Untold Truths: USU football teams up with history department
The Utah State football team may not be on the gridiron this season, but that hasn’t stopped them from making an impact in the Aggie community, which comes in the form of a recently announced class: History 2010 ‘Untold Truths.’
The class, created by players, highlights the history of African Americans and inequality in the United States. The course is available for students to take in the Fall 2020 semester.
With racial injustice impacting the United State immensely, the football team — a diverse group of athletes — wanted to find a way to help the situation.
“I communicated to the team ‘what about building a class’ and they jumped at that idea,” said head coach Gary Anderson in a promotional video for the class released by Utah State athletics. “We started the process from there and that was it from the coaches. It was an idea from myself but the kids ran with it, it’s driven through the young men on this football team.”
Some of the student-athletes who helped create the class were senior offensive lineman Demytrick Ali’ifua, defensive graduate assistant Jumanne Roberston, senior cornerback Andre Grayson, offensive graduate assistant D.J. Tialavea, senior defensive lineman Marcus Moore and senior running back Chase Nelson.
The class will be taught by history professor Dr. F. Ross Peterson through the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
“What we want to study is what the students have called ‘untold truths”, said Peterson. “We will talk about the evolution and history of racism in the United States and then how it has affected their lives, their parent’s lives, and what we can do about it going forward.”
Because the idea to build a class was proposed just a couple of weeks before the fall semester began, creating it was an intense process. The team and Peterson continually met together, creating and refining the syllabus, in an effort to create a course that everyone was happy with. And thanks to the due diligence of the student-athletes and Dr. Peterson, and with support from administration, they managed to get the class approved and started.
“We’ve had unbelievably great cooperation from President Cockett and the board, so it came together pretty fast,” Peterson said. “The students, they did a great job, honestly…They were really open to just wanting to learn something that would change their lives and make them aware of where they were in life.”
At Utah State, where the majority of students are white, (82% according to college factual,) this class is a tremendous opportunity to learn of the system of oppression that, to this day, confronts Black Americans with several challenges.
Andre Grayson (30) leads USU in celebration after the Aggies defeated New Mexico Oct. 27, 2018 61-19.
“What I want everybody to get from this class the most is the importance of understanding why everything is the way that it is today because of the history of this nation,” Grayson said.
“If somebody was to take this class, the things that they would gain out of this would allow them to want to go into their own community and start the change,” Jummane Robertson added.
The goal of this class is for students to gain a greater apprehension of the “fabric of America” and be a part of positive change, according to Nelson.
“This class will help each one of us gain a better understanding and vision of the fabric of America and help us become part of the change that will improve this society as we know it,” said Logan native Nelson.
The course started just two weeks ago and is “still a work in progress,” according to Peterson. But despite it being online and completely brand new, he is pleased with how it has gone so far. With the class gaining a lot of support and attention, Peterson hopes that moving forward it can be in the curriculum regularly.
“We’re just trying to do a job and provide the best possible education for students and when they see a need that there’s something they want to learn, regardless of what their major is, I think the university has to be flexible enough to try and include that need.”
Coach Anderson closed the video by saying, “Young men on the 2020 football team wanted to leave a legacy, a potential legacy for themselves, and I think they’ve done this with this class.”
@jacobnielson12
— sports@usustatesman.com