U23 World Team Member Gabe Townsell on Jordan Burroughs, representation and his budding music career

Gabe Townsell is a senior at Stanford University. A three-time NCAA qualifier for the Cardinal, Townsell represented Team USA at the U23 World Championships in Budapest, Hungary last year. In his free time, he is a musician, releasing his work under the moniker VII. You can find his music here. In the spirit of African-American History Month, Gabe recently spoke with USA Wrestling about a variety of topics.

One of the topics that came up was Jordan Burroughs, the 2012 Olympic gold medalist and four-time World champion.

“It’s interesting to think about the fact that the face of wrestling to most people is a Black man. Of course a lot of people look at American wrestling and think a lot of different things; when Kyle Snyder started dominating the international scene, he became known to a lot of people as “Captain America”. That title is absolutely earned and doesn’t detract from the ambassador that Jordan has been for the sport, but I think most people would agree that our longest-standing and brightest star has been Jordan Burroughs for the past three Olympic cycles,” Townsell said.

“It’s interesting for that to be something that we take into consideration for a sport that is not predominately Black at any capacity. There aren’t many majority Black communities that even have wrestling at all. It’s great to have somebody who came from a place where there were a lot of Black people, succeeding on a stage where there aren’t necessarily a lot of Black people. Representing people who felt like me probably growing up, that saw someone succeeding at the sport at a level that we hadn’t see people succeed at beyond John Smith, and it was someone that looked like us,” he said.

“Having that representation is important and having it be Jordan, who is the person that he is, that’s even better… Not only has Jordan been someone I took a lot of stylistic and otherwise wrestling related inspiration from, but I had the opportunity to meet Jordan and spend time around Jordan working with the coaches and James Green, asking questions about my own technique over the course of the Senior Team camp when I was training for U23s. The fact that the face of the sport is someone that is that accessible and still down to earth after the amount of success he has had internationally and domestically, speaks volumes both to how well he’s represented the sport and how well he’s represented Black people within the sport to the degree that he can. Beyond that, it shows everyone how much he embodies what the sport means,” Townsell said.

“That’s been huge for me to see and huge for a lot of people across the country to see… I think that being able to see a person that is so totally embodying and otherwise shaping the spirit of the sport is a reason that at least I personally can look to, and be like this is something that has made me better and has helped me make things better for other people,” Townsell said.

Townsell recognizes that there are numerous Black wrestlers who are trailblazers in the sport.

 “I feel the same way about J’den (Cox),” he said.

“I am really glad to be witnessing the amount of work that J’den has put in to leave a legacy like no one else has left. It’s amazing to see how great of a person he is in spite of what challenges he may feel he faces from a standpoint of developing that legacy, where he’s still underrated by a lot of people even though he’s won a World championship without being scored on and multiple medals besides that… It’s great that we have two generational talents at the same time trying to do things that no else has done, and they’re both Black people,” Townsell said.

“Black success in wrestling isn’t something that has risen without precedents: we’ve had Bobby Douglas, Lee Kemp, Kenny Monday, Kevin Jackson, the Williams brothers, Nate Carr, Mike Foy, Kerry McCoy, Jamill Kelly, and the list goes on and on. It is, however, something that has recently come to the forefront of wrestling media and the perceptions of the sport from the outside world. I’m looking forward to adding to that legacy in as many ways as I can,” he said.

Burroughs is someone that has also been outspoken on social media on numerous issues including racism and police violence. It is something that Townsell admires him for.

“I think that it’s important given that he chose to do it,” he said.

“I don’t think we should necessarily assign a certain level of comfort with expressing one’s circumstances with people because they are people of influence or people of color. I do think that it is important given that he chose to do it. I think it is very impactful. I think that for people in this sport that isn’t filled with people that look like them, to look up to someone who does that’s telling them that these things impact them too, even as they achieve the pinnacle of the sport; It’s incredibly important. It’s something that changes someone’s life. It’s something that has changed peoples’ lives. It’s always exciting to me to see people in our sport that have the comfort to do that, utilizing that platform, demonstrating their leadership in ways that they aren’t necessarily expected to but in ways they feel compelled to,” Townsell said.

According to Townsell, regardless of what Burroughs says, some will always disapprove of him.

“Anytime he wins he’s going to be a magnet for criticism because somebody out there is just not happy about that. It’s something that every Black wrestler has to understand, that there is going to be that bias.”

The bias is something that Townsell understands well.

“I’ve been called out of my name wrestling a lot of places that weren’t home, and I’ve been called out of my name in places that aren’t that far from home… People have said racial slurs during wrestling matches, it is what it is. It hasn’t happened a lot. There are enough people that are frustrated enough to do things like that, and it is what it is,” Townsell said.

“Not everybody knows what wrong is. It’s difficult to think outside of your circumstances… In some of these cases it has to be a ‘forgive them for they know not what they do’ type of thing, but at the same time it can’t be so deeply personal that we act out every time something happens. If we did, there would be a controversy every year. There is that level of scrutiny that needs to be considered. Which is why I said what I said about Jordan being in his position. I know there are some issues that people don’t feel comfortable talking about because they know what that backlash invite, but I might think it’s important that people in positions like that do speak when they feel compelled to,” he said.

“Sometimes people aren’t going to agree with how you think. Sometimes people aren’t going to agree with how you think given who you are. Sometimes people think you shouldn’t express those things so that they can still say fans of you, but at some capacity, you’re sacrificing authenticity by staying silent. That isn’t true for everyone but in occasions where Jordan or wrestlers in positions like Jordan’s have spoken on things that were effecting them, they have to recognize the fact that it hurts people’s feelings. They have to recognize that someone else could have another vantage point,” Townsell said.

