Oberlin Softball Players Face Racism from Rose-Hulman

SPORTS

May 20, 2022 Established 1874

Oberlin Softball Players Face Racism from Rose-Hulman

The Oberlin softball team poses for a team photo on Culhane Field at Dolcemaschio Stadium. Photo by Amanda Phillips

Zoe Kuzbari Sports Editor

On April 3, during a double-header against the RoseHulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, IN, members of Oberlin’s softball team were confronted with racial slurs from the opposing team. In the wake of the incident, Oberlin will no longer play against Rose-Hulman in non-conference competitions. Still, the students who faced the racial abuse say they have felt unsupported by the College.

In the course of the double-header, fourth-year V Dagnino, third-year Lalli Lopez, and second-year Mia Brito, all athletes of color, were referred to as “monkeys” by Rose-Hulman players, who also made grunting and squeaking sounds.

Brito initially tried to brush off the abuse from the Rose-Hulman offenders, but the taunts did not stop.

“It became increasingly obvious that the racism was directed toward V and I as the [first] game went on,” she said. “The taunts stopped when V and I didn’t start the second game, but once we reentered the field, they immediately started again. I was very aware of what was going on.”

Brito, who typically plays first base, was standing only a few feet away from the dugout. She described being able to clearly see and hear the girls who were directing the hate at her.

“They made monkey noises and kept yelling, ‘Who let the monkeys out?!’ when I ran onto the field,” she said. “The players on the team made no effort to hide their racism, which I guess was the whole point. It was extremely difficult to keep my composure on the field — I had a pit in my chest and had to hold back tears while playing.”

As a person of color, Brito has always expected to face racism at some point in her life, but described the event as extremely hurtful nonetheless.

“I have always been extra aware of my skin tone while at away games, but it honestly was just shocking that this type of blatant racism is still accepted in 2022,” she said. “Obviously the racial discrimination we faced could have been worse but, for me, it opened the generational wound of racial trauma that my family has faced.”

Lopez echoed Brito’s statement, highlighting that being a POC will always come with challenges.

“Being a POC comes with an automatic target on your back from the moment you step out into the world,” they said. “You know this, but no matter how hard you try to prepare yourself for anything, it will never prepare you for actually enduring any sort of racist act.”

Dagnino, who is a catcher on the team, said that they weren’t able to fully process the experience until many days later when they called their father and explained what had happened.

“My father started crying on the phone with me,” Dagnino said. “He’s faced an extreme amount of pain and trauma in his life due to being an immigrant. He’s endured so much hate for being a Brown man here in America. He came to this country to make a better life for me and my family, and to hear that I had to go through something like this made him feel like he had failed to protect me.”

Since the incident, Dagnino has felt the sense of safety they had previously felt at Oberlin quickly dissipate, and they face daily anxiety attacks.

“Something I realized on the phone with my dad was that this kind of thing is something I might have to get used to — and that’s scary,” they said. “I don’t want to have to live the rest of my life like this, worried that I might get hate crimed or that when I’m doing something I love, like softball, that feeling of safety can just be ripped away from me.”

Like Dagnino, Lopez knows that this is something that will stick with them for the rest of their life.

“This event cuts so deep, but I’m still here,” they said. “I’ve never wanted to become stronger because of an experience like this, but it’s something that I’ll have to carry with me for the rest of my life, regardless of what I want.”

Upon returning to Oberlin, the three athletes on the softball team sought institutional support but were unable to find any through the College’s resources.

“I’m really fortunate that I have a therapist outside of Oberlin who has been able to help me work through this,” Dagnino said. “I also am in this line of work since I’m a part of [the Preventing and Responding to Sexual Misconduct program] and have close relationships with administrators in the department. If I didn’t have the privilege of knowing what to do, I don’t know where our mental headspaces would be. I called the Counseling Center a week after things went down and they said they had no availability for three weeks.”

Brito said that she ended up having to search for resources on campus on her own, a task that she felt should not have been her responsibility.

