Editor’s note: Baltimore Watchdog reporters enrolled in a sports journalism course conducted group interviews with Towson athletes. Below are their profile stories.
By Noah Haycock
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
She’d had enough. The time for talk was over. It was time for action.
LaKaitlin Wright put in a call to the mayor’s office, requesting permission for a march on her hometown of Alamo, Georgia. Wright asked the mayor, Pamela Bess Lee, how she could go about doing a rally. She wanted to do it the right way.
On a warm early June evening, Wright’s plans came to fruition: Roughly 100 people gathered in town to protest the treatment of Black Americans by the police and systemic racism. The crowd marched silently for roughly eight minutes from the courthouse to the town square. They held a vigil for Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others who had been killed in recent years.
Wright and others were met with counter-protests. Trucks blared their horns to break up the peace. Wright said she received hateful e-mails. It wasn’t easy, but she knew it was right.
“We did receive a lot of hate from it,” Wright said. “It was hard but I got through it…If I have a chance to speak out on the matter, I’m going to do what I have to do to shine a light on what needs to happen.”
Wright, a 21-year-old senior center on the Towson women’s basketball team, is using her voice to become a change agent in her own community — and on campus.
Wright is a part of TU AIDE, an organization dedicated to promoting cultural differences, and TU Athletes Vote, whose mission is to promote voting among athletes. Additionally, she is on a racial injustice subcommittee in Towson’s conference Student Athlete Activity Council.
“LaKaitlin has been a catalyst for the change in the culture in our locker room,” said Coach Richardson. “Her quest to do the right thing has been an example for all.”
One of her proudest accomplishments has been the development of a portal where athletes in the Colonial Athletic Association can report instances of racism or discrimination.
Wright has long been disturbed by racism. And in recent months, she’s become more outspoken.
“I have to be the one to do it,” Wright said. “Everyone around me knew what was going on.”
It’s been going on for awhile — and Wright has experienced intolerance at times throughout her basketball career. In high school, players would call her the n-word and hurl other slurs at her, which she said was hurtful. But she was undeterred.
“It motivates me to keep doing what I’m doing because I’m seen as a force,” Wright said. “I’m seen as something they want to tear down, so I’ve got to keep going.”
Wright has played basketball since she was little. She was coached by her mother, Angelia, in high school. Having a parent-coach is always a balancing act, but it pushed Wright to become a better player.
“It was different,” Wright said of the coaching dynamic. “The criticism and the encouragement didn’t end right after I got off the court.”
Wright played two years at Mercer University, playing 31 games and averaging 5.6 minutes per game. Most of her significant stats improved in that time as well. However, after her sophomore season she decided it was time for a change. And so the recruitment process began again.
Wright landed at Towson University. She cited the coaching staff as one of the main attractions.
“I knew that I wanted someone with her personality and genuine in our program,” said Diane Richardson, head coach of the women’s basketball team. “After our first conversation, I offered her a scholarship.”
It didn’t take long for her to fit in with the team. Wright said after her first practice, Towson felt like home. And she made her mark in her first season, starting 12 of her 24 appearances, scoring 3.9 points per game an having a double-double against Hofstra University.
As her senior year of basketball approaches, Wright continues to push for change. She wants to show young women that they can be athletes and be outspoken. Her goals for the year are to get her team a championship and to keep progressing on the changes she’s worked for.
She’s motivated to keep speaking out, no matter how much pushback she receives.
“I use it as fuel to keep going, because one day, their minds will change,” Wright said. “And if they don’t, I know they heard me at least, I know I made an impact on them in some kind of way.”
By Aaron Thomas
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
LaKaitlin Wright is versatile. On the basketball court, she can score, rebound and block shots into the stands. Off the court, she has become an activist for racial justice. She is involved in causes on campus and beyond.
Wright has become increasingly vocal about racial discrimination over the last year. She’s experienced racism at times throughout her life.
Wright grew up in Alamo, Georgia. Her mother, Angelia, was her high school basketball coach. Wright was a four-year letter winner and won co-player of the year in 2016 while leading her team to a Final Four appearance. She was also a three-time MVP and two-time all-region first team selection.
