Ep. 52: Dr. Claudrena Harold, Temple Women's Basketball Alum

Voice of the Owls Kevin Copp sat down with former Temple women's basketball star and Temple Athletics Hall of Famer Dr. Claudrena Harold. Dr. Harold was the keynote speaker at the 2026 Stella's, the department's end-of-the-year celebration.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:05

Hi everyone and welcome back to the OLPOD, the official podcast of Temple Athletics. I'm your host, Kevin Cobb, and my guest today is Dr. Claudrina Harold. Dr. Harold is a professor of African American and African studies and history at the University of Virginia. But before that, she was a 1997 graduate of Temple, where she played women's basketball for three seasons for the Owls. At the time she graduated, she ranked third in program history in points per game and is still to this day in the top five all time in that category. She was inducted into the Temple Athletics Hall of Fame in 2010, and her name hangs in the League Cora Center Raptors as part of Temple's Ring of Honor. She was also the keynote speaker at this past week's Stella Awards, which is where we had the chance to talk to her before she addressed this year's class of Temple student athletes at our annual banquet. I want to note before we get to the interview, this is my last episode of the Al Pod for the season. David and Amelia will be back one more time next week for a final Al Pod sign off and to welcome two new student athletes who will be carrying the torch forward for their fun and insightful interviews next fall. So make sure to check that out before we go on our summer hiatus. But I do want to say a thank you to everyone before this episode starts for listening this year. This has been such a great honor and really just a fun treat to get to sit down with some longtime friends, colleagues, or great temple owls that I've admired from afar, get to bring you their stories and have some really fun and interesting conversations. There are over 50 episodes in the archives, so if you've missed any of them, I would encourage you to scroll back, check them out, uh, check out anything you missed uh from this past year right here in the feed. So, without further ado, here is Dr. Claudrina Harold after this quick word from our AlPod sponsors.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

And we're back with the action!

SPEAKER_03 1:47

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SPEAKER_02 2:04

Best Coke ever? Take a taste, Jim. Really? No, not right now, Jim. We got a game to call.

SPEAKER_04 2:20

This is uh so wonderful to uh to have you back here at Temple, and I'm wondering, you know, you played from ninety-four to ninety-seven. You were inducted into the Temple Hall of Fame in 2010, but how many chances have you had to come back to Philadelphia now here as the guest speaker for the the Stellas Awards uh here in 2026? How many t times have you had the ability to to come back to campus? Because I mean, I I'm sure it has changed enormously since I mean it's changed enormously since 2010, to say nothing of nineteen ninety-four to ninety-seven. It's probably unrecognizable in some ways. So how often have you had the chance to come back?

SPEAKER_00 2:56

I come back often, um to Temple and to Philadelphia. Um because of just the work that I do in in terms of um being, you know, a scholar, uh, and I've written a few books. So I've been invited, interestingly enough, about three times to the University of Pennsylvania. Uh, to give talks and any time I'm back in Philly, um, I come through through Temple and um I also make film. Uh and one of the best film festivals in the country and the world is Black Star Film Festival, which is held in Philadelphia every August, uh, usually late July, early August, and so I always come back.

SPEAKER_04 3:40

So take me back to I guess the first time you came here. Now, did you have any familiarity with Philadelphia before you came here to play basketball in in ninety four before you came here as a student? Was you came from Jacksonville, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Right, I came from Jacksonville, Florida. So my familiarity with Philadelphia was, of course, Julius Irving and the Sitzers and music, uh, Philadelphia International. I grew up in a household in which uh Teddy Pendergrass and the O.J.s were constants. Uh my uncle was also a music producer. So he actually produced B. B. King's album, um, sort of his nineteen seventy-three classic, um To Know You is to Love You. And so he produced that record at Sigma in Sigma Studios. I didn't know that then, I know that now. Um and of course I grew up watching those sort of legendary John Cheney teams. And John Cheney is actually a native of Jacksonville, Florida. It's a fun connection. It's a fun connection. So I knew Mark Macon. Okay. I knew of Mark Macon. And so I was familiar with Philadelphia and Temple. And so when I had the opportunity to come here and uh Temple recruited me, it was very fascinating to me. I was interested in going away from Jacksonville, from Florida, and having the opportunity to live in Philadelphia in a global city was very um attractive. And I think by that time I was thinking about the entire college experience and not just what happened like between the lines. And Temple was just exciting. I think I came to visit doing spring fling and that just uh it just sold me. It was amazing. I remember running into Tim Perry in the airport. Um and it was just a it's just an amazing place. It was so live and it was so different than anything that I had experienced. And so, um, it was really love at first sight.

