Three Black women now call HBCU football on HBCU GO, and the one who has done play-by-play, color commentary and sideline work says the part that stays with her is that she is the first voice like hers many viewers have ever heard.
Lawrencia Moten, a former Division I basketball player and the daughter of the late NBA player Lawrence Moten, said she went into broadcasting because nobody was telling the stories she wanted told. “I felt like my calling was to tell athletes’ stories,” she said. “There wasn’t anyone who I felt like truly tried to push the stories of our team.” On who should be holding the microphone, she said, “you need to be speaking to people who are closely related to them.” On being the first, she said, “That’s an issue to me.”
Nia Symone, an Alabama State University graduate, former college basketball player and sports analyst, said what an HBCU broadcast carries cannot be understood from outside it. “It’s one of those things you just have to experience,” she said. “You don’t realize how much of a safe space we are a part of until you leave it.” She said the work costs something: “This industry, I love it to death, but it can take a toll on you.”
Nicole Hutchison, a 2019 Howard University graduate who built her career in Dallas and has hosted for the Cowboys, named what has not moved. “We need more execs that look like us,” she said.
