One Out of A Thousand: Rayne Wright
Rayne Wright playing a ball off the sideline against Yale (Courtesy of Maryland Athletics).
When children join a sport at a young age, most times they just want to enjoy themselves and meet new friends. For Rayne Wright, she noticed something different when she looked at her peers: there weren’t many girls that looked like her.
“I think it's been something that has not come up in conversation, but something I've noticed as I've gotten older. Mostly when I was in high school, just seeing that there isn't much representation,” Wright said. “But it's never been a negative thing for me. I always try to portray– in this sport– I've never felt like the odd man out.”
Wright is a captain on the University of Maryland Field Hockey team, which is currently ranked 12th in Division I. The team which has won seven NCAA Championships, captured 27 Conference Championships, and appeared in 21 NCAA Final Fours. They are led by head coach Missy Meharg who is in her 37th year of coaching the Terps.
“For them to ask me to be the captain of a team that has been so successful over many decades, it's unreal,” Wright said.
The Bethlehem, Pennsylvania native is in her senior season playing for a historically accomplished field hockey team. However, it doesn’t mask that she doesn’t see many athletes that look like her playing.
“I can probably tell you how many [Black] girls are in the Big 10, because there's not many of us,” Wright said. She doesn’t view the underrepresentation as a negative but rather an opportunity to find ways to make the sport more accessible to people of color.
Currently, there are 8,606 Black athletes in Power Five schools according to the NCAA Diversity Research. They represent only 19% of the Power Five schools.
Within field hockey, only 2% of NCAA Division I athletes identify as Black. Only 1% are Black women head coaches across all divisions and only eight percent are Black women assistant coaches.
Additionally, Wright recognizes her significance in being a captain for an accomplished program and coming from a mixed-race background.
Wright comes from a family of field hockey players. Her mother, Dawn Trumbauer-Wright, was part of the University of Massachusetts 1990 team that went 16-6-0 and reached the NCAA Elite Eight that year. She also has a sister who played in high school.
Rayne Wright being called in the starting line up against JMU (Courtesy of Maryland Athletics).
“I actually hated this sport until I was about in the 8th grade, and then I found my love for it,” Wright said. “But it's funny because if I wouldn't have continued with it and my mom let me quit, my future would be nothing that it looks like right now.”
From her family to her teammates, Wright highlighted how she was able to have a sense of community and support system through the sport she loves. In turn, she wants others to have the same opportunities to experience a community through field hockey just like she has.
Although Wright is only one out of 111 athletes of color, she continues to be an inspiration for other athletes of color. Seneca Valley High School, a school in Montgomery County, Md., has a team full of diversity and they come to support their favorite player who represents a small part of the NCAA.
“There’s Seneca Valley, a high school that comes to watch me play. Their entire team is probably all Black. And they're awesome. These girls come and they say that I'm their favorite player,” Wright said. Wright hopes to attend a practice or game at Seneca Valley to show her support and hopes to keep inspiring them to continue playing.
“I just want them to see me and see where I've come from. I haven't come from a super wealthy place. I work hard to get where I am and I wanna be able to give that to other kids and just show them that you can be powerful in what you do and this is a game to show that,” Wright said.
Field hockey is an increasingly popular sport in North America, with 263 NCAA programs across all divisions with only 82 just in Division I. However, the sport is lacking in diversity due to availability of the sport in different areas and expenses that come with the sport.
Wright has been awarded the opportunity to play a sport she loves and for a team that she loves. When all is said and done, she feels like another player when she’s with her team.
“And for it to be the group of people that I'm surrounded with, it's super fun because I love all of them,” Wright said. We're all trying to work our best to get to the farthest step we can be.”