Student athletes portray that stereotypes in respect to di­versity are not shown at Pace.

One of the common stereo­types when it comes to sports are that African Americans and His­panics have a natural athleticism and that Whites are only good at sports because of their hard work.

This stereotype causes many people to think that sports play­ers are mainly African American and Hispanic and not as promi­nently white. In reality this ste­reotype is broken everyday and athletes of all races require a natural athleticism combined with hard work and dedication in order to succeed.

This can be seen by athletes right here at Pace, such as bas­ketball player Denzel Primus- Devonish.

Primus-Devonish may be of African-American descent, but that’s not what got him to be­come the athlete that he is today. His hard work and dedication have helped him become one of the best players on the team, as he was named co-captain of the basketball team for this season.

Primus-Devonish doesn’t want to stop there.

“I am always looking to get better every day, to be more suc­cessful,” said Primus-Devonish, who had a career high 37 points in the game against Dowling College on Sun., Nov. 9. “I want to continue to play harder and try to be recognized as one of the top point guards in the league.”

Another common stereo­type seen in the sports world is that since Asians are stereotypi­cally considered to be incredibly smart, it is believed that they are not good when it comes to sports.

As with all stereotypes, it is not true and as swimmer Aman­da Wong believes, you can’t do much except “ignore the stereo­types and just continue to do what you love.”

According to a study by Penn Graduate School of Education, from 2007 to 2010, Black men made up only 2.8 percent of “full-time, degree-seeking undergraduate students,” yet comprised 57.1 percent and 64.3 percent of college football and basketball teams, respectively.

When it comes to di­versity within sports, it is com­monly believed that it does not accurately represent the overall diversity of the school, but that is not the case when it comes to Pace.

The reality is that when one looks at the diversity of the stu­dent athlete population com­pared to the overall population of the school, it can be seen that it is actually similar.

Pace has 2,356 students cur­rently enrolled and 276 of these students are student athletes.

As seen in the Pie Charts, the breakdown of ethnicities for Pace student athletes compared to the overall student population is rather similar.

The majority of the overall population, as well as the Athlete population, identify themselves as white/non-Hispanic. It is also worth noting that although in the overall population Hispanic students, who represent 16 per­cent of the 2356 person student body, make up the second largest ethnicity, in the student-athlete population, the African Ameri­can student-athletes make up the second largest ethnic population who represent 17 percent of the 276-person student-athlete body.

Compared to the demograph­ics for professional sports teams, especially basketball, foot­ball, and baseball, the majority of players are usually African American and Hispanic.

That is not entirely the case when it comes to Pace.