SPEAKER_04 5:59

Well, I want to get to all of the different ways that Temple has has shaped you in in the intervening years, but I do have to ask from an athletics perspective, just what that was like for you. You have a tremendously successful career here at the time that you finished, third all time in in scoring average. Uh again, as we said, you know, Philadelphia, big five honors, Temple Hall of Fame, your name is hanging in the building in the in the Ring of Honor. So, I mean, a a a decorated career here. Uh, what was your temple student athlete experience like?

SPEAKER_00 6:33

It was everything and in between. So by my sixth game at Temple, I had lost more than I did my entire high school career. Um, I finished my high school career with a team uh rebalt high school. We were on a sixty-nine game winning streak. So I hadn't lost since my fifth game. No, it may have been fourth. I can't even remember in eleventh grade. And so um that was like okay. That was an adjustment. My first year, um, I think I averaged um eighteen points. Uh I remember I shot twenty times my first game against James Madison, and I remember Coach Curtis saying, You don't have to shoot every time. Um but it was so exciting. Like um being a student athlete, you know, playing in the gym, going to the gym and seeing all of the fellows come back, Eddie Jones, Aaron McKee. These folks were constant, even though they graduated the year before I got here. Um it was just exciting. Uh everything was exciting playing in the A-10s. Um, we were not winning, um, but individually I was having success on the court and off the court. And it was just an exciting time to be in Philadelphia. Um Temple, just being a student athlete at Temple was um it was like the land of all possibilities. Uh in some ways except winning, but it was um it was it it was a great time. Um getting to understand the city rivalries, you know, Saint Joe's and uh U Penn it it was awesome and um so much has changed in women's basketball in terms of just the excitement and the level of investment, but even still back back then it was um it was it was the place to be. It was definitely the place to be.

SPEAKER_04 8:43

Well you've mentioned the connectivity between the women's program and the men's program, and obviously at this time, you know, on the men's side you have John Cheney who is just a you know almost a mythical figure in in the sport, and I'm wondering, did you have the opportunity to to cross paths with Coach Cheney? Was there any of that uh that that rubbed off on you and your time here?

SPEAKER_00 9:04

Most definitely. So on my visit, I remember Coach Curtis taking me to John Cheney's office, and I remember him saying, What's up, homegirl? And um once a year I would try to get up at five o'clock in the morning and attend a 5 30 practice. Um I wasn't much of a defensive player, so the matchup zone was um I wasn't completely invested, but just to have the opportunity to hear John Cheney go over the X X and O's, but to also extend that conversation into a discussion about life, about what it means to develop the full person, um, about what it means to have character, about what it means to have restri resilience, about what it means to be in a community. So I find myself a lot of times, um, you know, and I've read his book, going back and thinking about the matchup zone and how the matchup zone was not just just a sort of defensive strategy, but it was about life. So he was um a larger than life character. Um and there were some great players. Mark John uh Mark Jackson uh was here. They had some great teams, um Jason Ivey, Johnny Miller, uh just a just a lot, Pepe Sanchez.

SPEAKER_04 10:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

And so it was um it was cool. Then a lot of us lived in either um Johnson or Peabody or Temple Tower, so it was definitely a um a connection. Definitely a connection.

SPEAKER_04 10:49

Alright, well, I heard your commencement address at UVA in 2022. You described the experience here at Temple as transformative, and I know that that is referring not just to your time as a student athlete, but as a student here, and do I have right that you made the decision to graduate early?

SPEAKER_00 11:04

I did.

