As Harlem native James Vaughn spends his final days on the campus of Columbia University, he reflects on his two years as a member of the baseball team. He walked at the recent graduation ceremony and will take his final two courses this summer. Training continues as Vaughn, a pitcher, has another year of eligibility and hopes to join a Division I team, allowing him to continue to play the sport he loves while also working on a master’s degree.
“I love everything about baseball,” he said. This includes playing, watching and even reading about it. “I really love the process of working on it. Being very detail oriented about it. I like how fulfilling it is to succeed in baseball because of how hard it is to succeed. … I don’t feel like I’ve maxed out my own ability and potential yet. That’s something that really drives me.”
Vaughn came to Columbia after spending a year and a half at Duke University and one semester at Monroe College. While his family relocated to Atlanta a couple of years ago, attending Columbia made him feel more rooted and he was genuinely satisfied with the student-athlete experience despite the baseball team being predominantly white. He praises how the Lions’ coaches recruit people who play well together and enjoy being around each other, noting this year’s team, which went 26–18, had a special bond.
“It’s very clear that baseball is very white,” said Vaughn, noting that there are fewer than 10 Black baseball players in the entire Ivy League. “[Baseball] is not a space that is really in any hurry to change from the Major League level down to Little League.”
While he wishes that there were more efforts toward growing diversity, his love for the sport shines through. Vaughn’s baseball journey began when his father signed him up for Harlem Little League when he was about four. “I was a rambunctious kid and it was a sport that could tire me out. He played when he was younger,” he said. “I’ve loved baseball ever since.”
He attended the Collegiate School from kindergarten through high school, playing on the varsity baseball team. An anthropology major at Columbia, Vaughn is planning to study education in graduate school and hopes to teach after that.
“Start out in the classroom and maybe move into something administrative or government or nonprofit in the education realm,” Vaughn said.