ATLANTA — It’s been a “long journey” for the Irish to the championship game in this city, in head coach Marcus Freeman’s words on Sunday morning. Here, in the birthplace of Dr. Martin Luther King, Freeman’s team will play on the national holiday celebrating the life of the civil rights icon.
King’s speeches still resound in the eardrums of Americans coast-to-coast. In the declaration of the federal holiday in 1988, President Ronald Reagan said, “Dr. King’s work is not done, but neither is his witness stilled.” Reagan remembered King in the way the minister himself hoped to be remembered: as a “drum major for justice.” King was deeply shaped by the city of Atlanta, its brutal segregation and violence and its tireless hope for progress.
Freeman was asked about the holiday at media day.
“It’s about celebrating the life of Dr. King and the impact he’s made on our country. None of that life should be taken away by this national championship, the example he set for so many others,” he said.
Freeman will enter Mercedes-Benz Stadium as the first black coach in college football history to make it to the national championship. This is a fact that the media has not allowed viewers or Freeman to forget, asking the coach about it over and over. As he stood on the stage in Miami to accept the Orange Bowl trophy after a remarkable win, ESPN reporter Molly McGrath used one of a few questions to ask Freeman about his race, though he had been asked the same question a number of times before the game.
“You are the first black head coach to go to a national championship game in college football,” she informed Freeman, raising the idea to the Notre Dame coach as though it had not been raised ad nauseam.
In his response to McGrath, he suggested that there are more pertinent questions.
“I don’t ever wanna take attention away from the team. It is an honor, and I hope all coaches — minorities, black, Asian, white, it doesn’t matter — great people continue to get opportunities to lead young men like this. But this ain’t about me, this is about us. And we’re gonna celebrate what we’ve done,” he told her.
Freeman’s redirection towards the feats of the team is not really humility — he’s deservedly soaked up plenty of media attention and camera time this season. His comments are an important stance against essentialist ideas of race that emerged (and receded) across the media landscape in recent years. He’s refused to define himself by one trait of his identity, the immutable color of his skin.
When King addressed a crowd of over 250,000 supporters on the National Mall in 1963 to elucidate his dream for this country, he spoke words that have been so oft-repeated to threaten becoming cliché. But they were true then, and they are true today.
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” King preached. On Monday night, after King’s fourth child participates in the coin toss beginning the game, Freeman should be judged by the content of his character (and the competency of his coaching), and not by immutable characteristics he had no part in determining.
“Your color shouldn’t matter … the evidence of your work should,” Freeman said ahead of the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, echoing King’s aspirations.
This discourse has often been justified on the well-intended grounds of “representation.” For a Black child — Freeman’s Korean identity is almost never raised — to see someone who looks like them at the pinnacle of college football makes it possible for them to have dreams of their own. The problem is that in making a story of Freeman’s race, it is portrayed as exceptional. Minority children are told that Marcus Freeman was the rare minority to beat the odds, not that they too can aim for the top by excelling.
A piece in The Athletic argues that Freeman “validates” black coaches by virtue of his celebrated performance this year. Another article in our beloved South Bend Tribune suggests that “the impact of the first Black/Asian American coach to reach the national champs” will offer more opportunities. This, too, is patronizing, suggesting that minority coaches are measured by the feats of their race rather than on the merits of their performance.
Above all, these repeated questions in press conferences are disrespectful to Freeman himself. No one asked Brian Kelly about being a white coach. Though he continues to be ample “representation” for a**holes and reprobates everywhere, he is given the courtesy due to a professional adult. With the intention of anti-racism, the exact opposite is perpetuated by well-meaning sports journalists. White coaches get to exclusively talk ball, while minority coaches are subjected to questions about their skin color.
Freeman, a human as much as anyone else, is multi-dimensional. He is Black, yes, but he is also Korean. He is male and 6-foot-1. But he did not have a hand in determining any of these facts. These metrics would have been of great note to the racists of yesteryear. Unfortunately, the anti-racists of today define him in the same ways.
“When you start putting the focus on me being the first African American, first Asian American, coaching this game, that takes away from the team, and I wouldn’t be in this position if it wasn't for the team and everybody getting the job done. And so I know that's what the media essentially has to be. There has to be a person or cause and effect for why we're in this position,” he said at the media day press conference.
Capping an incredible season that got off to a rough start, and calls for Freeman to lose his job, Notre Dame’s head coach has demonstrated immense charisma, prowess and character. From outcoaching Penn State to earning the love of players and fans alike, Freeman — and his team — have earned this on the merits. He’s not simply a great black coach or a great Korean coach or a coach with great skin. He’s proven to be a great coach.