SPEAKER_04 11:04

Okay. So tell me about while all of this is going on and and you're having at least the individual success on the court, you're you're developing as a student athlete. Tell me about the academic pursuit and and where that's leading you while all this is happening.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Right. So I entered the portal of life. Um a lot of academic um opportunities. I came here majoring in business in my first semester. I took a course that was taught by um Mario Beatty, and it was uh African history course, and it just blew me away. And I followed that trajectory, and so I majored in African American studies, I minored in history, though I could have majored in history, I only needed one more class, and by my second year, I was having such a phenomenal um academic experience. I had amazing teachers, amazing mentors who were like, you know, you should think about graduate school. I grew up in a working class family with a few nurses and teachers here and there. And so when I was growing up, and you know, you were smart, they said, well, you can be a nurse or a lawyer or a doctor, and I never thought about the life of the Mai and being a professor. And Temple um opened that possibility up for me. They had a PhD program in African American and African studies, and so I'm also seeing people who look like me get PhDs, and so by my second year, I say, you know, I love basketball, it's fun, but there's more that I want to pursue. And basketball in many ways it's enforcing that. You know, we're traveling to Massachusetts, and we're traveling to DC, and we're traveling to all these places, and the coaches are letting us go to museums, and so uh they didn't do themselves any favor by uh cultivating this student athlete in the city.

SPEAKER_04 13:11

They should have kept you in that hotel in the uh in the conference room, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

And and and back then we would spend all of our cr our you know holiday breaks. We lived in Doubletree, and so December and January were really transformative, and so I had this amazing um educational experience, and it was a world of possibilities. And um I flipped the script and I still remember having butterflies going into um the coach Coach Foley's office and saying I'm gonna graduate early. But this is what I love about Temple, and I will forever be grateful. When I made that decision and I needed to take another class in the summer, coaches, the academic support team, they said, We got you. And to be honest, I was nervous because I was like, Okay, if what if they get mad and say, you know what? Yeah, well, you can't, you know, you paid the $16,000. Um, and that was a fear of mine. I didn't even tell my mom what I was doing. Yeah. But Temple provided that support, and I have friends who attended other universities who didn't get that kind of support, even when they played four years. And so that's why I'm here and that's why I'm eternally grateful.

SPEAKER_04 14:37

Now that leads you through you got your PhD at Notre Dame?

SPEAKER_00 14:41

I get my PhD at Notre Dame, so I have a bridge year. In that year that uh I could have been hooping, I was prepping for the GREs and working on my uh graduate application packet, and I applied to a few places and Notre Dame uh was interested. They gave me a full ride, um, stipend, and so I go from Philly to a bridge here where I taught math and science in uh Jacksonville middle school and I was like, Yeah, I'm definitely ready for graduate school and uh then I I went to Notre Dame and Notre Dame and Temple are like opposite in every sense of the word, and Temple prepared me for um the ability to move and groove and thrive in any kind of place, and then I graduated from uh Notre Dame with my PhD in 2004, and um I got four job offers and and Temple was always my model. So two of those offers were at, you know, major s schools in major cities, Cincinnati and Memphis, and then University of Virginia came calling, and I was really leaning towards Cincinnati and Memphis because Temple was the model of, you know, an urban school, a diverse school, and I rem my advisor said you gotta go to UVA. And um I did and I'm grateful for it, but I wouldn't have made it without this place.

SPEAKER_04 16:24

Well it's interesting you said that about Temple and Notre Dame being opposites, because you can make the same case about Temple and UVA as kind of the archetypal model of the college town. It's obviously, as we'll get into, kind of loaded in terms of its racial history, and there's a lot there when it comes to UVA, and having grown up in the Philadelphia area myself, and I went to school at the University of Georgia, so I made that similar. You and I were on reverse trajectories. You came north and and ended up going back south, I went south and came back north. So I mean it's different. Uh, and certainly uh in in 2004, even though it's the recent past, it's it's a different culture, it's a different place. And I'm just wondering, obviously, as a professor of uh African American and African studies, uh, and the intersection of so many different things, labor history, uh the arts and culture and everything that you've been able to to have a hand in, just what that experience has has been like and how that's evolved for you at UVA over these two decades.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

