This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: What do a fourth grader at Jackson Park Elementary School and legendary African-American baseball player Jackie Robinson have in common? Determination. Courage. Confidence. They both overcame barriers that many could not. They both felt different and did something about it.
Fourth grader Xavier Morgan-Gillard told his story in “What Jackie Robinson and I Have in Common” and entered the essay in the Major League Baseball and Scholastic Inc. 2013 Breaking Barriers in Sports, In Life contest, which drew 18,700 submissions. He, along with three other students, won first place.
Another St. Louisan, Jennifer Wayland, a freshman at Parkway Central, is co-winner of the grand prize. Her essay is about the struggles she had with body image and how she learned to love herself. She and the other grand prize winner, Luke Lunday of West Point, N.Y., will be recognized at the 2013 MLB All-Star Game at Citi Field in Queens, N.Y., and the 2013 World Series, according to a news release.
This week, Sharon Robinson, Jackie Robinson's daughter, came to Jackson Park Elementary to recognize Xavier before taking Xavier and Jennifer to the Cardinals game.
The difference that set Jackie Robinson apart was obvious. He was the first African-American in Major League Baseball. But why did Xavier feel different? Selective Mutism: a type of social anxiety that made the student unable to talk to anyone outside his close family as a kindergartener. Affected children understand language use; and, although they have the physical ability to speak, they show a persistent inability to speak in particular settings over a certain period of time due to anxiety, according to the Selective Mutism Group.
His psychologist told him it was one of the hardest social anxiety disorders to overcome. “I remember looking around and everyone was talking and having fun and I was just staring at the wall,” he wrote about his first day of pre-school, ”I knew that people could just talk whenever they felt like it. I felt a little bit jealous.”
Like Jackie Robinson, Xavier had a team. He wrote, “Out of all the traits that Jackie and I have in common, I think that teamwork was the most important one.” His team consisted of his parents, his kindergarten and first grade teachers, his friend, Adam, and a horse named Cappy.
Xavier would whisper his answers to questions in class in Adam’s ear, who would say it out loud to the teacher and class. He improved slowly by doing such things as ordering his own milkshake at a restaurant and talking to Cappy the horse, whom he knew for sure wouldn’t tease him.
Now he participates in student council, the robotics team, soccer, baseball, piano and cello. “When something is hard for me, I think about Jackie Robinson and how he overcame his barriers, which helps me overcome mine,” he wrote.
Sharon Robinson brought Xavier's fourth grade class an autographed set of her book “Promises to Keep” and Breaking Barriers T-shirts. Xavier and his teacher, Debbie Russo, who persuaded him to enter the contest, also received new laptop computers.
Robinson, along with Major League Baseball and Scholastic, developed Breaking Barriers: In Sports, In Life. The essay contest asks students in grades four to nine to enter an essay about obstacles they’ve faced or are still facing and how they overcame those obstacles using values that Jackie Robinson demonstrated: commitment, citizenship, courage, determination, excellence, justice, persistence, teamwork and integrity.
The contest also received support from Warner Bros., whose current film "42" is about Jackie Robinson’s life.
Robinson has paid tribute to her late father through a variety of books, her latest being "Jackie Robinson: American Hero." At the presentation, she told stories of her father, some comical and some inspiring. These included tales of him testing the ice on the pond in their backyard and Dr. Martin Luther King visiting their home after his famous march on Washington.
The students, who had headbands with the number “42” on their foreheads, readily responded to questions such as “What do you think an obstacle is?” or “What are some barriers you’ve overcome?”
They listened attentively when Robinson said, “Xavier, when we read your essay, the thing that we liked the best was how clearly you described the process you went through to overcome your barrier.”
He then read the essay out loud, clear as day, as if he had been a talker his whole life.