Zakia Haywood discusses the Armory Foundation’s HBCU Showcase

The Armory Foundation will host its annual HBCU Showcase on Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025. At this showcase, high school athletes from the Tri-State area will compete in front of HBCU track coaches, attend a college fair and get a taste of the HBCU experience. Zakia Haywood, director of College Track & Field and Special Projects at The Armory Foundation, discussed the upcoming showcase.

What are some of the programs The Armory Foundation offers for the youth?

There is a city-track after school program. There are 110-plus events that we host here during the year. [We have] Armory Middle School, Youth High School, Masters College, all [an] array of different events. But as we bring it back to the college prep program, one of the avenues when we were looking at it was, we want to be sure that our students that are here learn about the HBCU culture, learn about the schools that are available. They ask questions [about] what’s the difference between [an] HBCU and a PBI, a predominantly Black institution. What’s the difference between going to a Yale or a Howard? We take them on visits to these schools from middle school just so they can experience it.

Why did Peacock get involved?

I think Peacock became a really great partner with us as we were telling a story and we’ve been telling a story for years, and this story is one that’s really, really important to hear. It’s not just about Black culture; it’s about history and really addressing it and showing what the legacy of the HBCUs [is]. I think this will be the [third] year that we’ve had Peacock broadcast the event … So, this is now the third consecutive year we’ve worked with KPMG Limited as the title sponsor of the event and they are really intrigued with also bringing out some of the stories of the coaches, which may be Olympic coaches giving back and providing like post collegiate career opportunities or internships to some of the HBCU students and pushing that envelope forward. And I think that Peacock is pretty smart to jump on board in terms of saying, I think we have programming broadcast opportunities that target this audience. Let’s tell a different story than what you might see already on our broadcast network.

Why did y’all add the Mayor’s Cup Relay?

So the Mayor’s Cup Relay is actually an event that takes place during the outdoor track season and the cross-country season. So, if you’re familiar with, like, the lifespan of track and field, it also includes cross country and outdoor. The indoor Mayor’s [Cup] has not been in existence for a good number of years, and we thought it would be a really great thing to not just include New York City high school students to give them exposure to the college coaches, but to reenact it in a way that they feel like champions. So, at the Mayor’s [Cup], we always crown a champion for each of the events. This year it’s only relays. It’s a 4X2, a 4X4, a sprint medley, and a 4X8.

There will also be a college fair going on, why was this a focus for the Armory to add?

Those schools, high schools in particular, that are accepted into the New York City Mayor’s Cup Relays, we reach out to the coaches, and we tell them that they should come prepared. They should come prepared with their track resume, they should come prepared with their transcript, and they should know about the different schools that are going to be there so that they can really hone in on specific questions to ask. We want them to be valuable candidates for these schools. And this is one way to do that. You can have a regular college fair admissions fair anywhere. But I think for this event in particular, the admissions representatives are also coming to make offers. They’re coming to not just tell them about their school, but also to have the coaches present so that they and the athletes that are attending the college teams present so that they can talk about what the experience at their school is like, what a practice session is like. All of that [has] really been hidden [from] our high school students, our middle school students. They just didn’t know. I didn’t know. And I wish I had this event when I was younger.