Sure. Uh so I get to UVA in 2004. Uh the student population at UVA is probably about 10% African American at that point. It had dropped a little bit from sort of the the golden age of the 90s when it was like 13%, and right now it's like seven to eight percent. Uh it was completely different. Uh different reality, but there was uh openness that I learned here. And I never forget someone coming to me and saying, you know, you gotta this is gonna be tough and this is gonna be difficult. Um Philly was tough and difficult, especially for my mother. I'm pretty sure the first year they all thought I was gonna get hit by a bus on Broad Street. Um, but it prepared me. But I walked into the classroom and one of the things that I knew, and I think sports teaches you this, is that you have to take people for their word and trust the process. And I remember going into class and I said, I cannot assume that these students feel a certain way about me because I'm a black woman. I gotta come in there and just bring it. And that's what I did, and that's how I built community. Um, and yeah, there's been a lot of changes in the past twenty two years. Um it has experienced um political assaults, it has experienced uh tragedy ranging from the white supremacist rallies of August 11th and 12 to a student, one of my students, murdering three students. Um of course in 2022 2022 we endured the tragic uh killing of the three football players. And um it has also seen some highs and it's seen some lows. Uh I have had three different presidents over the past year and a half, um, still in interim provost. And so all of the transformations taking place in the nation, in the world, uh in higher education, um I've experienced them at UVA, and I've been committed to being a part of something that tries to make the place better, that tries to um push it forward in a more positive direction, and it's because of the example that I saw at at at Temple, um, where there was always this question about what is the university's responsibility to the community? What is the university's responsibility to Philadelphia? What is the university's responsibility to not just the faculty, not just the students, uh, but the people who come in every day. And um what I didn't know then that I know now is that that seed was being planted. Um it's so interesting to even be in this center right now, mm-hmm because I never played here, but I remember all of the debates surrounding the building of the Apollo. Sure. And I didn't get them all. Um I didn't understand sometimes the the debates between, you know, John John Street and John Cheney, but the seed was being planted. And so so much of what I think I do, studying the history of the university, documenting the African American experience, I think it meant something for me to be here when there was a black football coach, women's basketball coach, and men's basketball coach. I saw African Americans in leadership positions. Um and so of course I would go to UVA and think that certain things were possible. Um because it was always, you know, our motto then was um, you know, embrace the temple challenge. And so I have tried to do that at every step.

SPEAKER_04 21:54

I think it's so interesting to hear the way that you Take on the it goes beyond the mission, just the the way you take on the fabric of what this place means and carry that forward, I think, is something really special and something that I think you're in a particular position to speak to just because you you come from Temple, you were a student athlete here, you've remained in academia. One of the the kind of big picture conversations we've been having through this podcast and bringing all sorts of different perspectives to it is just how the role of college athletics has evolved for better and for worse uh in in the times since you were a student athlete. It's changed tremendously. Uh, and I think in some ways that's been a positive, and in some ways it's been a negative. And I'm just wondering from your perspective on the academia side of it, just kind of what you've seen. I know there was a fun little Easter egg that you taught uh Michelle Vatisse and Carissa Vatisse, our our uh field hockey uh coaches. Uh they were students of yours. So I know that you have continued, obviously, to intersect with the athletics world, and I'm just wondering your perspective as a former student athlete, but also as a as a professor, uh just kind of how you've seen the evolution of everything and and your thoughts on it.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

Sure. First of all, they were stellar students. Always came to class prepared, always ready. And I've always said the folks who are the best on the court are also oftentimes the best in the classroom. And I think about people like Malcolm Brogdon, who was a student of mine, and who ended up getting didn't, you know, decided to, you know, to forego the NBA when he knew he would be a high draft. I mean, eventually was drafted, and but wanted to get his master's in public policy. And when you look at some of the things that he's doing around um water and accessibility and Africa, it's it's amazing. Um there's been a lot of changes. I was really n I am nervous about tonight. Um, and I had I had dinner uh with Arthur and I just asked the question, I said, you know, what is this landscape like? Well am I gonna be talking to student athletes who've been at Temple for three years or three months? Um, do I need to tell them how to have a transformative experience for two months if you decide to leave? Um and so that is something that, you know, the shift in the portal, um, the the the movement, you know, it was nothing better than meeting a student their first year, and they would take my intro class, and I know that I would have them for three to four more years, and we would grow together. Um it's still an opportunity, um, but it it's not the same. Um they have a lot of responsibilities, they have a lot of opportunities, um, sometimes less interaction with other students. Um you're gonna learn a lot of lessons from non-student athletes, or who we used to call the regular people. Um you know, but some you know, you learn a lot, and that's one of the things that I've seen. So I think it's great that students can have their own apartments and their own dormitories and at a place like UVA, their own eating spaces and cafeteria, but we want to make sure that we are protecting that college experience. There's nothing like college, there's nothing like four years together, there's nothing like spending an hour and a half or hour and 15 minutes in a classroom two days a week. There's a level of intimacy and contact that you're not gonna really have with anyone besides your most immediate family, and the opportunity to to collectively learn together. Uh, and so those are some of the things that I've seen. Of course, I have struggled not to say the Atlantic 10.

