Bridging Rivalries
Wolfpack student-athletes join ACC Unity Tour.
It’s one thing to learn about history in a textbook or video, but it’s another thing, says NC State soccer player Brooklyn Holt, to experience the physical places where history happened. And Holt, along with three fellow Wolfpack student-athletes and three athletic department staff members, got to do just that while participating in the fourth annual ACC Unity Tour to Alabama last June.
“You can read about it as much as you want to, but until you’re actually there and seeing it firsthand and feeling the power of the history — there’s nothing that compares to it.”
— Brooklyn Holt
“You can read about it as much as you want to, but until you’re actually there and seeing it firsthand and feeling the power of the history — there’s nothing that compares to it,” says Holt, a senior communications major and president of Pack United.
Along with athletes and representatives from every ACC school, the group toured historic landmarks that shaped the Civil Rights Movement. They spoke with students at Tuskegee University, a historically Black university, and visited the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site, which pays tribute to the United States’ first Black military aviators.
They also sat in the pews of First Baptist Church in Selma, home base for grassroots civil rights organizing in the 1960s. And, side by side, they walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where, in 1965, peaceful protesters were attacked by law enforcement during what is known today as “Bloody Sunday.”
Toward the end of each day, participants would meet in smaller breakout groups to reflect on the day. NC State football player Zack Myers says his group stayed up late to talk through their experiences.
“We probably talked for two or three hours,” says Myers, a redshirt sophomore philosophy major. “It was really cool to see all of us come together. There are rivalries in the ACC. But when we were all there, we were one team.”
The annual tour is an important experience for student-athletes, says Senior Associate Athletics Director Raymond Harrison, who was among the staff members who attended. It brings together athletes from across the conference from different backgrounds and sports, helping them build relationships, grow together and develop confidence.
“It’s an alignment with the values that we have on each of our campuses — that our jobs are to educate, develop, prepare and equip these students through learning for life,” Harrison says. “They’re going to operate and compete in a global society. And so, it’s an opportunity for them to get some practice reps before they step out to the real world.”
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