Russell Dinkins Wants to Save Brown Track And Field, Examining Racial Injustice in Sport
The CITIUS MAG Podcast | A Running + Track and Field Show
CITIUS MAG
4.9 • 1.9K Ratings
🗓️ 9 June 2020
⏱️ 82 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
"Here’s the thing: For a kid who plays squash in Connecticut, it doesn’t matter if they go to Brown, Princeton or Harvard. They can go to some other school and they’re likely going to be OK. Their families have money. They have connections. They’re going to be alright. They’re going to go to college. A kid who ran really fast and ran a really great 1,500 at their small state meet or their local city conference, gets a call from somebody – they have a life-changing opportunity. They have an opportunity to change their future in a way that otherwise would not have been possible.
Why am I going to sit back and let that happen? I’m not so that’s why I wrote the article."
On May 28, Brown University announced its decision to cut 11 varsity sports as part of their Excellence in Brown Athletics Initiative. The teams that were cut were men's and women’s fencing, men's and women’s golf, women’s skiing, men's and women’s squash, women’s equestrian, and men’s track, field, and cross country — will transition to club status. Former Princeton middle distance specialist Russell Dinkins joins the CITIUS MAG Podcast after writing "Brown University, If You Were Actually Serious About Racial Justice You Would Not Be Cutting the Men’s Track Team." Nearly 50,000 people have signed a petition to retain the program's varsity status.
David Melly, the host of the Run Your Mouth Podcast and a contributor to CITIUS MAG, joins me as well because he wrote his own open letter to the Brown University president on Calling For Excellence.
We discuss why we're all disappointed by Brown's decision and why it should be reinstated to show true advocacy for diversity in athletics. And in light of the current events in the world, this ties very well into the ongoing discussion of diversifying organizations and making sure there is equality in the opportunities presented to people of color.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today's episode of the Citius Mag podcast network is your annual crossover episode with the run-your-mouth podcast and my guest for today's episode is Russell Dinkins. He is an 800 meter specialist out of Princeton who has been on the |
| 0:15.2 | pro circuit for a couple years now. The reason I decided to get him on the show was because |
| 0:19.9 | just a couple weeks ago Brown University announced that the men's track and field |
| 0:24.1 | program would be cut as part of their excellence in Brown Athletics Initiative. |
| 0:29.6 | So to give you guys an idea of what's going on and you know keeping in mind that several athletic programs are definitely struggling because of the COVID-19 pandemic |
| 0:40.0 | but Brown decided to cut the following teams and transition them into club status. |
| 0:46.5 | So that's men's and women's fencing, men's and women's golf, women skiing, men's and women's squash, women's equestrian, and men's track and |
| 0:56.6 | field and cross country. So the running community was of course outraged by |
| 1:01.0 | this and they took to social media to try and put some pressure to |
| 1:04.8 | reverse the decision. A change.org petition has been set up and you can also |
| 1:09.6 | visit save brown track.org for some more information. |
| 1:13.0 | But one of the biggest calls for change came from Russell who wrote an article on |
| 1:17.9 | medium titled Brown University. |
| 1:20.0 | If you were actually serious about racial justice, you would not be cutting the men's track team. |
| 1:26.0 | So as you'll hear from him, it has been shared widely, and now there's some pressure on Brown to reinstate the program, hopefully. |
| 1:34.3 | David Malley, the host of the Run Your Mout podcast and a contributor, |
| 1:37.6 | Citius Mag joins me as well because he wrote his own open letter |
| 1:42.2 | to the Brown University President on |
| 1:44.7 | calling for excellence. You can read that on Sidious mag.com. |
| 1:48.7 | So the links to the petition, the website and the aforementioned articles will all be found in the show notes. |
| 1:55.0 | And in light of the current events of the world, |
| 1:57.0 | I think this conversation ties very well into the ongoing discussion of diversifying organizations and making sure that there is |
... |
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