360º: The Player

360º: The Player

Corey Wright was a guard on the 1997 PC men’s basketball team that made it all the way to the Elite 8 of the NCAA tournament and he’s not surprised by those figures.  “The first time I traveled to Providence was by train from New York City,” he said.  “I took one look around, got back on the train and went home.  I felt like there was nothing for me to do there.  My grandmother ended up putting me back on a bus and sending me back there even though I didn’t think that I’d fit in.”

Wright said he enjoyed his days at PC pointing out that the teachers and supporters of the program were great.  But he and his fellow black teammates also knew that they weren’t like everyone else on Smith Hill.  “Guys like me and Sham (God Shammgod) coming from Harlem, it was very uncomfortable.  You’d go to class or the dining hall and be the only black person there.  Some guys couldn’t handle that.”

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Being part of such a small minority group on campus actually made Wright and his teammates bond even closer.  “While most of the white students were partying on a Friday or Saturday night, we would climb into a window in the gym so we could play basketball or lift weights,” he said.  

What Corey Wright doesn’t know is whether or not a larger African-American student population would have prevented the alleged senseless act committed by Lacy and Still, but he does have strong feelings about what needs to be done by the school.  “I’ve been saying for 10 years that the school needs to have a better social life for minorities.  If there were a party for minorities that night, maybe it wouldn’t have happened.”