unknown 26:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

So also conference realignment. One of the big concerns that I have from a student athlete perspective is what does it mean when my students now are going to be traveling to California? Yeah. And so I immediately, when you know, the ACC expanded, that was a big concern of mine because I remember when we would play, and it was rare in California, that was usually during the break. You know, that was doing a time where you were not in class, you were not in school, and so realignment i is just what happens to rivalries. Um and so I've even had to adjust to my memories. You know, none of us I don't know what it'll feel like to tell that Saint Bonaventure story. Right, right. You know, uh it's a different it's a different real realignment. And um also I think, you know, student athletes are still a part of higher education. When I think about some of the classes and when I think about some of the majors and the departments that are under scrutiny, they are majors and departments that our student athletes are intimately involved in. Um and so what happens to higher education, it matters. And it's not us versus them. We're in all of, you know, we're all in this together. And so those are the things that I think about um, you know, when a student athlete comes in my class, and I've tried not to be that person because you know, they look at me now, it's like you didn't play. First Harold, I bet you were sorry. Um But I try not to be that person, but you know, I just I want to tell them take advantage of all the opportunities. You get a free education, student debt and college affordability is the biggest issue for young people. Yeah, a lot of young people are delaying buying a home, starting families because of student debt. And here you have the opportunity to go to school for free. I stayed in the bookstore buying books because they were free. I mean getting books, you know. Um and I have students now who have to make a choice of do I buy a book or do I pay the light bill? Because college uh tuition has become so expensive that even you know, and these are upper middle class folks. Sure. And but if you're at UVA and your brother's at Duke and the other um you know, the sisters at Virginia Tech, you know, they have to they have to work. And so here you have that opportunity. Don't come to class without your book.

SPEAKER_04 28:56

Well, I think that is a really it's a it's a really needed perspective because sometimes and again, this is the only job I've ever had. I I graduated in 2010 and have worked in college athletics, and I I feel like it's just the changes have been seismic only in the last 16 years. And it does help to have someone with a perspective to remind us of the basics of what we do and why we do it, and to bring it back to there's a reason that we work in college and not in professional sports, and I think that's a very encouraging message, and so I think that's a great place to to circle back to, which is since you said you were a little bit nervous as we're sitting here, the we're we're sitting in the Leocor Center, we're overlooking the uh the Stella's awards, uh the annual uh celebration banquet here uh at the end of our academic year, and you get to address uh about five hundred student athletes momentarily. So again, I I'm thankful for your time, but I'm wondering have you landed on what you want that message to temple student athletes to be, what you want them to take away from getting to hear you and getting to see you and and uh and the position that you have tonight?

SPEAKER_00 30:00

I do. My message is temple mate and what it means to be a temple mate student athlete and what it means to have access to a world-class education in a global city, and how using those resources can not only elevate you but promote human flourishing. And we need athletes, student athletes who take advantage of this temple-made opportunity because the world desperately needs them.

SPEAKER_04 30:39

I think that's uh it's really powerful. I I'm sure that it will resonate with this group, and again, I uh this has just been a treat for me to get to to hear a little bit of your story uh over this last half hour, but I'm so glad that we could have you back on campus. What a great representation of of everything the temple is, and uh I wish you the best and and hope that we can uh have you back in Philadelphia again soon.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_04 31:07

Alright, that's this week's episode of the AlPod. I want to thank my guest, Dr. Claudrina Harold. A reminder, David Littfin and Amelia Wright are back one last time on the AlPod next week with their sign-off episodes, so please check that out. If you want to support the AlPod, please be sure to subscribe, leave a rating. Most of all, please tell your friends. Scroll back. We've got over 50 episodes in the feed that you can listen to on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube, anywhere you get your podcasts, and of course, follow us on Instagram at the AlPodcast. I want to give a special thanks to our AlPod team for getting this thing off the ground this year, especially our vice president and Debbie and Stanley Lefquit65 Director of Athletics Arthur Johnson, our executive producer Dan Lovaz. I'm Kevin Kopp. Thanks for listening, and go Al