By Chris Stevens
HBCU Sports
https://hbcusports.com/
Tuskegee athletic director Reginald Ruffin has drawn the line in the sand early this season.
A post from his Facebook page took former TU athletes to task for asking about free tickets and sideline passes for Golden Tiger football games this season, encouraging them, succinctly, to “Buy your damn tickets!”
While some on social media felt Ruffin, a two-time SIAC football championship coach at Miles College, was out of line, more than a few others agreed with his rant.
Add me to the latter; we have to start giving and giving back to our institutions if we want them to survive. Bottom line.
You don’t have to look far to see what a lack of resources and funding can do to HBCUs. More than a few are in peril because state and federal governments refuse to fund public HBCUs the same way their PWI counterparts are funded.
Private HBCUs face even more danger because there is no federal or state money coming their way. Tennessee State is just now getting 90-plus million dollars for campus upkeep but it isn’t nearly enough.
For Tuskegee, the school founded by Booker T. Washington, they have no choice but to cast their buckets down where they are and grind it out. Everyone has to pitch in to make sure one of the oldest and most well-known HBCUs survive a world where Donald Trump and Linda McMahon (there’s no way somebody who got Tombstoned by Kane should be anywhere near an education position) are actively working to make Americans dumber and Black people extinct.
Sports have always been a way to draw people together, especially at HBCUs. Fellowship, camaraderie and the spirit of competition have been a constant in the culture of our schools.
Our schools can’t survive on “Hey, isn’t that so-and-so who scored the winning points in 2004?” Great memories yes, but memories don’t buy new locker rooms, provide scholarships or pay professors and other vital campus personnel.
Like it or not – and most of us don’t – we live in a world that is ruled by Eddie Levert once yelled about many years ago – the almighty dollar. And yes, our schools “got to have it.”
While people may be upset with Reginald Ruffin calling out former athletes looking for handouts, he wasn’t wrong; give to your schools. They need it now more than ever
Chris Stevens, an HBCU Sports contributing writer, is a Delaware State University graduate and sportswriter with 21 years of experience. You can follow him on Twitter at CJWritesNThangs.
