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HBCU 101: Sports Edition

Sports are a cornerstone of HBCU culture. They secure exposure, sponsorship and funding for storied and longstanding African American academic institutions that have often been chronically underfunded.

For this edition of HBCU 101, Leoneda Inge takes a trip into the world of college sports and the critical role sports play at historically Black colleges and universities.

She chats with Vaughn Wilson of HBCU GameDay about this season's football results and basketball prospects.

CIAA Commissioner Jacqie McWilliams-Parker speaking at Fayetteville State University's 2024 Spring Commencement
Fayetteville State University
CIAA Commissioner Jacqie McWilliams-Parker speaking at Fayetteville State University's 2024 Spring Commencement

Then CIAA Commissioner Jacqie McWilliams-Parker discusses the challenges and joys of being the first-ever woman to run the oldest Black athletic conference in the country.

And student-athlete Kyrstin Johnson reflects on all-too-brief experience as a gymnast at Talladega College, only the second HBCU to have a gymnastics team. Johnson won a college national championship in vault for Talladega in April 2024 and three months later, the program at Talladega was forced to end, due to lack of funding.

Guests

Vaughn Wilson, president of Mega Ace Media and HBCU GameDay contributor

Jacqie McWilliams-Parker, commissioner of the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association

Kyrstin Johnson, student-athlete and college national champion in vault

Leoneda Inge is the co-host of WUNC's "Due South." Leoneda has been a radio journalist for more than 30 years, spending most of her career at WUNC as the Race and Southern Culture reporter. Leoneda’s work includes stories of race, slavery, memory and monuments. She has won "Gracie" awards, an Alfred I. duPont Award and several awards from the Radio, Television, Digital News Association (RTDNA). In 2017, Leoneda was named "Journalist of Distinction" by the National Association of Black Journalists.
Stacia L. Brown is a writer and audio storyteller who has worked in public media since 2016, when she partnered with the Association of Independents in Radio and Baltimore's WEAA 88.9 to create The Rise of Charm City, a narrative podcast that centered community oral histories. She has worked for WAMU’s daily news radio program, 1A, as well as WUNC’s The State of Things. Stacia was a producer for WUNC's award-winning series, Great Grief with Nnenna Freelon and a co-creator of the station's first children's literacy podcast, The Story Stables. She served as a senior producer for two Ten Percent Happier podcasts, Childproof and More Than a Feeling. In early 2023, she was interim executive producer for WNYC’s The Takeaway.
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