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Knorr’s story shows how people of different races can unite

01/26/18 By Gary M. Baranec Williamsburg Rashadd Knorr

Williamsburg has been churning out an incredible amount of basketball talent for a school its size over the past 60-plus years, and Rashadd Knorr, with his flashy handle and sweet, soft-shooting touch, is a fitting heir to the tradition that has come before him.

In one aspect, though, Knorr is blazing his own trail.

While Knorr shares the talent and passion for the hardwood that the small Blair County community is known for, almost every one of his forerunners donning a Williamsburg uniform was white, not a man of color.

Knorr is an African-American, part of a minority in the United States as a whole, but even a greater minority in rural central Pennsylvania.

The 5-foot-11 senior point guard who leads his team in scoring, rebounding, assists and steals as it pursues a return to the PIAA Class 1A tournament, though, is out to show people that it’s not the color of a player’s skin that matters as much as the color of his Blue Pirate jersey.

“I’m going to use that as motivation that I’m going to show them I’m just not another one of those people (who see colors). That I’m going to be doing something that’s much more than average. More than a statistic,” Knorr said. “I want to go out and prove to people that I’m not a bad person.”

Pirates coach Brock Anders said Knorr has been doing a good job of accomplishing that goal.

“He’s done a good job of educating himself on it, and he’s learned to control his temperament when it comes to it and sort of channel it to a common good,” Anders said.

A history buff because he says he finds it interesting looking at old problems and how they impact new problems, Knorr undoubtedly is very aware of how race relations played a pivotal role in the growth of the United States and how they still provide challenges to this day. He even still encounters some of them from time to time.

“There’ve been a couple of games. There was a game this year when I heard certain things. But I’m getting to a point now of me growing into a young adult that I can’t let those things get to me. Once they get to me, that’s them getting what they want,” Knorr said.

Knorr and teammate Nick Michelone, a friend since kindergarten, said they never really thought of him as different growing up. Knorr was raised by his grandmother, Brenda McGregor, in Williamsburg. He grew up there with his older brother, Dante, and a younger brother, Peanut Wansley, now a freshman reserve for the Blue Pirates.

Of course, as Knorr got older, he became more aware of things, often because of comments he’d unexpectedly encounter when he left the community, but also sometimes even from his friends.

“Some kids would say things — racially — because they didn’t know any better, and they’d never learned anything about that,” Michelone recalled.

It was a difficult position sometimes for Knorr. He knew they didn’t mean anything by the comments. They were, after all, people close to him. At the same time, the words still could be hurtful.

“There was a certain point when we started getting older that people thought it was cool to joke around about that stuff, race,” Knorr said. “Initially, I would laugh about it, because I didn’t know how to (address it), because they were my friends. I didn’t want to drive them away.”

Anders has coached at least one African-American player at each of his previous coaching stops in Huntingdon and East Juniata. When he was a player on Juniata Valley’s PIAA-championship-contending teams of the mid-1990s, he played in a league where about the only school that had players from racial minorities was Mount Union. While he had gotten to know and become friends with players of other races in that time, he also heard inappropriate comments from fans.

As a coach, dealing with racial issues and the situations that sometimes come up isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. As a mentor and a person, it’s something about which Anders knows he must be aware.

“I think it’s gotten better. I know it was contentious sometimes back when I played. But there’s still times when these guys struggle with those things,” Anders said. “I’ve dealt with it many times, so it’s gotten a little bit easier (to deal with), but, for Rashadd, the first times, having not been through it, it wasn’t necessarily as easy.”

Knorr said his older brother probably experienced a tougher time with racial comments or even outright racism than he did. He said he’s noticed it becoming less of an issue as he’s gotten older and as more racial minorities have begun to move into other smaller communities throughout the region.

“It’s shown a lot of progression,” Knorr said. “When I was younger, it’d be, ‘They have the black kid on their team, so they’re going to win.’ Everyone being scared. Kids from other schools not wanting to talk to me because I was black. By the time I hit junior high and started to play basketball, I heard a few things here and there, but it wasn’t like anyone was trying to go out of their way to give me that.”

Knorr resists the stereotype that being black gave him an advantage when it came to basketball. He actually didn’t play the game until he was in sixth grade, but then developed a passion for it.

His skills are the product of days and hours of playing the game. He joked about he and his friends will take a snowplow to the park to clear it so they can play on winter days.

“Seventh grade, I started doing a lot more dribbling, and I wasn’t very good,” Knorr said. “Going into my ninth grade year, I joined an AAU team. Once I did that, with all the work and all the games, my confidence just built. I think that really did it for me. In ninth grade, I got moved up to varsity, and I practiced and played with the older kids. It boosted my confidence so much, and it made me realize that I can’t sit still, I can’t get complacent. Someone might be better. So I’d just work. I’d shoot. I’d dribble. I’d be at the court constantly with all my friends.”

With Knorr running the point, Williamsburg reached the District 6 Class 1A finals last year and won its interdistrict opening-round game. Faced with some key losses to graduation, Knorr’s role has changed this season. He’s being called upon to contribute in more areas. He’s averaging 20.4 points, 5.8 rebounds, 5.2 assists and 2.4 steals as Williamsburg battles to qualify for districts and a shot to advance again.

“Without him, it would be very hard for us this season,” Michelone said. “He does everything. He missed a game against Saint Joseph’s because he was sick, and everything was out of rhythm because we didn’t have him there.”

Knorr is planning to enter the Air Force when he graduates high school. He thinks the discipline would help him. He feels the adversity he’s felt sometimes from his almost unique set of circumstances growing up have helped him, too.

“I think this really brought me and my family together and built the character of me not caring what other people have to say (about me). When people say bad things about me, I’m not going to let it get to me. I let a lot of things go. I try to not get involved in conflict, which would give me a bad rap,” Knorr said.

That attitude also has contributed to bringing people both black and white together, realizing that racial differences don’t need to be differences at all.

“With my family being close to all the parents and Williamsburg being a very close community, it helps, because I’m not in this alone. Once the community got into it and realizing that I was going to be here for a while, I was part of the community like anybody else,” Knorr said. “They went colorblind to it.”

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