Experiencing Diversity Through Sport - Matt Franzen, Doane College

Today's Blog entry on MLK day comes from Matt Franzen, the head football coach at Doane College.  Matt shares his reflections on how diversity has had positive effects on the building of a team in intercollegiate athletics.  He also shares how Doane College and the Tiger football team has embraced diversity in Crete, Nebraska.  Thank you Matt for sharing your story and reflections with us on our Blog.

Last Friday night I sat on the floor in our Crete home with my 1 year old daughter Cora, listening to
U2's Joshua Tree album and thinking about what I would write this blog post about.  She found the volume dial and gave it a healthy turn.  As she started to bounce up & down with the music (she gets her musical gift from her mother), her 4 year old sister Anna came running into the room yelling "turn the music down, it's hurting my ears!".

     

My first thought was that Cora would turn to her and yell, "If it's too loud, you're too old!".  But since she's not yet speaking more than a word or two at a time, her look said as much as she glared at me when I turned down the noise.  

I'd been thinking about writing about the unique opportunity we have in football to infuse our team with diversity and the value in this.  This subtle difference between these two sisters (Anna actually likes music just fine, but Cora seems to FEEL it in her soul) convinced me to share my thoughts on this topic.

Our team at Doane has always been fairly diverse, at least compared to other teams located in semi-rural Nebraska towns.  Building a team where all members come from a very similar background makes the job easier but I think an opportunity is lost.  

As a staff, we work hard to build diversity through recruiting and also to foster diversity once we get

our kids on campus.  Finding cultural diversity takes out-of-state recruiting in many cases and also takes time and attention once the kids get to town.  Handling a young man from Dallas, TX the same way as a young man from Thedford, NE generally does not end well.  As a coach, you have to go into this situation understanding that these kids come from very different backgrounds, both geographically and likely socially as well.  They listen to different music, dress differently, and probably see a different barber.  Getting to know the kids and their individual needs is critical.

We talk to our team very early in pre-season camp about understanding and appreciating the differences in their teammates.  Each of us come from somewhere different.  Many will come from different home settings (1 parent, 2 parents, adoptive parents, grandparents, no parents, etc.).  Some have been raised in a church environment and some never will step foot in a church.  Belief systems and priorities are going to be different among young men when you have 120 team members.

We work hard to create an environment of respect and tolerance among our team members at Doane.  One of the best parts of coaching, for me, is watching kids who come from a very homogenous environment get to know and genuinely love guys who don't look like them.  We all have prejudices and stereotypes and football provides an opportunity to break these while our kids are still young and impressionable.  As legendary coach Bill Curry points out, when a white kid from the country brings an African-American city kid home for Thanksgiving break, lives are changed - not so much for the kids in this instance, but for the families.  These offers are reciprocated and the impact on both sides is tremendous.

The beauty of diversity, in my mind, is also in preparing our young people for the world they will soon enter.  The ability to accept and appreciate differences in others that one will encounter down the road is priceless and opens up all kinds of wonderful life experiences.

I'll sign off with one of my favorite memories of late.  My wife and girls and I were at the Doane-Midland basketball game last November when our 4-year-old went on a little jaunt.  She's taken to helping herself to a drink of water from the cooler behind the bench and this time headed down to try some Midland water.  After grabbing a swig, she started back and then took a sharp turn, walking directly in front of the Midland bench during live action!  My wife and I (parents of the year at this point...) watched aghast from the opposite end of the gym.  One of our players, Ferrari Shores, casually walked over and took her by the hand, then walked her around the floor back to mom and dad.  Anna has grown up around the team and didn't think twice about him coming to the rescue.  I'm pretty sure everyone in the gym couldn't help but notice a 6'3" 320 pound young black man walking hand-in-hand with a sprite little white girl who was skipping (yes, skipping) her way back to mom and dad. 

Good stuff indeed.

-Matt Franzen
Learn more about Matt Franzen HERE
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