BLJ Community Rowing<\/a>, the first Black-owned rowing organization in the country and one of Philadelphia’s most diverse community rowing programs.<\/p>\n“How do we get Black people into rowing?” Johnson said. That question helped inspire a mission that has now introduced more than 1,000 people to the sport.<\/p>\n
Johnson is an athlete, coach and former Division I rower who earned a scholarship to the University of Texas. She also competed in England’s prestigious Henley Royal Regatta.<\/p>\n
While traveling and competing at a high level, Johnson said she rarely saw other athletes who looked like her.<\/p>\n
“Traveling around the world and seeing no one that looked like me, I stumbled into my mission,” she said.<\/p>\n
Johnson launched BLJ Community Rowing in 2013, hoping to remove some of the barriers that have historically prevented people from participating in the sport.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s access,” Johnson said. “You have to be able to see it. It’s incredibly expensive.”<\/p>\n
Through BLJ Community Rowing, young participants can learn to row for free.<\/p>\n
Johnson said the program is about more than teaching technique on the water. It is also designed to help young people develop the confidence and skills they need to navigate a society that may not always be set up for their success.<\/p>\n
For athletes like Jabrael Thomas, the program has introduced him to a sport he once knew little about.<\/p>\n
“I was surprised there were Black people that rowed,” Thomas said.<\/p>\n
Thomas has been rowing for four years. He said some of his friends questioned why he traded basketball for time on the water.<\/p>\n
“My friends are like, ‘You stopped playing basketball for this?'” he said.<\/p>\n
Thomas said he has not looked back.<\/p>\n
“It’s calming, soothing, hearing the water as you row,” he said.<\/p>\n
The sport may also help shape his future.<\/p>\n
“I’m hoping to take it into college,” Thomas said.<\/p>\n
For Johnson, creating those opportunities is exactly the goal: helping more young people see themselves in rowing, gain access to the sport and potentially use it to open doors in college and beyond.<\/p>\n
\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n
In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Philadelphia, Brannon Johnson is working to make one of the nation’s least diverse sports more accessible. Johnson…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70,46315,726],"class_list":["post-262642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-rowing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}