Hampton University Making Waves in Collegiate Sailing

African-American athletes make up huge percentages of all college football and basketball players. But there are thousands of young blacks participating in collegiate sports such as golf, hockey, fencing, swimming, volleyball, and other sports where, traditionally, blacks have made up a very small percentage of the participants.

Hampton University, the historically black educational institution in Virginia, is the only HBCU to field a varsity team in the sport of sailing. At many black colleges that field teams in the traditionally white sports of golf, tennis, and even baseball, white athletes make up significant percentages of the teams. But at Hampton the sailing team is made up of black athletes, some of whom are from Caribbean nations.

And the Hampton sailing team is no pushover. Of the 45 colleges and universities that compete in the Middle Atlantic Intercollegiate Sailing Association, including many of the Ivy League colleges, Hampton was one of 18 schools that qualified to participate in the conference championship regatta held at Hobart and William Smith Colleges last month.