Writing the story when the story is about you

Beginning in June, I will assume the responsibility of rebooting Durham Voice, a community newspaper founded by Jock Lauterer after the murder of Eve Carson, a student at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. Prior to ending circulation, Durham Voice focused on stories in North East Central Durham (NECD) with student journalist from UNC-CH, North Carolina Central University and Durham Technical Community College. The focus of work will expand beyond NECD to include all of Durham with student reporters from local colleges and universities. 

This column is inspired by the work of student journalist at the University of Missouri and the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at UNC-CH.

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Commentary - It’s the moment that changes the way I teach. My students seemed overburdened by the news happening outside the building.

Students couldn’t avoid the mass of news reporters on campus to tell the stories of disillusioned Black students. They were calling for the resignation or termination of University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe.

Jonathan Butler, a graduate student at the University of Missouri - Columbia, launched a hunger strike to bring attention to racism on the state’s flagship campus.

“Mr. Wolfe had ample opportunity to create policies and reforms that could shift the culture of Mizzou in a positive direction but in each scenario, he failed to do so,” Butler said.

Payton Head, the student body president, shared a personal experience with bigotry and anti-gay sentiments on campus on his Facebook page. He claims unidentified people riding in the back of a pickup truck hurled racial slurs at him.

“For those of you who wonder why I’m always talking about the importance of inclusion and respect, it’s because I’ve experienced moments like this multiple times at THIS university, making me not feel included here," Head posted on September 12, 2015.

My students seemed wearied by the national attention after the football team announced they would not practice or play until Wolfe resigned. The decision would cost the university a $1 million fine if they forfeited their upcoming game against Brigham Young University.

“How do you write the story when you’re the story,” I asked my students.

I waited for an answer from one of the 19 students. My one Black student seemed overwhelmed by activities on campus. The look on her face clarified what I felt. She needed more than a class on journalism writing could offer. I didn’t want her to answer. I cherished an opportunity for white students to speak.

“I don’t want to be here,” a white woman said. “I want to join the protest.”

‘I can’t write this story without bias,” another student said.

The nods spoke to a common view that extended beyond the call of Concerned Student 1950 – the group of Black students seeking the president’s resignation.

I felt something brewing in my belly. After teaching lessons involving finding the story within the story, my students were learning lessons not taught in textbooks. After sharing my personal grappling in writing columns aimed at offering a perspective beyond the views of white men in newsrooms, my students felt the tension.

There’s more to the story than they considered prior to enrolling to learn the craft of journalism.

I taught them to consider the pain in the story. We discussed finding tension in the story within the story – the unknown truth hidden by an inability to see and feel others carrying what words often miss.

We talked about overcoming privilege. I shared the limits of my Christian, heterosexual, male privilege. I shared how being Black impacts how I view the story. We discussed how personal experience is a tool when used to advance the story beyond what each of us take for granted.

Journalists are challenged to bring their humanity to the story. This is the gift of storytelling. It’s what separates humans from the stale presentation of artificial intelligence.

“You are standing in the middle of history,” I told my students. “This moment is a gift to each of you. How will you write this story? Who are the people who need to be heard? What’s missing in how we inform the world regarding the unfolding of this historical moment?”

I shared my experience growing up in Columbia, MO - being the first local Black person to graduate from the school of journalism. I talked about my encounters with race on a campus with an overwhelming white population.

I told my students to leave to join the protest. I challenged them to take time to heal. While pondering what it all means, I told them to find the story within the story, and to begin by accepting this story is about each of them.

They left to write that story.

I left inspired to help students find stories beyond what they couldn’t see.

 

Leo Lewis II transitions from the NFL while obtaining Ph.D

Every turn he took they said he was too small.  They said he was too small to play college football.  He excelled. He was much too small to make it in the NFL.  He played 13 seasons.

Leo Lewis III wasn’t heavily recruited out of high school after winning the state championship for Columbia Hickman High School in 1974.  He didn’t get drafted after playing football for the University of Missouri.  He’s only 5-foot-7.  When he played he only weighed 167 pounds.

It’s hard to measure the size of a person’s heart.

Maybe it’s something in the gene pool.  Leo Lewis, Jr., his father, is a legend of the Canadian Football League.  He was a running back with the Winnipeg Bombers and was named All-Pro six times and earned a spot in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1973.  The older Leo had an 11-year career and rushed for 8,861 yards, and averaged 29.1 as a kickoff returner.

Pops has another son, Marc Lewis, who played professionally for the USFL Denver Gold and the CFL’s Oakland Invaders.  All three were too small to play.  All three have big hearts and a determination not to be ruled by the narrow limits people use to measure possibilities.

Leo III was cut or released five times – three times by the Vikings and one each by the St. Louis Cardinals and the Cleveland Brown.  He returned each season to play for the Vikings.  When he retired in 1991, he had played in more games than any Viking wide receiver and was the team’s all-time leader in punt returns.  He outlasted three head coaches.

He kept coming back. He also kept going back to school.

 “I took classes every year after leaving Missouri,” the younger Leo told me.  In 1985, he obtained a Master of Science degree from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.

He knew his stay in the NFL would be short.  Younger, faster athletes kept vying for his spot on the team.