But Wright experienced plenty of adversity as a high school basketball player.
“I was called the n-word a lot of times, just to anger me essentially,” Wright said. “I’ve had a lot of times where I cried about it to my mom because she was my coach, and she just motivated me to keep going because it’s only ignorance.”
Wright said opposing players would call her derogatory names. And those comments frustrated her to the point where her performance was negatively affected. Yet she persevered. After high school, Wright decided to enroll at Mercer University on a full athletic scholarship. She spent two seasons at Mercer but had trouble staying in the rotation due to inexperience as a freshman and injuries during her sophomore season. This led to another difficult decision as she made up her mind that she wanted to transfer.
Towson coach Diane Richardson remembers her first time speaking with Wright.
“My first phone call with LaKaitlin was very pleasant,” she said. “She was so down to earth and really funny…I knew that I wanted someone with her personality and genuineness in our program. After our first conversation, I offered her a scholarship.”
Wright said she was impressed with what Towson coaches told her during their conversations.
“They already had my game from Mercer, so they knew exactly what I needed to work on,” Wright said. “They had my percentages, where I like to score, and coach Zach [Kancher] loves to show clips of former players that he has worked with that are similar to my game. I think that’s really why I chose Towson over the other schools because I felt like they really were paying attention to what I needed as a player instead of just trying to get someone on the roster.”
Towson coaches knew what Wright needed to improve her game. And Wright was also motivated to become student. She was thrilled when she found out she could stay in her gerontology major at Towson.
And in recent months, she’s been very active away from school and basketball. She spreds awareness by being involved TU AIDE, which is a group that wants to promote cultural differences and similarities at Towson. She is a part of the Colonial Athletic Association’s Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), which is a group of players from different teams in the conference that get together to discuss issues like racial injustice and social change. Wright has also teamed up with Kancher outside of the court with TU Athletes Votes in order to get student athletes aware of the importance of political engagement.
In early June, Wright and five of her friends helped plan a rally in her home town to protest the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, among others. Wright called the mayor to get advice on how to go about doing a rally. About 100 people marched silently and then held gathered afterward in the town square.
“We made signs and we promoted it on different social media platforms,” Wright said. “It’s a small population so getting 100 people out there, a diverse crowd, a lot of my old teachers, people that I felt like supported us, they were allies in this situation although we did receive a lot of hate from it.”
Wright said she feels the need to step up and speak up for the black women whose voices have been silenced. Wright wants to be a role model for young girls who may or may not look like her or share similar experiences as her. She wants women to be respected and protected, and she gets this influence from her role models such as her mom and Maya Moore, who took off two years of her WNBA career to promote racial justice.
“LaKaitlin has emerged as a very vocal player for our program and a catalyst for the change in the culture of our locker room,” Richardson said. “Her quest to always do the right thing has been an example for all, especially our younger players.”
By Griffin Bass
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
In February, Ahmaud Arbery was shot and killed while jogging near Brunswick, Georgia. Four months later, in a town about 120 miles away, LaKaitlin Wright, a senior center on the Towson women’s basketball team, organized a march to protest the deaths of Arbery, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
The June 4 march and rally in Wright’s hometown of Alamo, Georgia, had about 100 people in attendance. In the midst of a pandemic, Wright said she felt compelled to promote social change.
“I felt like I needed to speak out,” Wright said. “I needed people to hear my voice to understand that it’s not just something that happens away from us, it’s not just something that happens to people that aren’t close to you.”
The march began around 6 p.m., with people walking about eight minutes from the town courthouse to the town square. People held signs honoring Floyd, Taylor and other black men and women killed by police in recent years. Wright wore a short with the phrase “Black Women Matter” on it, and others wore shirts that said “Black Lives Matter.”
During the march, participants were silent. Some people who didn’t support the event honked their holds to break the silence. Wright said she received threats because she had helped organize the event.
“It was hard, but I got through it,” Wright said. “I felt that worse things can happen and if I still have a chance to speak out about the matter, I’m gonna do what I have to do to shine a light on what needs to happen.”
Wright has been involved in social and political causes throughout her short time at Towson. The Mercer University transfer arrived at Towson in fall 2019, appearing last season in 24 games and averaging 3.9 points and 4.3 rebounds per game.
