By Dan­ny Barletta
The Dai­ly Campus
Sep­tem­ber 2, 2020

Paige Bueck­ers pos­es on the cov­er of Slam mag­a­zine. Pho­to cour­tesy of @paigebueckers on Instagram

It has been well doc­u­ment­ed that UConn fresh­man Paige Bueck­ers is a wiz on the bas­ket­ball court. She was the top-ranked recruit in the coun­try for her high school class and is expect­ed to be a spe­cial play­er for the Huskies over the next four years. 

Her arrival to UConn has been built up with much hype since she announced her com­mit­ment back in April of 2019. Dur­ing her senior sea­son at Hop­kins High School, Bueck­ers was prob­a­bly the most pop­u­lar high school bas­ket­ball play­er in the coun­try, along with Bron­ny James. She gained a mas­sive fol­low­ing on social media and even appeared on the cov­er of Slam mag­a­zine.  

With this new pub­lic sta­tus came a plat­form, and in the wake of George Floyd’s bru­tal death at the hands of a Min­neapo­lis police offi­cer, Bueck­ers real­ized what she would use that plat­form for: to pro­mote the mes­sage that Black Lives Matter. 

“I par­tic­i­pat­ed in a bunch of march­es,” Bueck­ers said when address­ing the media last month. “I donat­ed in food dri­ves just to try to use my image to make a pos­i­tive impact.” 

“There’s been a lot of dif­fi­cult con­ver­sa­tions with the Black Lives Mat­ter cam­paign and how peo­ple go against it and how peo­ple are sup­port­ive of it. I’m one of the sup­port­ers. I mean like they say, ‘All lives can’t mat­ter until Black Lives Mat­ter,’ and I’m huge for it.” 

Bueck­ers was born and raised in the Min­neapo­lis sub­urb of Edi­na, Min­neso­ta, a city that was almost 90% White in the 2010 cen­sus. But despite being a young, White woman from a pre­dom­i­nant­ly White area, racism is very per­son­al to her, and to know why you have to know about Drew. 

Drew Bueck­ers is Paige’s 7‑year-old lit­tle broth­er and her best friend. He is also bira­cial, which means he will like­ly have to face racism head-on when he gets old­er, and that’s not OK with Paige. 

“I just want him to grow up in a world that accepts Black peo­ple and doesn’t judge them based on the col­or of their skin,” Bueck­ers said. “So I’m all for [Black Lives Mat­ter], and if I lose sup­port­ers because they don’t agree with it then I don’t need those peo­ple any­ways on my side.” 

Bueck­ers has made quite a few posts on the top­ic of racial injus­tice on her Insta­gram, but her most recent — post­ed in the midst of yet anoth­er wave of protests after Jacob Blake was shot sev­en times in the back by a police offi­cer in Kenosha, Wis. — was the first to specif­i­cal­ly talk about Drew. 

“At what point do they stop look­ing at my lit­tle broth­er as a cute lit­tle boy and instead as a threat to soci­ety?” the post reads. “It scares me. I’m going to work for change lit­tle broth­er. I want you to grow up in world that accepts you for who you are. I am com­mit­ted to help mak­ing a change for the bet­ter. It’s time to step up and act in uni­ty because WE ARE THE CHANGE” 

Bueck­ers said it is real­ly hard to have con­ver­sa­tions with Drew about how he needs to act in cer­tain sit­u­a­tions because of his skin col­or, espe­cial­ly since he is only 7 years old. It’s not pos­si­ble for her to just sit back and accept the racial inequal­i­ty in this coun­try when some­one she loves so much is a per­son of color. 

“I’m scared for him,” Bueck­ers said. “Just hav­ing that fear of one wrong judg­ment and his life could be on the line, it’s super scary and it’s some­thing I want to help change. It’s not just me liv­ing in fear, it’s every­body who’s relat­ed to a per­son of col­or. So any­thing I can do and any­thing to make this world a bet­ter place for Black peo­ple, it’s huge for me. That’s why I try to use my plat­form as much as I can.” 

Her coach Geno Auriem­ma, who has also attend­ed protests this year, said he is very proud of the work being done by Bueck­ers and the rest of his play­ers to try and make a change. He said back in the 1960s, it was col­lege kids and young peo­ple who led the charge for change, and now 50 years lat­er, it’s hap­pen­ing again. 

“They’re liv­ing in a very sub­tle, very com­plex world that they’re grow­ing up in,” Auriem­ma said. “And they have opin­ions, they have views. They’re rad­i­cal­ly affect­ed by it in a way that only kids can be … I think they’re smart and they’re social­ly conscious.” 

Specif­i­cal­ly, Auriem­ma believes that Bueck­ers can make a change because she tru­ly sees the big pic­ture in all of this. 

“Paige is a very insight­ful kid,” he said. “She’s very much aware, and she’s not self-absorbed.” 

So look out for Paige Bueck­ers not only on the bas­ket­ball court, but also out in the com­mu­ni­ty bring­ing aware­ness to social issues like so many of the UConn greats that came before her — Bre­an­na Stew­art and Sue Bird just to name a cou­ple. And every time you see that, remem­ber that she’s fight­ing not for her­self, but for Drew. 

“I’m just try­ing to use my image and my plat­form to try to pro­mote the Black Lives Mat­ter cam­paign and just bring jus­tice and equal­i­ty in the world as much as I can,” Bueck­ers said.