DAVIS, Calif. -- DeAndre Morgan took part in the ASB Leadership group at Concord High School for four years. He was a straight-A student who served as the school's rally commissioner, and he participated in the CHS Show Choir, a select group that has traveled the country and garnered numerous accolades for its performances. 

And yet, ironically, upon his arrival at UC Davis as a freshman in the fall of 2017, Morgan struggled to find his voice.

"I was fine and comfortable in high school and I thought it could translate, but it didn't," said Morgan, a fourth-year community and regional development major and former defensive lineman with the Aggie football team. "When I got to UC Davis, I didn't feel comfortable expressing myself. Once I went to the first summit, it allowed me to have space to be comfortable using my voice."

The "summit" of which Morgan speaks is the Black Student-Athlete Summit, founded in 2015 by University of Texas professor and vice president Leonard Moore. It is hosted in the first week of every January by UT's Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, and draws student-athletes from all levels to hear TED Talk-style presentations and panel discussions with dignitaries from every field. As Moore himself notes in the event intro video, the BSAS is designed to "bring together people from across the country to deal with the unique needs of the black student-athlete."

Former athletics director Kevin Blue hired Dwight Smith as an adviser for the then-new Aggie EVO student-athlete outcomes program and to head up the department's diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Smith sought to start a student-athlete resource group, or SARG, specifically aimed at athletes of color. But he also recognized that such an organization could only succeed if the student-athletes felt inspired to start it on their own. Blue, a colleague of Dr. Moore's, charged his DEI leader with carefully choosing a small group of Aggies to attend the 2019 Black Student-Athlete Summit. On that trip was sprinter Mikaela Adolphus, thrower Sierra Sheppard, and Morgan.

"I worked to identify student-athletes that I could see were interested in leadership opportunities, or in the idea of organizing the black student-athlete voice," Smith said. "As we hoped and predicted, hearing and seeing that the issues they experienced were not unique to Davis, seeing that there were student-athletes across the divisions with similar positive and negative experiences, and seeing some who were organizing on their own campuses – that lit the spark for those three."

Indeed, that fifth-annual BSAS – and the first with a UC Davis delegation – ignited CADSA, or the Coalition of African Diaspora Student-Athletes. Adolphus, already a leader for the LGBTQIA group called Athlete Ally, was named as the inaugural president, with track & field teammate Flora Oliveira as vice president. When Adolphus graduated in 2020, she began the process of making CADSA a national organization; with Oliveira taking over as the UC Davis president.

For Morgan, who joined fellow UC Davis football players Khanii Lesane and Erron Duncan to serve as CADSA's education coordinators, the 2019 summit was an eye-opener.

"I'd never been in an environment seeing that many educated black people," Morgan said. "Because of this, I wasn't nervous and I felt I was supposed to be there. It was the first professional setting that I felt like was meant for me and black people in general. When I heard Dr. Leonard Moore talk about getting a PhD, that opened my mind. I never thought in a million years about going to grad school or anything like that."

After the success of the 2019 visit, the BSAS is now an annual event for UC Davis student-athletes. The 2021 edition, which bore the theme "Woke! Now What?" ran virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic, meaning a larger group than usual could take part in the three-day event. This allowed all of the CADSA officers to attend: Oliveira, Morgan, Lesane, Duncan, soccer player Mahlah Catline (treasurer), volleyball's Mahalia White (secretary), and track & field's Xochitl Bryson (vice president).

Student-athletes Jye Citizen (soccer), Darius Livingston (football), Brooke Sanchez (field hockey), Cortney Cunningham (gymnastics), Bryanna Duckett (soccer), Natalie Wilson (lacrosse) and Alexis Sutherland (track & field) also took part in the 2021 virtual summit, as did Aggie marketing intern Andraya Wilson, plus staff members Smith, Michael Lorenzen (Aggie EVO executive director), Ryan Qualls (compliance director) and Nicole Miller (assistant volleyball coach).

The overall theme of the BSAS changes each year, which means the experience is different for every Aggie who attends. 