Wright aims to help lead Towson to a second straight Colonial Athletic Association title this season. The team missed out on an opportunity to become back-to-back champions last season due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Head coach Diane Richardson noted that Wright’s leadership off the court is translating into the locker room.
“LaKaitlin has been a catalyst for the change in the culture in our locker room,” Richardson said. “Her quest to always do the right thing has been an example for all, especially our younger players.”
Wright looks up to athletes who have gotten involved in social causes. One of her idols, WNBA star Maya Moore, has taken time off of professional basketball to promote racial justice.
That’s a similarity that Wright sees between herself and Moore. Both are risking their reputations to promote change. Wright has received pushback from people in her home town. She uses that as motivation.
“I use it as fuel to keep going, because one day, their minds will change,” Wright said. “If they don’t, I know they heard me at least, I know I made an impact on them in some kind of way. Maybe it wasn’t positive like I wanted it to be, but they had to hear me, and they had to see what I was doing.”
Wright’s desire for change goes beyond her hometown. She brings that same attitude to Towson, where Wright is very involved within the TU Athletes Vote campaign.
“LaKaitlin always responds to community involvement,” coach Richardson said. “I hope that she will continue to lead and shine her light on others.”
Wright’s mission off the court is simple: She wants to inspire people to take action on issues that are important to them.
“I really want people to try,” Wright said. “That’s probably the legacy I want to leave, to be a motivating force with people when they look back on everything that I’ve done and plan to do.”
By Jason Hensley
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
LaKaitlin Wright felt an urge to say something — to take a stand. She was tired of seeing story after story of black men and women being killed. She was tired of dealing with systemic racism.
“I felt like I needed to speak out and I needed people to hear my voice to understand that it’s not just something that happens away from us, it’s not just something that happens to people that aren’t close to you,” Wright said. “It happens at home. It happens to people that you care about, that you love.”
Wright, a 21-year-old senior center for the Towson women’s basketball team, didn’t just speak out. She took action. Over the summer, she organized a small march and rally in her hometown of Alamo, Georgia, to protest the killings of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd. After calls to the mayor and a lot of social media promotion, she got a turnout of roughly 100 people.
Alamo has a population of under 3,000.
Wright and her friends mobilized family, friends and strangers to walk through the town just over a week after Floyd’s death in Minneapolis.
“We wanted to promote….that there are good people out there that look like me, there are good people with good intentions,” Wright said.
The march began at the town courthouse and ended at the town square. Marchers were silent for the whole eight minutes — a time meant to mirror the eight minutes Floyd was on the ground unable to breathe.
The rally turned into a ceremony for Taylor, Arbery and Floyd, as well as a prayer vigil, where they lit candles in honor of the deceased. At times during the event, motorists honked their horns to show their displeasure over the event. It wasn’t the only pushback that Wright received.
“I got threats in my inboxes,” she said. “It was hard, but I got through it because I felt like if I still have a chance to speak out about the matter, I’m gonna do what I have to do to shine a light on what needs to happen.”
Organizing all of this would be impressive for anyone to do. It’s all the more impressive because Wright is also a Division I athlete with a busy schedule of school and training.
Wright transferred to Towson from Mercer University in Georgia in 2019. She became involved in TU Athletes Vote, which was founded by one of her coaches, Zach Kancher. Wright is a student-athlete ambassador, talking to students at University of Maryland and Loyola University Maryland about the importance of voting.
“LaKaitlin always responds to community involvement,” said Diane Richardson, Towson’s women’s basketball coach. “With all of the civil unrest, she knew that the key for change was through our votes. She has been on several panels discussing the importance of voting on our campus as well as presenting to other athletes across the country.”
Over the summer, Wright joined a coalition called TU AIDE. “It stands for Towson University Athletes for Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity. Just basically trying to find cultural awareness for all the different people that make up the Towson student body,” Wright said.
Wright said she wants to help young athletes realize that they can go after their athletic goals and also be outspoken.
“I really want people to try,” she said, “to do what they want to do, to try to go after their goals, to try. If you’re successful, that’s great, but if you’re not at least you can say you tried.”