Head coach acknowledges famous African-American women through social media

Peter Holland, Jr. // Staff Writer

Head coach Tiara Malcom has been active on social media for the past month. Since the first day of February, the first-year head coach would post a picture of famous African-American women and summarize what they have accomplished along with the hashtag #BreakBarriers on Instagram.

Although Black History Month is gone, the head coach is still managing to tie both February and March, Women’s History Month, together each day.

“Well for me in celebration of Black History Month, I always done that in some social media such as Facebook or Twitter and Instagram,” said Malcom.

From posting about Autherine Lucy on Feb. 1, the first black student to attend University of Alabama, to Viola Davis on Feb. 27, the first black woman to win an Emmy, Tony and Oscar as an actress, Malcom wants to inspire her followers in the success of African-American women that paved the way for the women of the future.

“I just started off and said I am a female, let me try to kind of do it,” said Malcom. “You know Black History ties in with females that paved the way.”

Malcom would also bring it up to her players to empower them to strive for greatness. The 34-year-old coach wants her team to feel inspired despite the different ethnic backgrounds each player comes from. She would tell her players about their future not only as athletes, but students as well.

“We actually had a conversation in practice before the UTEP game,” Malcom said. “The kids were caught talking about it [history] and generated a conversation, but then I tied it back into basketball and them (SIC) knowing your history and what you came from. It’s not just black history, it’s the history were Janka (Hegedus) is from. It’s history where Nina (Nikolina Todorovic) is from and the history of where are coaches are from. You have to know where you came from in order to establish where are you going in the future.”