Dominique Kelley instills pride in players on the basketball court and beyond
By Victoria Baker
Junior, broadcasting major
During the spring semester, professors Joe Starita (’78) and Jennifer Sheppard launched a senior-level class: Being Black in Lincoln. More than 30 students applied and 14 were selected. The goal of the class was to provide Lincoln’s largely white community with an intimate look at the challenges of being Black in that community. The in-depth class challenged students to dramatically sharpen their research, interview, story structure and writing skills. In the end, 12 stories were written about Lincoln residents — former basketball players, Black Lives Matter leaders, preachers, teachers, businessmen and former convicts — representing a diverse cross-section of the local Black community. Here is one of those stories. “These students worked furiously for 15 weeks and have provided a rich and educational portrait of the everyday challenges of being Black in Lincoln — a portrait that has never existed before,” Starita said.
As the sun leisurely sinks on a chilly February night, the Lincoln High School gymnasium slowly fills with a gaggle of nervous spectators. In a few hours, one of the teams — either the Lincoln High Links or the Papillion-La Vista South Titans — will advance to the girls state basketball tournament.
At precisely 6 p.m., the announcer asks all spectators to rise. As the familiar notes of
The Star-Spangled Banner reverberate throughout the crowded gym, the fans all stand — hands over hearts, hats off in homage to those who served.
On the court, the Lincoln High girls all drop to their right knee. They all wear Black Lives Matter T-shirts over their jerseys, heads held high, unwavering eyes staring straight ahead. As the national anthem continues, some in the stands look down, casting dismissive glances at the players.
Soon, their coach extends her right hand and lays it to rest on the shoulder of one of her players. Throughout the entire season, at the start of every game, her girls have kneeled during the anthem to protest racial injustice. And for the entire season, Coach Dominique Kelley has watched and listened, her hand always on the shoulder of one of her players.
The coach will tell you that she’s proud of their resilience, proud that these young Black girls are taking a stand by kneeling down, proud that they’re speaking out for what they believe in. For what she believes in.
She credits her girls — their belief in the Black Lives Matter movement — for helping her become a better role model, for inspiring her to see things through their eyes.
“I wanted to make sure that they were being saved. They were going about things the right way and not putting themselves in a compromising situation,” Kelley said. “And that’s where that passion came from, me wanting to be a part of that all the way over here.”
The previous season, on Feb. 7, 2020, many of these same Black teenage girls went to Fremont for a game. Before it ended, at least one Fremont student hurled the n-word at the Lincoln High girls. Afterward, Lincoln High players confronted the Fremont student section. Some Fremont students started throwing things at the Lincoln High girls. Then a Lincoln High student hit a Fremont student. Fremont High staffers had to jump in to break up all the pushing and shoving.
Not long afterward, Kelley took to Facebook to recount the incident, praising her team for their demeanor and maturity after the game.
“I have never been more proud to be a part of something bigger than myself,” Kelley wrote in the Facebook post. “I learn more about perseverance, being resilient, and fighting for what you want in life more from them than they do from me.”
And it wasn’t long before the hate mail arrived.
Indignant letters addressed to the coach began showing up at Lincoln High.
“You are a coach and an adult. Your moral responsibility is to NOT inflame a situation by tweeting without getting full, correct and honest information,” one of the letters read. “Fremont is a very diverse community but we are NOT a racist community. You are the racist by making false comments and posting them. You have, by your lack of maturity, created a bigger and longer lasting problem.”
Soon, her husband grew concerned about her safety, about all the attention generated by the Facebook post.
And the coach?
She “didn’t lose an ounce of sleep.”
She found something besides fear, instead.
“I thought: What a powerful moment and opportunity for me to lead by example. To show my kids that you can bring light to terrible situations and you can handle situations with grace.”
***
The crowd’s thunderous cheers fall on deaf ears. The blood pumping through her system drowns everything out. Dominique Kelley breathes in short, ragged bursts. She glances at the scoreboard: No. 2 Bellevue East leads her No.1 Lincoln Northeast Rockets by 10. Whoever wins is the 2006 state champion.
There’s 1:24 left. An opponent brings the ball down court. Kelley lunges for it. The referee blows his whistle. A reaching foul. Both of Kelley’s hands shoot up as the crowd boos. It’s her fifth foul, so she walks to the bench, head held high, the crowd clapping and cheering. She lost the game, but not her will to persevere.
“We were friends with the same goal,” said Rich Olson, her Northeast basketball coach. “The superficial goal was to win. The underlying goal was to be the best you possibly can be, so that was what she pushed. She pushed her teammates. She pushed herself much harder than that.”
Starting at age 6, the more she played, the better she got. And the better she got, racial issues seemed to stay on the bench. In their place came a sense of privilege.