“Nothing was offered to me,” she said. “I had to do all the research on how to help myself on my own. We, being the victims, were expected to reach out on our own. That burden should not have been put on me. I am a full-time student-athlete with two jobs, yet still was expected to be the one who reaches out for support.”

Still, Delta Lodge Director of Athletics & Physical Education Natalie Winkelfoos has worked with the women’s head softball coach Sarah Schoenhoft, President Carmen Twillie Ambar, the Title IX office, and the staff at Rose-Hulman to address the racism that the three athletes experienced there.

“Coach Schoenhoft reached out to me immediately after she learned what occurred during their game — she was told after the game what the team had experienced,” Winkelfoos wrote in an email to the Review. “I reached out to the Rose-Hulman [Associate Director] Monday morning to discuss the situation and addressed it with her direct supervisor, the coach, and team.”

In addition to specific measures to address last month’s debacle, Schoenhoft also highlighted that mental health and regular team check-ins are highly important to the program’s values.

“Protecting mental health is of the utmost importance,” she wrote in an email to the Review. “As coaches we want to win, but at the end of the day, physical and emotional

Volume 151, Number 22

“Play Like A Girl” Inspires Next Generation of Athletes

Zoë Martin del Campo Contributing Sports Editor

With hopes of facilitating a love of sports among girls, Oberlin College Athletics held the eighth annual “Play Like A Girl” event May 15. The event, which was held virtually for the past two years, brings together coaches and players from women’s teams to mentor girls aged 5–12.

Director of Football Operations and Running Backs Coach Roseanna Smith participated in this year’s in-person “Play Like A Girl” event alongside members of the women’s basketball, lacrosse, soccer, swimming and diving, track and field, cross country, softball, volleyball, and field hockey teams.

“I wanted to participate because dreams are built around opportunities like this clinic,” she wrote in an email to the Review. “I’m a football coach today because of many mentors who invested in me instead of telling me why I couldn’t or shouldn’t play or coach football. To teach girls how to hit a bag with power, snap a football, and use their loudest voice to call a cadence is just the beginning because we find our passions and confidence in trying new things.”

According to the Women’s Sports Foundation, by age 14, girls will have dropped out of youth sports at twice the rate of boys. This makes the event’s mission especially critical. Second-year volleyball setter Taylor Gwynne emphasized the ways in which “Play Like A Girl” creates role models for participants.

“Events like “Play Like a Girl” provide a safe outlet for young athletes to experiment with sports they haven’t had the opportunity to participate in before,” she wrote in an email to the Review. “Not only are they getting new experiences, but they are interacting with role models that show them what they could use their sports to do in the future.”

Gwynne also believes that events such as “Play Like A Girl” show children that they can be successful student-athletes both on and off the field.

“As [Division III] athletes, we all came to school for academics first, which makes our programming more unique,” Gwynne wrote. “These children get to see what it’s like to be really devoted to your sport but also devoted to school and your future outside of sports as well. The role model athletes I interacted with when I was their age left a lasting impact on how I pursued competition and sports in the future, and I can only hope we are doing the same for these young athletes!”

Although women’s competition in male-dominated sports like football has historically been overlooked, Smith feels that recently, more athletes have been getting deserved recognition. Smith hopes that events such as “Play Like A Girl” will inspire the next generation of female athletes in the same way that Smith was inspired by athletes like Jennifer King, Lori Locust, Catherine Raîche and Kim Pegula.

“Sports are for everyone,” Smith wrote. “Football is no exception. Thousands of women have competed all over the country for decades … mostly in anonymity. States like Florida and Georgia offer girls high school varsity flag football, which has opened the pathway to college flag football teams and national flag and tackle teams. Girls are also competing for and earning college tackle football scholarships. I played football at a time when many fewer girls were playing, but I love to also see that so many more are finding a home, passion, and career in the game. … I’m grateful to get to do what I love in the footsteps of these women.”