Samantha Harter so impressed Janice Quinn with her cocky confidence and fancy ball-handling that New York University's head basketball coach awarded the girl from Jersey a starting position her freshman year. Now a sophomore, Harter has spent the last year "red-shirted" due to a torn ligament she suffered partway through that first season. Despite being benched, the 20-year-old Harter is far from sitting still.

As one of the only white girls to play at "the Cage," West Fourth Street's legendary streetball courts, Harter does get her share of attention. "People mention it [race] all the time. They'll call me 'Whitebread' or if I'm doing really well that day, 'Wonderbread'," she said with a roll of her eyes.

The attention players like Harter and, at the national level, NBA Sacramento star Jason Williams attract -- he's been dubbed everything from "White Chocolate" to "Thrilla Vanilla" -- is obviously colored by race. In Harter's case, she's a girl from upscale, semi-rural Hunterdon County in the northwest part of the state, playing in a style she's not supposed to know. She loves the rougher, more aggressive form of basketball that is played at the Cage, where she's forced to prove herself again and again, primarily against men.

Thirty years after Title IX, organized basketball programs at the high school and college level abound for women. For the past 23 years, basketball has maintained its position as the most frequently offered sport for women at the college level, according to Women in Intercollegiate Sport, a Brooklyn College study completed last year. College programs today boast years of NCAA championships and titles, and beyond the collegiate experience, the WNBA now offers the chance for a professional career in the United States. Little girls of all colors, rich and poor, all over the nation, are picking up basketballs.

"They'll call me 'Whitebread' ... 'Wonderbread'"

If the battle for gender equality is not yet won, at least it is within shooting distance and that, ironically, allows female athletes for the first time to notice the internal divisions that have riddled the men's leagues all along. Issues of differences in background and opportunity confront players on and off the court. As teammates, they share their love for the game, but that may be all they share. In a team sport like basketball, a key to success is the ability to work together and overcome differences, so the court becomes an intriguing arena in which to watch race relations play out.

On the basketball court, these differences: socioeconomic, racial, cultural, environmental -- however they're labeled – are often symbolized in style of play. The often-offensive stereotypes? White girls shoot the three-pointer; black girls can jump. White girls are fundamental, they run technical plays; black girls play ball, freestyle and flashy. White girls are thinking, cautious players; black girls are "natural" athletes, who play harder and work on instinct. Harter, her straight blonde hair tucked behind her ears, easily lets the air out of that ball.

"I’d rather rebound and hit people," she starts in an effort to explain what it takes to stay in a game of streetball. "People are intimidated by me when I walk onto the court," she said, describing the thug-like image she attempts to project in game warm-ups.

Whose Ball?	Photo Courtesy ArtToday.com

Since she was 12, Harter has been a fan of Allen Iverson, the flamboyant 76er guard she admired since his college basketball debut as a freshman at Georgetown.

Harter said playing on the street gives her a sense of freedom and self-assurance, a sensation very different from playing college ball for NYU. "I don't feel as liberal when I'm playing through an organized team," she said. "When I play streetball, I'm just trying to make myself happy," and in that Harter finds the freedom to try the riskier shot or go for the foul.

In organized ball, you're left with the tried and true, Harter explained, bringing light to the use of the term "fundamentals" to describe that playing style. To try the risky move is to step outside of the responsibility that playing as a team demands, and it's the weight of that responsibility on the college court that often shakes that confidence she so freely exudes in the park. This elusive mixture of attitude and image that Harter speaks of, she says, can make or break a game. And that’s exactly what happened this year in the fourth round of the Division III NCAA March Madness playoffs when NYU faced Emmanuel College of Boston. Emmanuel’s team, like NYU’s, is racially diverse but has the distinction of being dominated by small, quick players. Harter watched from the sidelines, mentally playing along with her fellow Violets.

From the beginning, the Violets were shaken. They lost their mental edge early on. They seemed to take few shots and were down the entire game until the last minute of regulation playing time when they managed to tie the score at 62-62. Perhaps it was the cocky swagger of Emmanuel's point guard, Marcy Tillman, or her victory dance after making an almost half-court three-pointer. Maybe it was the tattoo and cornrows.

Harter saw it. "She [Tillman] gave off an image that she was better than she was: the way she carried herself, I was like, she must be an Iverson fan -- that attitude that's just 'knowing I'm the best person on the court and letting everyone else know, whether or not I really am.'"

But that shouldn't have meant a loss for NYU, Harter explained. "One or two people got blocked and then nobody wanted to shoot. They were really hesitant." It was this intimidation which Harter thought spelled the demise of the Violets that night, when, with 18.8 seconds left in overtime, Emmanuel hit a two-pointer, ending the game with two clean foul shots. The buzzer sang and the score was 74-70.

For teammate Vallene Hendersen, a junior from Amityville, Long Island, the scene was bad deja vu. Hendersen, one of the five African-American players on the NYU team, sensed the intimidation her white teammates were feeling. It reminded her of when the Violets played Savannah Georgia's School of Arts and Design, an all-black team quick with their game and their jumpshots. She said that in an effort to "psyche" up the team, Coach Quinn had played on stereotypes, noting how athletic the opponents were, how they could "jump out the roof, basically the black stereotypes of describing a player," Hendersen said. But the talk intimidated more than it inspired and with the game hardly underway, the Violets were down 17-1. Calling a time out, Coach Quinn quickly called her five African-American players from the bench. In no time, Hendersen said, "we blew them out."

Richard E. Lapchick, founder of Northeastern University’s Center for the Study of Sport in Society, gave this phenomenon some context. Pointing to the entrenched segregation of public schools, Lapchick emphasized that for many students, the college arena is their first experience with peers of many different backgrounds. Race, he said, "is going to have an effect on a team and assuming it's a multi-racial team, it can be positioned as a kind of model for the rest of the school."

Considered to be the most diverse team in their conference (UAA), NYU is often touted as what Lapchick describes as a "model of diversity," in background, color, and versatility in styles of play. Within the team, there seemed few problematic divisions. And yet, while the team repeatedly emphasized that race was a "non-issue," race had undoubtedly played a part in that game.

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