Jul. 18—When Kutztown University administrators created the position of diversity and inclusion officer for athletics and recreational services, Bilal Salaam seemed like the right fit for the job.
Salaam knew the landscape as a former Golden Bears basketball star and current assistant coach. He played professionally for 12 years on five continents, where he has experienced many cultures.
Kutztown hired him earlier this year, hoping he can help improve and increase the university’s diversity, inclusion and equity among student-athletes, coaches and staff members.
“I believe my mission is to make sure every student-athlete is safe,” the 39-year-old Salaam said, “that they have a student-athlete experience that is going to be comfortable where they can express themselves and reach their true potential without feeling as though they have to change who they are.
“I also want to bring diversity to sports that may be homogeneous right now.”
Kutztown and Lock Haven are the only two schools in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education to create such a position, according to Salaam.
Kutztown had 19 varsity sports during the 2020-21 academic year with one full-time Black coach and no Black or Latin trainer. The Golden Bears had less than a dozen female athletes of color.
“We need to make a push to increase those numbers,” Salaam said. “When you look at our makeup, it just doesn’t say diversity at all. I really think our president (Dr. Kenneth S. Hawkinson) and vice president (Matt Santos) are trying to make changes. That’s a good thing. My job is to try to make those things happen.”
Amy Sandt, Kutztown’s assistant vice president for recreational services and athletic resources, acknowledged those numbers aren’t where the administration would like them.
“We’re aware we need to try to attract a more diverse staff than we have,” Sandt said. “We’d obviously like to get to a situation where our staff is reflective of our student-athlete population. I don’t think we’re there yet, and we’re aware of that.
“Asking Bilal in this role to help us figure out how to market our jobs in a way that we will attract a more diverse candidate pool so that we get the best candidate we can for the position is a huge part of his responsibilities.”
Sandt said administrators, notably Santos, began discussions about creating the position shortly after the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. With athletes at their homes because of the pandemic, Kutztown coaches asked during a staff meeting for guidance on how they should address the Floyd fallout within their teams.
“We realized there was a need to create some resources for our staff and for our student-athletes,” Sandt said. “Where can they go to get those questions answered? Where can they go to have difficult conversations? How could we create a situation where our coaches had resources available to them? Creating this position came out of that.”
Enter Salaam, who had been selected in June 2020 to chair the university’s Athletics Diversity Committee.
He grew up in Wilmington, Del., as one of seven children in a predominantly Black neighborhood and attended a high school with almost all Black students. He attended Delaware State, a historically Black university, for one year before he enrolled in 2001 at Kutztown, where he felt that he was in the minority for the first time in his life.
“It was a shock for me to be in that type of environment just because it was like the polar opposite,” Salaam recalled. “I wanted to stay to myself and kind of excluded myself from different situations where people would go places and do things.”
His relationship with his coach changed his life. Bernie Driscoll has guided the Kutztown men’s basketball team since 2000. Salaam didn’t know what to make of Driscoll until visiting his office during preseason practice after one of his aunts had died during his first semester.
“I had to tell someone because it was going to affect me, my schoolwork and my focus,” Salaam said. “Coach said, ‘Don’t worry about anything. We’ll get you through this. You need to focus on your family.’
“He really supported me. Me building that relationship with him allowed me to confide in other people that I wouldn’t have before. I built stronger relationships with my white teammates, my white professors. It just made me look at things differently. I (eventually) was no longer reserved. I was totally inclusive.”
The 6-7 Salaam went on to lead Kutztown to the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference title game in 2004 and two other PSAC playoff appearances. He was named the PSAC East Player of the Year in 2005 and finished his career with 1,342 points, a school-record 980 rebounds and 408 blocked shots, which remains the PSAC career record.
He played professionally for teams in Argentina, China, Finland, Mexico, Morocco, Qatar, Sweden and Switzerland and found many countries to be welcoming to him.
“When you go to Germany, it’s completely different,” Salaam said. “People are really inclusive. You see people of different nationalities together at the universities. Same thing in Sweden and Morocco. They intermingle all the time. There’s a lot of intermingling here at Kutztown, but it needs to be better.”
Salaam said he hopes he can make Kutztown athletics a more welcoming place. He has planned unity activities for student-athletes when they return to campus in August. He has designed a book club for athletes and coaches so they can understand each other better and see things from the perspective of others.
“My ultimate goal is to have our student-athletes, our coaches and our administrators be completely comfortable having tough discussions and realistic discussions about where we are,” Salaam said, “and how to get to a place where no one needs to question how they’re speaking.
“I want them to feel good, to be knowledgeable of things that happened in the past, to be knowledgeable of different cultures, to be knowledgeable of different nationalities and ethnicities.”
Salaam calls his decision to attend Kutztown “one of the best things that’s happened” in his life. He and his wife, Zabrina Goodwin-Salaam, a fellow KU grad, have two children. He wants what’s best for his alma mater.
“I’m not sure we had as many people of color when I was a student as we do now,” he said. “I know our admissions department has been doing a better job of making sure that students coming here feel more comfortable.
“There are a lot of resources at Kutztown University. What’s been missing is the conduit or pipeline for students when they have a question. I feel like I’ll be able to do that in my position.”
Salaam has a quote that he tries to live by every day, personally and professionally.
“Appetite for truth will be enhanced through knowledge, experience and dialogue with an open spirit and mind.”