It was my senior year at Tennessee Tech. I was a point guard for the basketball team, and my strength coach pushed me into doing CrossFit. I liked that you had to be good at everything. You can’t get away with I’m a good weightlifter. I’m gonna be one of the fittest people in the world. Or I’m a good gymnast. I’m gonna be one of the fittest people in the world. Being an athlete, it was a no-brainer. Like, Crap, I gotta be good at everything! I wanted to put in the work to do that.
I was the only Black guy that competed at my gym until some other athletes chose to come on. So I knew very, very early on that, okay, this is a white-guy thing. When I went to a competition, I saw only a few Black people regularly. And then as I started to meet the CrossFit staff, as my name grew, it was very, very clear to me that, yes, I’m in a white sport. It could’ve been easy for me to be like, This ain’t my cup of tea. But I love the competitive side of it. I chose to be in a sport that I love, that I care about, and I chose to be around people based on their character and the energy they give me, not the color of their skin.
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I have experienced some prejudice competing in CrossFit, but I won’t say racism, because I feel like racism is clear-cut, blunt: I don’t like you because of your skin color. You’re not welcome here. I haven’t experienced anything like that. No racial slurs. Some prejudices because I’m Black? Yes. Lemme just say, have I felt something? Yes. I have felt something.
I have used CrossFit as a platform. I’m competing and have a side hustle. I’m using the light of the sport so that people can follow me and engage with me as I build a business. I was one of the fittest people in the world. Can you fathom that? When I tell my kids, Your dad was one of the fittest people in the world, they’re like, What do you mean? It’s like, I was one of the fittest people in the entire world. That is super cool. That is what kept me doing CrossFit as I continued to build other sources of revenue and build a community around myself.
Where I was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, you support your brothers. It was, Yo, your mom works at the corner store? Oh, I’m going to buy stuff from that corner store because your mom works there. Oh, this Black kid’s the top basketball player? Whatever you need, we gonna help you. Don’t go down this road. Don’t do this. It’s so much support in the Black community, so when they see someone on the stage—where it’s like, Oh man, this guy just crushed this rope-climb and sprint event! Oh, it’s a Black guy!—it immediately tells that person, Yo, I wanna support that. If I see a Black person in CrossFit, I’m gonna be the first to walk up, hug them, tell them like, Yo, I’m glad to see you here. Whatever you need from me, you just let me know. That’s what I stand for.
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With the remarks and statements that Greg Glassman made on behalf of CrossFit, I have nothing to say other than I don’t support that. It was BS. I may forgive him. But I will not support him and give my money to him. You’re dealing with a 64-year-old white guy that was still here when segregation was just ending. He lived through that era. Where he stands is where he stands.
My sole goal is to uplift the Black community, to be Unorthodox in every way, and bring justice and equality among everyone that I stand around. My community still stands. They know who I am. They respect and love me as I respect and love them. And we will continue business with our community and growing in fitness together to keep one another healthy and strong and moving forward. This will be done with or without the CrossFit brand attached to Unorthodox. We are not affiliated at the moment.
Whatever the next wave is, I’ll jump on that. And I’ll train and work out and have fun and enjoy it and introduce it to my community. But it’s bigger than CrossFit. This is just the tip of what happened in our community so that you can realize that this shit is real. Racism! No one wants to talk about the elephant in the room until the elephant’s in the room. No one wants to talk about racism until it knocks at your front door and it’s right there. I hope everyone feels uncomfortable and continues to learn. —As told to Andrew Lawrence
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