Marquette University Athletics
'We Are the Difference' - MU Student-Athletes Continue Striving for Change
3/3/2021 11:25:00 AM | General
All MU teams will wear specially designed t-shirts starting on Saturday, March 6
Marquette University athletic programs have been highly active in fighting for racial equality this year, beginning with a student-athlete organized march for unity and social injustices in September.
After the march, MU Athletics has run a number of programs to educate student-athletes, including speakers, community engagement opportunities and lessons on Black history and culture. But in the new semester, student-athletes wanted to take it a step further.
Marquette's student-athlete advisory committee (SAAC) started bouncing around the idea of a department-wide T-shirt in the fall, but winter break caused a lull in communication.
Enter Chloe Marotta and Lauren Van Kleunen, two MU women's basketball players and the team's SAAC representatives. Marotta and Van Kleunen brought the discussion to their team and it progressed from there.
"Women's basketball was obviously still on campus, and we take a lot of pride in fighting for social justice," Marotta said. "We got together as a group and that's when we came up with the finalized idea of what we were going to do for the T-shirts."
But the shirt concept was not as easy as putting a widely known slogan onto the fabric. As executive associate athletic director Adrienne Ridgeway said, the shirt needed to be unique.
"Some teams wanted messaging that already kind of exists," Ridgeway said. "We didn't necessarily need to take a phrase or something that's already on a shirt out there and just slap a Marquette logo onto that. To us as practitioners of student development, we really wanted them to think about what is unique to Marquette, to them as a student-athlete at Marquette."
To assistant director for academic services Katie Simet, the shirt required a lot of effort on the part of the students.
"We want to take a stand and make others aware of where we stand on these issues," Simet said. "It takes work to really think about, 'What do we really stand for? What phrases are true to what we believe and what we're going to hold ourselves accountable for?'"
Marotta and Van Kleunen took that idea to their teammates, and the creative minds got to work.
"It was just a really nice, open floor conversation, and we got a great result," Marotta said. "[Sophomore guard] Jordan King was the one who suggested we put some of our slogans together. So the 'We Are' plus 'Be The Difference,' we wanted to put it together to 'We Are The Difference.'"
Thus, the front of the shirt reads "We Are The Difference," while the back includes action statements such as "We will rise," "We will learn," "We will take action" and "We will stand together."
Simet said the shirt accomplished its goal of a student-led initiative.
"We wanted it to be student-driven. It had to come from the students," Katie Simet said. "We wanted it to be their voice, their vision, their everything, and that's what it is."
Now, the shirt will be donned pregame by all teams at Marquette, but with a few conditions.
"The T-shirt is seen as a privilege to wear," Marotta said. "You have to have conversations with your team and things that you have done as a group and community to be able to wear the T-shirt. That represents our Marquette athletic department as student-athletes that want to fight for not only their teammates, but also this world and Blacks in our country."
In Van Kleunen's eyes, the department-wide shirt demonstrates the unity of Marquette Athletics.
"One of our values as a program is being a family and unity, so the fact that we're all going to wear these shirts is really cool to bring us even closer together as a department," Van Kleunen said. "To be able to see that everyone is willing to push this message, everyone is willing to be a part of this movement, is huge and it speaks volumes to who we are as student-athletes and a department at Marquette."
MU student-athletes also had the opportunity to sign a pledge written by SAAC members, which asks them to condemn racist language, actions and discrimination amongst other commitments. Signing the pledge is another way to hold student-athletes accountable for fostering an inclusive an anti-racist environment in the Marquette community.
For Simet and Ridgeway, the shirt is a culmination of all the work the department has been doing.
"We wanted it to be a visual illustration of what it is that we're working towards, what we believe in, and what our community is about," Ridgeway said. "Putting that shirt together is a visual demonstration of what the messaging is."
In the end, the shirt symbolizes a unified Marquette athletic department.
"It's definitely important that as a Marquette community, we stand behind one another and fight for the equality that we've been fighting for so long," Van Kleunen said. "We're excited to show the positive message that can come out of it and this is a positive message that we want the world to see."
