Aside from its surprisingly impressive postseason run, women’s college basketball is on the C-list of sports in most parts of the country, including the Bay Area. But change is coming, and there are concrete ways to accelerate it.
One such approach is imagination. It will be on display at Haas’s Pavilion in Berkeley this weekend. There, the game has a purpose beyond basketball.
In 2021, the annual California Classic became the Raising the BAR Invitational. The rebranding, led by Cal women’s coach Charmin Smith, is an attempt to recognize issues within and outside of the sport.
“After the summer of George Floyd’s murder, there was a huge conversation about investing in social justice,” Smith said. “As people went back to work and COVID-19 (deaths decreased), I felt like we weren’t having the same message or the same conversations. I want to continue these conversations around social justice and I wanted to do something that would last forever.”
BAR is an acronym for Basketball, Activism, and Representation, an initiative that raises awareness of social issues related to race, gender, and ethnicity.
The tournament begins Friday, with the University of California taking on San Jose State at noon, followed by Winthrop vs. Texas A&M at 2:30 p.m. The losing teams will face each other in a repechage game Saturday at noon, which will precede the championship game.
All four coaches are black women: SJSU’s April Phillips, Texas A&M’s Joni Taylor, and Winthrop’s Semeka Randall Ray and Smith. It’s not as common in college basketball as one might think.
That’s the spec for this tournament.
“It’s really great to have four Black female head coaches in the same space at one time,” Phillips said. “Certainly, it brings a lot of awareness, mainly that we are a minority in this profession.”
Black women held 21% of head coaching positions at the Division I level in 2022-23, according to the NCAA’s demographic database. This is significantly more than black men (8%), slightly less than white men (26%), but exactly half as many as white women (42%).
Meanwhile, 68 percent of Division I women’s basketball student-athletes identified as black (42) or “other” (26) on the data sheet.
“There’s a huge difference in wording,” Smith said. “This seems like a great issue to address and talk about. This tournament has all head coaches, all Black women, and representation.”
Make no mistake, Smith and Phillips are committed to racial and ethnic equality.
they are activists. They don’t wear it on their foreheads. They don’t have to because it’s an obligation that comes with the color of their skin and their position of influence.
“Oftentimes, black women in this profession are given the heavy burden of trying to elevate the sport as an activity,” Phillips said. “That’s not a weight I want to carry. I don’t think it’s my responsibility to educate everyone involved. If I feel passionate about something, I’m willing to work on it.
“But activism is born in the shoes we wear. It’s a daily journey. And it doesn’t have to be a particular event or a particular uproar within the community. Every day, our shoes are at all it’s different.”
The beginnings of Raising the BAR Invitational began in the summer of 2020. The killing of George Floyd sparked a global uprising among people of all colors, ethnicities, and genders. Businesses large and small recognized the benefits of becoming more inclusive and expressed a willingness to open their doors and listen.
That’s true for some companies, but some companies are quietly trying to “woke” (a term that once meant “socially conscious” but has now been twisted into derision) from within the company. I’m trying to eliminate it.
“There’s been a lot of talk about investing in social justice,” Smith said. “Then when people went back to work and COVID-19 (ended), we didn’t see the same messages or the same conversations happening.
“We wanted to continue these conversations around social justice and do something that would last forever.”
UC was friendly from the start, receiving immediate support from Dr. Tyrone Douglas, who became the university’s first associate athletic director for diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in the summer of 2020.
“This is who we are,” Smith says. “Our programs will continue because these things matter not only to women of color, but to other women as well. It’s something that everyone understands and appreciates.”
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