing. So I think it all comes down to us student-athletes networking with other student-athletes within our conference and the NCAA and working with our administrators to bring new ideas to fruition.

MJ: I think there should be a board of students. I don't think faculty can see what we see. Being in the locker room, you talk to your peers about the things that go on and there are issues that you encounter all the time that faculty just will not see, being in their office and not being in the trenches, like the back-and-forth of the dining halls, parties and such. I think this has more to do with preparing your students for the future and I think Mr. Bourne, our athletic administration and all the coaches need to require each student-athlete, by the end of their freshman year, to have some sort of resume made that they can build throughout their four years. I feel like that should be a requirement for all the athletic teams.

Another thing is that I feel like there should be a course that helps educate everyone on diversity and inclusion. I do not know what that would specifically entail, but I feel like some type of direct education can only benefit.

It sounds like everything you guys are saying is about education and empowerment as the two main pushes - is that a good way of characterizing it?

Both, emphatically: Yes.

What are you guys hoping your next steps are going to be as you help JMU Athletics get better in this area and keep educating and that sort of thing?

DJ: For me, you kind of just said it: educating. I know, with baseball, I am always looking to educate and help those guys if they have any questions about diversity and inclusion and with any ideas they might have to implement here at JMU through SAAC or Dukes Lead or Dukes Let's Talk. I'm open for all ideas from any athlete.

Just keep the conversation pushing, keep educating yourself and the biggest thing, which I have told many student-athletes, is do not be afraid to ask a question. You are not going to get jumped or yelled at for just asking a question. It shows that you are willing to educate yourself and step out on a limb and be uncomfortable asking a question. So that is the biggest thing for me: Education. Education. education.

MJ: I'd probably say the same thing - being that it is my second semester of senior year, I only have the rest of this year to talk to my teammates in the locker room and stuff. I guess that I'm trying to reiterate what we've come from and, being that I am in SCAR and helped found SCAR, education is one of the things that I preach more and I do that mostly on our social media and our GroupMe. I'll occasionally talk about it with a few teammates and my roommates especially because they are white and I try to educate them on certain things that they hear and stuff.

What would be your biggest recommendation for both student-athletes and staff that are pushing to get involved with this stuff more in the future and wanting to take steps to help with diversity and inclusion?

DJ: Honestly, I'd say send student athletes to the Black Student-Athlete Summit - and it does not have to just be black student-athletes! There were athletes of all races there, which was great to see. There were other races that went to HBCUs, so it doesn't have to be just black student-athletes, it can be any student-athletes and we encourage to send a staff or a coach or anyone that's in sports administration, because there is a professional track of the summit.

There were a couple times that Mike and I hopped off the student-athlete track and tried to get into the professional track, just to see what they were talking about. We would recommend that we try to send more student-athletes and some athletics staff.

MJ: I'd say keep doing the summit - like he said - every year. I know it is a little expensive but I'd say send two student-athletes and two faculty. I feel like the faculty is a really important part of it, to bring things back. The student-athlete track was mainly focused on the individual and how you can progress after your athletic career is over, so I really feel like the faculty is the most important part for a university standpoint.

As you guys are getting ready to go out into the world, what kind of diversity inclusion are you guys taking out into a world that is very clearly struggling with it in 2021? What have you guys learned and gained that you can bring from outside of the JMU bubble, for lack of a better word?

DJ: For me, I've done a lot of things in my community back at home and I have been involved here. The biggest thing I am bringing is my voice. I'm not afraid to voice my opinion in a good or a bad way. I think that having these uncomfortable conversations is what is going to make our world grow, because it is not easy having these conversations. If more people have a voice and voice how they feel and jump into the conversation with an open mind to hear other people and what they have to say, I feel that is where progression starts.

I also continue, to this day, to educate myself. Listening to different speakers or what my teammates have to say or how the way they grew up or where they come from affects things - I always need to see other perspectives like that.

MJ: Yeah, pretty much the same thing for me - I just call mine uncomfortable education. My entire life, I've been in majority-white schools, white areas and things like that. My roommates are white, like I said, and we have conversations a lot. They are not afraid to talk to me about this stuff and they will straight-up say what is on their minds and it will be uncomfortable sometimes, but we will just talk about it. That's just the way it is at home too - I've had to just stop certain people and it's uncomfortable, but you just have to educate them because they won't know otherwise. It's just how they were raised and all they know, because they don't understand it and haven't lived it.

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