Woods NF Blog

This essay was written more as a "train of thought". It's definitely still in the rough  draft form. Keep that in mind while you're reading. Nobody expected the black boy in a class full of gifted children to win the spelling bee. Nor did they expect that same kid to stand up in front of his whole church and proudly say that he wanted to be a scientist when he grows up. Yet still, I crushed both of these expectations before entering the 4th grade. The main challenge that comes with being black in school is fighting against assumptions and expectations based on race. Knowing about all of the expectations, more commonly known as stereotypes, helps and hurts me. First off, it pushes me to do better in school and prove people wrong. I use the stereotypes that are placed upon me as motivation through hard times. As a black male especially, I’ve constantly been told my peers that I’m “not supposed to be here”. Phrases like these serve as constant reminders that I’m an...

From fourth grade to sixth grade, I played tackle football for the Bloomington-Normal Fighting Irish, a team apart of the local pee-wee football league. In fourth grade, I was the star running-back. While I only recorded two touchdowns in our nine games, I had countless fifty-to-sixty-yard runs that put my team in a position to score and our team went undefeated. The next year we steamrolled every team that we played against and continued our legacy as “the undefeated”, but something was different. After every game, practice, or scrimmage I noticed my body aching. I sometimes had to limp off the field. I had to stretch more often to fight my soreness. My 4’7”, twig-like frame was not enough to keep up with the other kids whose bodies were more developed. I watched professional and college football, and I knew how easy it was for those massive, hulk-like men to get a career-ending injury, but I never thought that it could happen to me. Quickly, the joy I got from football was witherin...