Black colleges facing pivotal time

Photo: BCU head baseball coach Mervyl Melendez.

Mervyl Melendez, the baseball coach at Bethune-Cookman University, respects his school's distinguished tradition within the ranks of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. He tries every year to recruit African American players to the private liberal arts school, which has about 3,000 students at its Daytona Beach, Fla., campus.

"We offered, in November, seven African American kids scholarships. All but one rejected that offer and signed with different universities," he said. "After we were rejected we got kids from Puerto Rico. We recruited six, and all six said yes." And so Bethune-Cookman, whose student body is more than 91% black, fields a team in which African Americans are a minority, outnumbered by players from Melendez's native Puerto Rico.

CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE BY CLICKING ON BLOG TITLE.