“You have to prepare for life after the NFL,” Lewis says.  “It can end anytime.”

He now holds a Ph.D.

 In 1997, Lewis earned his Ph.D. in Kinesiology from the University of Minnesota. His work focused on the social and psychological dimensions of sports. 

Lewis was appointed the Director of Player Development for the Vikings in 1992.  He managed the team’s personal and career development programs that included encouraging personal growth in the areas of continuing education, financial management, alternative career exploration, and family assistance.  In 2000, the program was awarded the most outstanding in the NFL.

In 2006, he was appointed associate director of athletics and student athlete development at the University of Minnesota. Lewis prepares student/athletes for the realities that face professional athletes.  He preaches the message that life must continue after the helmet, shoulder pads and cleats are placed in the locker the last time.

Lewis teaches his own story.

“Things are much harder for athletes today,” Lewis says.  “They have so much more expected of them than when I played.”

There’s more time spent preparing to play.  There’s more time spent in the classroom.  There’s more time spent on the road.  Today’s athletes are expected to do so much more.

“We have to stress the importance of academics,” Lewis says.  “It’s what keeps so many from being unable to play.”

Athletes come to college with a variety of needs.  Lewis is developing a program that tailors the student/athlete.  It’s a holistic approach that keeps many from falling through the cracks.  Some enter college prepared for the transition.  Others lack the tools needed to conform to the expectations of college life.

Then there’s the influence of parents. Lewis says his parents stressed the importance of academics.  It’s what kept him going back to take classes - one summer at a time, until he was ready to write his dissertation.

“I had people in my life that steered me in the right direction.  I had parents who reminded me of the importance of education.  It’s important to have people to guide you through making the right decisions,” Lewis says.

Lewis was the little Viking that refused to go away.  He was too small to play.  He had just enough to play.  Just enough to keep coming back.

Maybe it’s because Lewis understand life is more than a game.  Maybe it’s the balance between the field and the books that makes for the rearing of a man.  Maybe it’s there within the balance that true strength emerges above the rest.

Lewis said no to limitations.  He also said no to compromise.  He kept coming back, every off season, until he walked across the stage one last time.  He walked as a man defined by his own will to rise above the fame of football.

There are few better suited to teach young men what it takes to become a man.

Way to go Dr. Leo Lewis III.

 

The University of Missouri vs. UNC: My Past Duels My Present Life

Photo from the Columbia Daily Tribune

It’s official. I’m homesick. It’s more than the usual angst that comes during the holiday season. Yes, I miss my mom and pops, my sister, niece and nephew and members of the Kenney, Warrick, Bush and Crum clan in Columbia, Missouri. Yes, I miss Doodle Bug, Mert, Ed, Darren, Gerrod and Rodney. I miss life on the block that made us more than an old school posse – we were best friends and family. I miss playing ball in the park within walking distance from the block. I miss all of that.

Today, I miss what football meant back home. From those days when we played gang games with the boys over in Miles Manor to winning state High School championships, and watching our friends go off to make it big in the NFL. I miss watching Leo Lewis prove everyone wrong when he rose to fame at Mizzou and then made it big with the Minnesota Vikings. I remember watching Gary Anderson as he made that move with the San Diego Chargers that caught attention across the nation. I still smile when I think about playing ball with Geri Ellis who went on to be inducted into the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame.

There were so many local stars. Many left Hickman High to play ball at Mizzou, the school I attended. I remember when Hickman and Rockbridge, a school just opened, won state championships in their divisions the same year. We dominated. We took pride in the game. We played it as much as we could.

I’m not saying things were better in the goods ole days. I just miss those days. There’s no place like home. Home sweet home – football, barbeque that isn’t chopped and the university known for those columns behind Jesse Hall – is the stuff that made me into the man I am today.

The old me and the new me will clash in less than two hours. The old home, Missouri, will go to battle with the new home – The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill- in the Independence Bowl. It helps that I’m protected by my affiliation with Duke University and the deep-seeded hatred between those Tar Heels and Blue Devils. I’ve found comfort in pretending that I care about the war on tobacco road. My heart is back home where football is king and the smell of the trees in autumn awakens thoughts of big dudes fighting to cross the goal line, rather than the sound of a swish with a three point shot.

Life down here in Dixie has been lonely at times. All that talk about color options – Carolina Blue versus the darker version – leaves me on the outside of the civil war. I crave the black & gold and the sound of the crowd coming from Fauort Field. I miss the chat of “M-I-Z-Z-O-U, T-I-G-E-R-S,” in anticipation of another six points.

I’m surrounded by all these blue folks as I crave black and gold. You see, Mizzou is more than a place that educated me in the field of journalism. It’s where this boy grew up. I love life in Durham, NC, but there is no place like home.

The University of Missouri versus The University of North Carolina. The past versus the present. The best of the past versus the best of, well some of the best of, what is in my life today. There is no winner in this game. It’s just another reminder that life is full of decisions, and you can’t have it both ways. In choosing between the past and the present you have to live with what it means to decide.

I wish I could live in the middle, but today I will root for the past. Tomorrow will be a new day, and I will go back to life in the present.

Until the game begins, I deal with life in the middle.