Townsell himself is active on Twitter under the handle “theBlackcard133” (formerly the Blackcard125). While he has had some question his name, he hasn’t had any negative feedback.

“I wanted my name to be a play on words… I was going to be the only Black guy starting on the team, so I changed my name when I got to Stanford to theblackcard125. It’s the phrase “playing the Black card” but also the black ‘cardinal’… People don’t know what it means though which is always interesting. A lot of people pick it up right away, but sometimes I have to say ‘It’s the weight class I’m wrestling and it’s because I’m Black and on the wrestling team’. I don’t catch flack for it but I get a lack of understanding definitely sometimes… It’s kind of a joke because at this point we only have one other Black person on the team besides me. It’s a situation that I haven’t been in before, so I was making fun of that.” He said.

In high school, Townsell wrestled for Oak Park River Forest, an Illinois prep powerhouse outside of Chicago. While wrestlers of color were frequently in the lineup, during Townsell’s time the starting lineup was composed primarily of Black and Hispanic wrestlers.

“It was cool to see that sort of transformation. It wasn’t odd to have good Black wrestlers on the team, Ellis Coleman and his brother Lilashawn before we were there. Historically there had been some. But the fact that we all came at the same time was a change…… My class was me, Isaiah White, Kamal Bey, Allen Stallings and Robert Campos who is Mexican… We ended up being No. 1 in the country,” he said.

Townsell thinks that the diversity in his team promoted positivity in the surrounding communities.

“Seeing those demographic shifts has been something that has been big for younger kids of color around the city of Chicago. ‘Like man they’ve got a lot of really good, really Black wrestlers and they’re not hiding from that.’ A lot of our coaches are Black. We had like 15 coaches too. Most of them were volunteers. We had the most coaches of any high school program in the state by a lot, and I grew up with some of them. That’s something that no other program in the country that I’ve seen, is having that much of a range of a demographics with that many kids… It made things feel that much more cohesive. It made us feel like a family,” he said.

While Townsell’s new team at Stanford doesn’t have the diversity that OPRF had, he did not have much difficulty adjusting.

“There are some things that someone can’t understand about the Black experience unless they’ve experienced it…In a lot of cases coming from Black communities to predominantly white ones, which is how most college wrestling programs are, there is a bit of culture shock. There wasn’t for me because I’ve been around a lot of white people, not to say they all act the same, although wrestlers kind of have a behavioral mold. It is to say, I got used to navigating different cultural environments. There was no culture shock for me coming to Stanford really because I’ve seen different cultures with which I would interact. That’s not true for some people, and I know people on my team that really hadn’t seen Black people. That’s a culture shock in itself and something that you have to adjust for, recognizing the differences between cultures,” he said.

Besides wrestling, Townsell has been focused on his music career. He has performed at Stanford’s “Blackfest”, an annual concert put on by Stanford’s Black Family Gathering Committee, opening for acts like 2 Chainz, T-Pain and Lil Yachty.

“Obviously wrestling is my foremost commitment, and I’m very committed to school also. I’m doing well in it, so people are wondering how I have the time to do that,” Townsell said.

“For me, making music is part of my experience. You can spend a couple hours a day watching shows on Netflix or playing Fortnite or whatever. I write pretty much every day… It really doesn’t take up that much mental energy for me because it’s something that I know I’m good at and I know I’m passionate about. The hard part is the engineering, which I’m still trying to figure out. Making a song sound really professional is not easy at all,” he said.

While music and wrestling seem to be on opposite ends of the spectrum, Gabe doesn’t see it that way.

“It is something that I take pretty seriously. It isn’t something that I think has to be juxtaposed to my wrestling necessarily.”

He also takes pride in the fact that his music spans a variety of genres.

“I’ve made every type of music, and that’s also part of my brand. I don’t want to be pigeonholed into any sort of experience, and I don’t want to make music that people only thing of as being rap or that people only think of as being Black,” he said.

“I started out by making rap music, but I’m not making music that’s only forms are generally considered Black. However, since we’re on the topic of Black History Month, something to consider is that a lot of these art forms that people consider not to be traditional Black forms were created by Black people. Country music, made by Black people, rock music, made by Black people. Elvis Presley songs were written by and stolen from Black people… Those are art forms that people don’t traditionally associate with being Black,” Townsell said.

Gabe believes that it is pivotal for the stories and experiences of people from underrepresented communities to be shared.

“Ultimately representation matters. I think that’s the biggest take away… I think people should recognize the kind of difficulty that comes with people doing things that haven’t been done before and people telling them they can’t. That sounds really general and it might be just something that I’m saying that isn’t a universal thing in the Black experience, but there are a lot of people who told me that I couldn’t go to a school like Stanford. There are a lot of people that I have taught in my neighborhood, who told me that their teachers told them they aren’t smart. It’s a difficult thing to realize. Here I am teaching you Spanish and you’re picking up more quickly than I picked it up, and I’m fluent. Someone told you that you would never be good at school because of the way you were performing because of something that happened in your life or because of your lack of ability to focus because they haven’t taught you strategies to focus,” Townsell said.

“If nobody talks about the things that only Black wrestlers, only Black people, only Black men go through, then nobody is going to realize that some of us think we have a universal experience. Nobody is going to realize that if you go to a tournament an hour away, someone can call you the n-word in front of your parents. Nobody is going to realize that if you see someone that really matters to you die and get no police coverage that, maybe that’s because of the circumstances. There are a lot of parallels with a lot of people who will read a story like this or hear a story that’s anything like this and will be able to identify and take with them.”