After coach’s comments bring scrutiny, Air Force players say race not problem

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Air Force football players woke up Wednesday morning to a national discussion about the racial makeup of their locker room.

It’s a topic the Falcons have dealt with almost daily, long before a horde of television cameras showed up at the academy this week to discuss coach Fisher DeBerry’s controversial comments about recruiting more minorities.

But the only racial issues inside the locker room, several players joked, have to do with the constant battle between country music and hip hop.

“There’s two TVs in the locker room, and half will be watching CMT (Country Music Television) and the other half will be BET (Black Entertainment Television),” senior defensive end Nelson Mitchell said Thursday. “Half the locker room will be facing one way and half the other way. That’s probably the only thing out there.”

Discussing race and Air Force’s football team wasn’t such a lighthearted topic earlier this week when DeBerry remarked Tuesday that the struggling Falcons (3-5) needed to recruit more black players because “Afro-American kids can run very, very well.” DeBerry apologized for the comments Wednesday and received an official reprimand from athletic director Hans Mueh and a verbal reprimand from new academy superintendent Lt. Gen. John Regni.

According to a report by University of Central Florida’s Richard Lapchick, African-Americans made up 44.3 percent of Division I football rosters in the 2003-04 academic year. On Air Force’s varsity – which can change from weekly because some players go between varsity and junior varsity – the number is more like 17 percent.

Air Force fullback Jacobe Kendrick, who is black, said he had thought about the team’s racial makeup long before DeBerry’s comments but added the atmosphere at the academy was far more accepting for minorities than his high school was.

“Of course I’ve noticed it, but it doesn’t bother me at all,” Kendrick said. “I don’t think there’s any racial tension. I’m from West Texas, so I’ve seen that before. That’s never crossed my mind. It’s worse back home than it is here.”

Race is a topic rarely, if ever brought up in Air Force’s locker room, players said.

“I can talk to Jacobe, go talk to J-Hands (halfback Justin Handley), anybody on the team about that kind of stuff,” said cornerback Chris Sutton, who is white. “Listening to rap music, you can joke around about that. It’s not like we have this uncomfortable silence. You can talk about it if you want to, but nobody brings it up, so it’s not like a big deal.”

Though teammates have a level of comfort and trust that they wouldn’t necessarily have with others, Mitchell, who is black, said making racially charged jokes still wouldn’t be wise.

“You might not know how maybe a sophomore or junior might respond to it,” Mitchell said. “Jokes like that, everybody holds off because it’s more of a respect thing,” Mitchell said.

Kendrick said when he was in high school, he noticed cliques on his football team, primarily based on race. That dynamic, he said, doesn’t exist at the academy.

“I don’t think that’s how people are here,” Kendrick said. “I can hang out with any guy on the team.”

Senior Falcon back John Taibi, who is white, has had the same experience.

“In high school, there were sometimes cliques based on that (race),” Taibi said. “Here, we’re all brothers on this team, and if there’s any cliques it’s based on position, like the Falcon backs or the linebackers.”

One reason for that may be the experiences Air Force players have to go through, starting with basic training and a freshman year in which cadets endure equal hardships.

“When you come here, your experience is pretty much the same on the big things, so that helps bond people,” Mitchell said.

Sutton had a slightly different take.

“It’s more of a football instinct rather than coming to the academy where they push the idea that we’re all together, we’re all one,” he said. “It’s more like growing up and being on a football team, a football environment where everybody is my friend. I’d take any of these guys home and I’m sure they’d take me home any time to go visit their family.”