What began in January as a casual conversation between NBA star Stephen Curry and a Howard University junior has transcended into a milestone for the historically black college.
Otis Ferguson IV, now a senior, met Curry during a campus visit to screen the documentary Emanuel—which the basketball player and tech entrepreneur executive produced. It recounts the 2015 mass shooting that killed nine worshippers at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. After the screening, Ferguson was among the lucky students who talked and took pictures with Curry. But Ferguson also used the quick opportunity to connect with the superstar about a passion he knew they both shared: the game of golf. The student told Curry that his solo crusade to get a golf team at Howard proved unsuccessful. As an avid golfer himself, Curry was inspired to help change that.
Three-time NBA Champion Stephen Curry (right) has partnered with Howard University to launch the school’s first NCAA Division 1 men’s and women’s golf teams by 2020. Curry was inspired by Howard student Otis Ferguson (second from left), during a conversation about the lack of a golf team at the school.
“[Otis] had sent out flyers trying to make people come to a room on Howard’s campus and just get people interested in the game, but he wanted to take it to another level,” Curry said at a news conference Monday, as he stood under a large white tent at Langston Golf Course in Northeast D.C. “And here we are announcing a new golf program, all because of this guy.”
By way of an undisclosed pledge of support, Curry will enable the university to launch NCAA Division I men’s and women’s golf teams in the 2020-2021 academic year. The operating costs and full scholarships necessary to run such a program can amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.
“It’s unbelievable,” Ferguson said. “I couldn’t have made it happen on my own, and to see how it’s come along seven months later is just awesome.”
Howard officials will spend the next year hiring a coach, talent scouting, and training to have a competitive Division I team for its inaugural season. However, the ultimate goal is for Curry’s generous investment, which includes top-of-the-line equipment and uniforms from Under Armour and other major sporting companies, to help increase access for African American players to play elite golf.
The Shrinking Landscape of HBCU Golf
Despite the success of the PGA Tour and black golfers like Tiger Woods and Harold Varner III, there’s still a shortage of African American players in the top-level tournament. And coaches at HBCU campuses across the country are struggling to find black athletes with the skills to play elite golf. The high cost of playing the game remains the primary reason for the lack of diversity in the sport. Only around 30 of the more than 100 HBCUs nationwide currently have golf teams. Some have had to scrap their team due to financial hardships.
“Bringing the sport to Howard from a competitive point of view is great, but another major part of this is going to be bringing the sport to several new Howard University students who can participate in it as well as play with their families, and I think that’s just as critical,” said Wayne A.I. Frederick, the university’s president.
The golf course is historically where business deals are done, hence mostly white men making decisions. Frederick touted the opportunity for Howard students to be exposed to future business deals and change that narrative.
Curry has committed to a generous six years of support for Howard’s new golf program.
Among professional golfers, 75 percent are male and 86 percent are white, according to a 2015 Golf Diversity and Inclusion report by Golf 20/20. Golf industry workers, everyone from caddies to greenskeepers, are 90 percent male and 88 percent white, the report found.
Rather than inspiring the next generation of black players, Woods’ success was viewed as an anomaly. Historically, it has been easier—and cheaper—for athletic black youth to pick up a football, basketball, or baseball and master those sports instead.
“When you hear about these passionate student athletes who have the talent but don’t have a fair shot at the game, it’s tough,” Curry said about golf.
Golf At Howard U
According to Frederick, the university previously had a Division II golf team and various intercollegiate and intramural club teams decades ago. But the new Division I team will be the first in Howard’s 152-year history.
It’s still undecided where Howard’s team will practice and play. Langston, officials said, is an option high on the list. After all, D.C.’s historic black public golf course was named for John Mercer Langston, the first dean of Howard’s law school and the first African American elected to the United States Congress from Virginia.
Officials said the decision to create both men’s and women’s golf teams next year was a deliberate part of Curry’s investment and commitment to gender equality and equity. The stats for women in golf are low, but encouraging. According to the National Golf Foundation’s 2018 Golf Industry report, women comprise 24 percent of all golfers, an increase of more than 13 percent over the previous five years.
“There will be one more women’s scholarship than there will be men’s scholarship,” said Kery Davis, Howard’s athletic director. “[The women’s competition] will be an independent team that will probably start in 2021, with the hope of eventually joining the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, should it gain enough institutions to host a Division I program for women.”
This story originally appeared on WAMU.