"My biggest takeaway was that as a black student athlete, I never have to be afraid to engage in self-advocacy and address systematic issues affecting me because I have a huge network of support available to me throughout the country and that these connections can be the source of my professional development throughout my professional career," said Duncan, a fifth-year student in community and regional development.

Oliveira went to the 2020 event and took part in the 2021 virtual summit. She particularly cited the presentation by former UT football player Chase Moore, now a graduate student in educational policy. "Chase Moore's discussion was super interesting," she said. "He provided great insight as a former athlete, grad student and activist himself. He continues to inspire all of us to be more like him."

"It was great to hear other folks speaking about agency and how to best represent yourself," Oliveira said. "I think something we all took from this year's summit was that using our voice and elevating ourselves doesn't just end with athletics." As such, Oliveira divides her time between CADSA and her role as vice president for REVIVAL (https://therevivalzine.com/), the campus's first student-run feminist webzine. Moving forward, she hopes to see further integration of black student-athlete focus and retention groups become top priorities at UC Davis.

Meanwhile, Morgan – also among the few Aggies to have attended multiple BSAS events – took a similar forward-looking approach in line with the 2021 theme: now what? "It's easy to have momentum in the beginning and talk about support for black student athletes," he said. "However, this is not simply a moment or movement, we are fighting for change. 

"If we want black student-athletes to feel safe and be supported, we need to fight for institutional change. Advocacy and knowing what the resources are is important. At the end of the day, institutions can say 'black lives matter,' but how are they actually addressing the issues?"

Along those lines, the importance of raising new questions is not lost on the BSAS organizers. On the summit's official website, participants are invited to submit proposals for future topics and presentations. One Aggie to heed this call was Adolphus. After her introduction to the BSAS in 2019, she saw that the subject of sexuality had not previously been addressed, and she sought to change that. With the 2020 event's focus on mental health, Adolphus shared her research on institutional support for black LGBT+ student-athletes – work she had conducted as part of a fellowship with the UC Davis Office of Educational Opportunity and Enrichment Services the previous summer. 

For that matter, Oliveira hopes to see discussion on the ongoing "Name, Image and Likeness" issue at future summits. "It's always super relevant and more so now when we are in the midst of fighting for our rights as athletes," she said. Meanwhile, Duncan hopes future BSAS events can investigate the underrepresentation of black candidates in executive management positions.

Likewise, Morgan also participated in the summit with an eye on his life after graduation. "The programming and networking at BSAS also helped me understand how to translate the qualities I gained from the football field to the professional setting," he said.

In fact, Duncan's and Morgan's desires align perfectly not only with the ethos of Aggie EVO, but also with Dr. Moore's own larger purpose in launching the Black Student-Athlete Summit six years ago. 

"What I tell college presidents and athletics directors and coaches, when you brag about your graduation rates, I'm not excited about that," said Moore in his BSAS introduction. "Graduating should not be the goal. Graduating with options should be the goal. Graduate school, professional school, going to work on Wall Street, going to work on Capitol Hill, doing something entrepreneurial – that should be the goal. My charge to athletics directors is to really invest in the lives of black student-athletes."

Information on the BSAS can be found at https://diversity.utexas.edu/blackstudentathletesummit. CADSA National website is https://www.cadsanational.org. CADSA UC Davis provides regular updates on Instagram (@cadsa.ucdavis) and Twitter (@CADSAUCD).

ABOUT UC DAVIS:
With the addition of equestrian and women's beach volleyball in 2018, more than 700 student-athletes represent the fifth-ranked public school in the nation on one of 25 intercollegiate athletics teams.

UC Davis, a national leader in Title IX gender equity and leadership, is centrally located between San Francisco, Lake Tahoe, and the Napa Valley; and offers an unrivaled student-athlete experience that features the ideal combination of elite academics, Division I athletics and personal growth.

Ranked annually in the top 10 in diversity and students' social mobility, UC Davis is uncommonly committed to preparing student-athletes for life after graduation with Aggie EVO — an innovative student-athlete outcomes program that helps young women and men develop passions, gain real-world experience, and enjoy a successful launch to full-time employment or graduate school. Through Aggie EVO, Intercollegiate Athletics provides unmatched resources and a vast network of working professionals to ensure post-graduation success for its student-athletes.