Ian Gaines is the media manager at Erickson Immigration Group, where he is the also the creator and executive producer of the Immigration Nerds weekly podcast covering the latest immigration news in the cross-section of academia, culture, and policy. He is a 2014 graduate of University of Chicago, where he was a football student-athlete.
The UAA “Conversations About Race and Racism” series seeks to lift the voices of people of color and recognize the challenges faced in both athletics and academics at the collegiate level. By sharing personal stories, we hope to elevate the conversation about race to raise awareness and bring about change.
Adjusting to Being A Student-Athlete at UChicago
“I was a Black athlete at an academic institution where students viewed academics as the only thing that matters. People wondered how I, or anyone, could take time out to do something in addition to academics. They assumed that meant I was not serious about my academics,” Gaines recalled. “When I went to a history class for the first time, I was one of the only Black people in the room. We went around and said our names and what we did. Once I said I played football, the whole atmosphere changed. It was if they were saying, ‘Now I know why you are here. You are not a real student. You are just here because of sports.’ This was in spite of the fact that there are no athletic scholarships at Chicago or any other (NCAA) Division III schools.”
Being perceived as lesser of a student had a profound effect on him. “I felt pressure every time I was in class due to my Blackness. Every time I raised my hand, I was thinking that I better get the answer right because if I get it wrong, people will think, ‘Of course he got it wrong.’ I didn’t know how much of that was in my head. I would get subtle looks from people and wonder if they were looking at me or through me. I was constantly calculating these things in my head,” he revealed. “Whether it was real or not, it was still happening in my experience. People who do not look like me are not worried if they get an answer wrong. They just move on. I always felt like I was carrying my identity and my people on my back, always needing to prove something. That was what my freshman and sophomore years were like. As I got to my junior year, I stopped worrying about those things and was confident that I knew what I knew.”
It took Gaines those first years to gain his footing in classes. “I think I exude respect for myself and others, but at first, I was hesitant to even speak up. Part of that was dealing with implicit bias. In a philosophy class, we had to break into groups. My group included two Indian students, one Asian student, and two white students. When the professor said that someone needed to lead the discussion on the reading, all the heads looked straight toward the white guy,” he recalled. “It is not something overt, but if you are perceptive, you pick up on these things. I knew that it was not a conscious thing on the part of the other students in the group, but being Black, I really notice these things.”
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