‘We have a responsibility.’ Black coaches look to pave paths, break stereotypes in Centre County
Black or African American people make up just 3.8% of Centre County’s population, according to the U.S. Census.
For three Black high school basketball coaches — Bellefonte girls basketball’s Marcus Toomer, Penns Valley girls basketball’s Terrance Green and Philipsburg-Osceola boys basketball’s Tyrone “TJ” Anderson — being in the minority isn’t something they’re used to. Each has a different background, but have lived and coached in communities that looked very different than Centre County.
Here, they’re among the only Black high school head coaches.
Toomer, Green and Anderson share a goal — to break stereotypes. They each have seen the representation in media of people of African descent as malcontents, criminals or people who are generally up to no good.
Despite the stereotypes that they see broadly, they feel accepted in their communities. They also see themselves and each other as trailblazers and take their role in spreading their love and joy for the game of basketball with student-athletes seriously.
“(I want) other people to see themselves in leaders and positions of leadership to inspire them and to be able to say, ‘I can also go and do that. I can be a coach and I can do those things,’” Toomer said. “Wherever that may be. It is really nice to be able to set that up for others to be inspired to go do that.”
From Brooklyn to Bellefonte
Toomer is from Brooklyn, New York. He attended La Salle High School, the same high school that produced NBA champion Metta Sandiford-Artest, formerly known as Ron Artest. The 2008 York College graduate has a laundry list of qualifications — serving as an assistant basketball coach for Dickinson College during the 2008-2009 season, holding a master’s degree in educational leadership from York College in 2014 and serving as the Landisville Middle School head girls basketball coach from 2012-2014.
He moved to State College in 2014 to work with residence life at Penn State. He went on to become a volunteer assistant coach at Bellefonte during the 2018-2019 season and assumed the head coaching role in the 2019-2020 season. He’s grateful for the opportunities to grow and excel through his eight years in Centre County, which he said all stem from hard work.
“I think it’s really important to coach in an area that is predominantly white,” Toomer said. “It’s really nice to be able to have that opportunity and that around here, it’s not about how you look, it’s about who you are and the type of person you are. Are you an outstanding person and are you going to be a great role model for the people that you’re going to be leading? It can happen in any place if people are willing to see people for who they are and what they can bring to the table.”
Green’s welcome to Spring Mills
Green, a 2006 graduate of Upper Dublin High School, played football, basketball, baseball and participated in indoor track and field during his high school career. He went on to Lock Haven University, taking five years to complete his degree, with a year to study in Ireland. In his fifth year of college, he worked with Central Mountain as an assistant coach. He took on the cross country head coaching job at Central Mountain in 2011. Green became the track and field head coach for the 2014-2015 season and the girls basketball head coach from 2015-2018.
Green takes the same pride that Toomer has in being one of the area’s only Black head coaches. It’s not his first time serving in a head coaching role, serving as a baseball, softball, cross country and track and field coach at different points. Not only did he coach in an area where Black people aren’t highly-represented, he coached in sports that aren’t well-represented by Black head coaches.
“Just not having many African Americans around to have that networking or something to fall back on is hard,” Green said. “I used to teach and coach at Central Mountain and I used to live in the Lock Haven area and you’re a half hour away from Williamsport where you can drive down and see some Black people. But this area here, there’s not many of us.”
He said he’s never dealt with anything “outrageous” but thinks about what’s happening behind the scenes.
“You just have to walk with that chip on your shoulder and keep your head on a swivel,” he said. “I do everyday and you have to project yourself as someone who’s positive and just not fall into that stereotype that people who don’t understand our culture or who we are, think that’s what we are.”
A love for central Pennsylvania
Anderson was born and raised in southeast Washington, D.C. and played high school basketball at the historic T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia — the school known for its involvement in “Remember the Titans.” His coaches believed that it would be a good idea to leave the D.C.-area and go to school at Mount Aloysius to follow in the footsteps of his uncle, Joe Anderson, who is the all-time scoring leader at Saint Francis.
From that point, the younger Anderson fell in love with central Pennsylvania. After playing semi-professional basketball, he met his wife, who is a Huntingdon native. He went on to aid the Bearcats in their resurgence in basketball as an assistant coach for nine seasons, before taking Juniata Valley’s head coaching position and serving from 2014-2020 and winning a district championship in 2018-2019. He came to Philipsburg-Osceola in 2019, where he’s since served as the head coach.
“It means hope that we have an opportunity and a chance to do something special,” Anderson said. “All I ask is that we have an opportunity to see us grow. I believe that it’s just not myself, but there are others (Black coaches) coming behind me. We have a responsibility. Our responsibility is that we pave the way for the young ones coming behind us. If we do a good job of that, I believe that we can turn the stereotypes and how they think about us as coaches. If we just keep doing what we’re doing, we can do amazing things for the future. It doesn’t matter if you’re Black or you’re white, it just matters if you do a good job of coaching.”
