1st Place, Personal Narrative
2021-22, Division 3, News Writing
By Zachre Phillips
Portrait
East Lansing HS
All my life I’ve been trying to learn how to blend in. As a mixed kid who does motocross, a sport that is mainly white, it brings a lot of racism my way. I blend in by focusing on my own goals and not caring about what others think or say— instead of fighting and messing up my career, I have mostly walked away and pushed it to the side.
I experienced this most recently when the varsity football team went onto South Lyon for our second game in the playoffs. I was looking forward to this game since it was the second round of the playoffs and one step closer to getting to Ford field for the finals. I was hoping to win and see the excitement of a team getting their first trophy of the season for districts.
Our team was pulling into the school parking lot and I thought the school looked pretty nice. There wasn’t much comment on the bus about it because most of us were locked in ready to play. I get in the guest locker room, get ready and then go out and warm up. When I came back to the locker room I heard a coach say, ”South Lyon’s coach said they are going to kill us on the field.”
The cockiness from their coach was the first thing that made me mad, because them saying they were going to kill us on the field made me feel like they were trying to say we didn’t deserve to play their team. Even though they didn’t say that, it was just annoying. But this comment was only the first of many.
After hearing that, I was hoping for a good game from my team because I knew I wasn’t going to get playing time. We went out and did our pregame warm up and then went to the sideline and took a knee for the national anthem, something we’ve done since I was a freshman. Taking a knee during the national anthem isn’t a bad thing and is a common practice among teams from various sports. And it is definitely something we shouldn’t get disrespected for doing because we’re entitled to our freedom of expression. But after the anthem started, a man yelled at us to stand up and called us something that not even I would say to someone.
I sat there confused about why and what the reason was that he would say that, especially because yelling that mainly made a fool of himself. Team-mates and coaches were talking about it for a minute, but soon after it was game time, so we had to push it to the side. It changed the way I see the game in not a good or a bad way by showing me not to react wrongly but also think to myself that the racism happening was wrong. It was something I’ve never seen before within my years of playing football and just showed me how people look and treat each other due to race and culture.
Our team played well but I feel the South Lyon team was trying to injure us. There was a lot of holding and without any calls from the ref which was normal but the abnormal thing was them pushing, hitting, punching and blocking in the back, both after play and during play. There were times when the officials looked right at an obvious penalty and didn’t throw the flag. Our coach would ask the refs if they could watch a certain player on a play and the refs would sometimes say okay and then they would watch. But even with this, an obvious penalty would happen and they still didn’t throw the flag.
Every player needs to get serious flags called. I get that the ref can’t see all of the things that happen, but when it’s obvious the refs should call it. If not this could lead to serious injury in some scenarios. It can also knock someone’s mental state out of the game because every single time they get on the field they have to worry about someone trying to get you in a fight or calling you unacceptable names.
Around the end of the third quarter after their second to last touchdown their whole student section ran out the stands and just waited at the exit for the end of the game, which is rude and unusual because they were pretty much saying the game was over. My friends that were on the field said they were using N- slurs and other offensive names.
The thing I hated the most was at the end while they were getting the trophy. We respectfully waited for their trophy to be presented, which is the polite thing to do. They were supposed to just get the trophy and go. Instead they do a whole warm up and then get their trophy so we have to wait even longer. I mainly felt bad for our seniors because not only was their last game of high school a loss but it was also a racist and disrespectful game from the South Lyon side.
In the aftermath of this loss and the trophy being awarded, we go to the locker room. It was really quiet but there was a lot of crying from several individuals. I honestly don’t ever really show emotion, but I cried too. I felt the sorrow in the room and the feeling of how I would not see some of the people next year that I looked up to and the people you strived to get better than. Some were crying because their season is over, some because they lost a big game and some because this is the last year they will ever be able to play high football, and on top of that it ended on a disrespectful note.
The pain of knowing you could have won that game and advanced was bad, but the addition of officials ignoring major penalties that should have been called made the loss even worse. There were families in the stands that were more worried about their kids getting home than if we won or lost the game, and that should not be the case at any football game.
Football is a sport where you go out there, play your heart out and have fun doing it, but that game was only South Lyon having the fun out there. Their fun was hitting after the play, targeting, pushing in the back, taunt-ing, being racist and more. The bus ride back was silent and that was the first time I’d ever seen some of these people cry. We got back to the locker room and turned in our equipment to the coaches. One of the worst feelings especially for the seniors was ending your season on a loss and walking up to your coach telling them thank you for the opportunity and knowing it’s the end.
It is understandable that the MHSAA did not do much about the scenario because this type of stuff happens all the time. It’s usually just a scenario where you have to play through it and deal with it. It feels there is no way we can fix this because there are no changes that have been made. In the end I hope MHSAA or someone can take a stand and see the bigger picture of how racism can affect people, families and communities in the future.
NW-14. Personal Narrative
This is not an opinion piece. It is a first-person account of an event or series of events that constitute a single, profound experience. The focus of the piece is on narrative — telling the story of the experience. It can be written in present or past tense. The author should take extra efforts to describe the journey and explain its importance. Dialogue and internal dialogue are essential.
Judging Criteria
- A first-person account depicting a personal experience
- Lead captures attention, arouses curiosity
- Topic relevant to interests and/or welfare of school or students
- Effectively combines basics of good news and feature writing
- Effectively organized with smooth transitions; carefully outlined
- Sentences, paragraphs of varied length; written clearly, concisely and vividly
- Proper diction/grammar
- Should have byline, which could include mug shot of writer