CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – Current associate head football coach Marques Hagans and former women’s rower Hailey Barnett were honored by the Atlantic Coast Conference today (Oct. 21) as UVA’s recipients of the 2022 ACC UNITE Award.
The award was created to honor individuals affiliated with the league who promote and encourage racial equity and social justice through education, partnerships, engagement and advocacy. Those selected have helped create meaningful, lasting change by improving systems, organizational structures, policies, practices and attitudes or have been pioneers and/or helped pave the way for minorities either at the institution or in the community.
The UNITE Award is an initiative of the ACC’s Committee for Racial and Social Justice (CORE – Champions of Racial Equity). Each school selects its two recipients based on the above criteria and can choose to celebrate their selections at campus events throughout the academic year.
Hagans played football at Virginia from 2002-05 and is in his 11th season at a member of the program’s coaching staff. He currently serves as the Cavaliers’ wide receivers coach in addition to his responsibilities as associate head coach. Hagans best exemplifies the ACC CORE’s mission of promoting and encouraging racial equity and social justice through his work with the athletics department’s Groundskeepers organization and Charlottesville-based Prolyfyck Run Crew.
As one of the founders of Groundskeepers, Hagans works to bring change to the Charlottesville community by encouraging his student-athletes to learn and educate themselves about racial inequities. The group organized the “Groundskeepers Walk” that student-athletes, coaches, staff and community members can take to learn and reflect. The three-mile walk starts at Heather Heyer Way – the street named in honor of the woman who lost her life when a white nationalist purposefully drove into a crowd of people peacefully counter-protesting the Unite the Right rally on Aug. 12, 2017 — in Downtown Charlottesville, stops on Grounds at the Memorial for Enslaved Laborers, and concludes at the Rotunda. Through the Groundskeepers and similar initiatives, Hagans continues to create lasting change for the football team, athletics department and the surrounding community.
Additionally, Hagans has helped pave the way for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) in the community through his engagement with the Prolyfyck Run Crew….