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Posts Tagged ‘Tiani Reeves’

Diversity finally comes to the NU volleyball program

November 14, 2016 leoadambiga 1 comment

Briana Holman
Photo Courtesy Stephanie Carpenter/Nebraska Communications

 

Diversity finally comes to the NU volleyball program

©by Leo Adam Biga
Kudos to the Nebraska volleyball program for finally joining the 21st century by building a diverse roster of student-athletes that includes African-Americans. Better late than never. For decades the Husker volleyball program has been elite but its rosters have been lily-white, with an occasional Asian-American player, but you would have to look long and hard to find a black girl on any of those teams going back to the early 2000s and even mid-to-late 1990s. That omission always seemed strange and awkward to me but became particulalry glaring the last decade or so as more and more of NU’s peer conference programs, going back to the Big 12 and now in the Big 10, as well as peer national programs featured rosters with one or two or three or more African-American players. I could never understand how a perennial NCAA title contending program that recruits nationally could find itself year after year devoid of even one black player. I mean, what are the odds of that? What if that happened in basketball or softball? Wouldn’t that be cause for concern or called out as something in need of redress or examination? But to my surprise I never heard or saw the situation broached by NU coaches, staff, players or by media covering the program or by fans supporting it. I am quite sure the situation would not have been tolerated or overlooked or pooh-poohed in a sport like basketball. So why was it different with the volleyball program? I expect because the program was so successful in continuing to vie for and win championships and to produce All-Americans and Olympians. Of course, there was a period of time where NU slipped competitively, not by much mind you, but fell behind its elite sister programs and experienced a title drought, clearly falling behind some programs that coincidentially or not did feature black players here and there. Then, out of the blue, LSU All American Briana Holman transferred to Nebraska, though she had to sit out a season, the very year NU returned to championship form. She was the first black player to my knowledge to play for the Huskers in at least 15 years. That same year a second African-American, Tiani Reeves, from Gothenburg, Neb. of all places, joined the team and sat out as a redshirt. As the Huskers look to defend their national title this year Holman has become, as expected, a key cog as a middle blocker and attacker. Reeves has seen only limited action but she possesses great promise for the future. Both players will take leadership spots next season as NU loses the dynamic and dominating Rolfzen twins. And now comes word that of NU’s 5 new signees for the 2017 recruitment class 2 are student-athletes of color and are in fact African-American: Jazz Sweet from Kansas and Chesney McClellan from Tennessee. (See the link below for info on these girls and the other signees).

 

Tiani Reeves 2243654

Tiani Reeves

 

Jazz Sweet
Jazz Sweet
Chesney McClellan

Chesney McClellan

 

This is a great if long overdue development for the program and for black girls playing volleyball in Nebraska and the greater Midwest. More and more African-Americans are playing the sport at a high level in club and high school programs and volleyball affords a great avenue and opportuity for college scholarships. The Omaha Starlings volleyball program has been a platform for several area girls, several black girls among them, to earn scholarships at mid-major colleges. Creighton has been ahead of this trend locally and has featured a number of black players the past few years, including a girl from Nebraska and another from Iowa. I can’t speak to why it took so long for black girls to find their way into the Husker program but I am glad it’s finally happened and has seemingly become a thing. I’m sure there wasn’t any intentional bias happening to not recruit black players but the perception from the outside looking in sort of made it seem that way when season after season the complexion of the team never changed to include a black face. That was a bad look for Nebraska. I’m just glad that the Huskers are now among the many teams embodying diversity and not just giving it lip service. You go, Briana and Tiani. You go girls. And can’t wait for Jazz and Cheesney to make a quartet where there used to be none.

Here’s the link to the story about the NU recruiting class that includes Jazz and Cheesney:
http://www.huskers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=100&ATCLID=211284120

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Categories: African-American, Athletes, Athletics, Diversity, Multicultural, Nebraska Volleyball, Race, Sports, University of Nebraska, Volleyball Tags: African-American, African-American Volleyball Players, Briana Holman, Chesney McClellan, Diversity, Jazz Sweet, Multicultural, Nebraska Volleyball, Race, Tiani Reeves, Volleyball
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Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film

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The work-in-progress page is devoted to my acclaimed book about the Oscar-winning filmmaker and his work.

“This is without question the single best study of Alexander Payne’s films, as well as the filmmaker himself and his filmmaking process. In charting the first two decades of Payne’s remarkable career, Leo Adam Biga pieces together an indelible portrait of an independent American artist, and one that’s conveyed largely in the filmmaker’s own words. This is an invaluable contribution to film history and criticism – and a sheer pleasure to read as well.” –Thomas Schatz, Film scholar and author (The Genius of the System)

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leoadambiga

leoadambiga

Author-journalist-blogger Leo Adam Biga resides in his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska. He writes newspaper-magazine stories about people, their passions, and their magnificent obsessions. He's the author of the books "Crossing Bridges: A Priest's Uplifting Life Among the Downtrodden," "Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film" (a compilation of his journalism about the acclaimed filmmaker) "Open Wide" a biography of Mark Manhart. Biga co-edited "Memories of the Jewish Midwest: Mom and Pop Grocery Stores." His popular blog, Leo Adam Biga's My Inside Stories at leoadambiga.com, is an online gallery of his work. The blog feeds into his Facebook page, My Inside Stories, as well as his Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, Tumblr, About.Me and other social media platform pages.

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  • Follow My Blog on Facebook, Networked Blogs, LinkedIn
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  • Going to Africa with The Champ
  • Hire Me
  • Introducing Freelance Writing Academy Seminars with Instructor Leo Adam Biga: Book Biga Today
  • My Amazon Author’s Page
  • My Inside Stories, A Professional Writing Service by Omaha-Based Journalist, Author and Blogger Leo Adam Biga
  • Nebraska Screen Heritage Project
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