“I kind of felt privileged because we had the resources and opportunities that we needed to pursue things,” Kelley said. “So, I'm not sure I grew up, honestly, recognizing that I was like Black. We knew we were Black, but I didn’t really feel like we were ever treated differently.”
In high school, Kelley’s tenacity and talent elevated her to basketball royalty.
As a sophomore, she led the 24-0 Rockets to the 2005 state championship. Entering her senior year, she ranked among the nation’s top 200 players and became Gatorade Nebraska Player of the Year.
At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Kelley started in 109 consecutive games, and as a freshman, helped the Huskers win their third NCAA tournament game. She graduated No. 23 on NU’s career scoring list with 1,107 points in 2012.
Although Kelley’s fame and status afforded her a protective shield, that shield was conditional — reserved only for Dominique the athlete.
“People just saw Dominique as a basketball player,” said Monifa Cambrelen-Wilson, her lifelong mentor. “They didn’t see some of her struggle, or she didn't talk to them about her struggles until now. It doesn't mean that it wasn't real and it wasn’t happening and that discrimination, racial injustice, is not happening in Nebraska, because it is.”
That protective shield was pierced when Kelley moved to Des Moines in 2014 to help with the Drake University girls basketball team.
On many occasions, Kelley said she was called racial slurs while shopping at her local Hy-Vee — the worst coming when a young boy called her the n-word.
But she soon realized racial slurs weren’t the only threatening aspects of her new life.
One night when their dog ran away, she and her husband jumped in the car and went looking for him when they encountered a police car. They approached the car, handicap sticker meticulously placed on their new Beamer, to ask for directions to the local dog pound. But what was meant to be a helpful interaction turned into an interrogation of the sticker validity and the vehicle ownership.
A few days later, Kelley got a fine in the mail for an incorrect sticker placement. When she went to the police station to question it, she was sent to the courthouse.
But when she mentioned who her boss was — Drake girls head coach Jennie Baranczyk — the fines “magically went away.”
“I honestly didn’t know what to do,” Kelley said. “So, I kind of started to internalize a lot of those experiences and it was really strange.”
Racial strife, however, was far from the most traumatic experience in her new job.
In 2015, on a spring recruiting trip to Virginia, a pregnant Kelley felt out of sorts. Her doctor said it was the baby’s movement making her uncomfortable. At the hotel, she felt restless, the pain unbearable throughout the night. Advised by her mother to recruit for only a few hours the next morning, Kelley initially brushed it off and started to get dressed.
But then she coughed, followed by a hard sneeze.
She started bleeding. The blood was everywhere. She was rushed to the hospital.
At the hospital, she was told everything was fine, the baby was fine. But since she had lost so much blood, she’d have to go to a trauma center.
At the trauma center, she was relieved to see a Black OB/GYN doctor. “This is going to be good,” Kelley thought. “She’s going to save my baby and everything’s going to be fine.”
But she had lost too much blood. There was no fluid around the baby. Turned out, she’d been in labor the whole time. At 10:26, on the night of April 22, 2015, her husband by her side, Dominique Kelley lost her baby boy.
“I almost feel like she kind of lost some of her with David,” childhood friend Charity Iromuanya said. “And I think she had to kind of change the way she viewed relationships. I think it changed the way she even viewed her purpose in life.”
***
It’s an early April evening when Kelley pulls into Lincoln’s Home Depot. She drives carefully down the aisle, pulls into a parking spot and turns off the engine.
That’s when she heard it from a nearby motorist: “Black bitch can’t drive!”
She sees the man inside the store. He passes her by with a disapproving shake of his head. She confronts him and a verbal altercation ensues.
“A few years ago, something like that probably would have happened, and I would have been crying and like, ‘I'm not going inside.’ ” Kelley said. “And I was like: no — f... that.”
For the 32-year-old mother, these situations scare her, make her worry for her 4-year-old son, Kyrie. But those worries aren’t new.
“I remember them telling me ‘It's a boy’ — and I was terrified because of the climate of the country.”
Worries that translate into real-life situations.
In late January, the little boy told his mother that somebody at school didn’t like him.
“Why?” she asked.
Because, he said, my skin was “gross and black.”
Around the same time, the boy asked Kelley why her girls all kneeled during the national anthem.
While these can be tough, complex matters — often beyond a 4-year-old’s comprehension — Kelley and her husband view them as appropriate, as a part of the world they have to live in.
“Although Kyrie is four, preparation doesn’t start too early,” said her husband, Clyde Johnson.
And Kelley? She never thought she’d have to have these conversations with a 4-year-old.
“The conversation I have to have with my son — the conversation that (white people) all have to have with their children — is fundamentally different, right?”