Coco Gauff isn’t just making a donation—she’s putting money into a part of college athletics that rarely gets attention. This week, the tennis star pledged $150,000 to support HBCU tennis programs through the United Negro College Fund. It follows a $100,000 contribution she made last year, bringing her total investment connected to HBCUs to $250,000.
Tennis doesn’t usually come up when people talk about HBCU sports. There aren’t packed stadiums or national TV deals. Most programs operate with small budgets, limited travel resources, and little margin for growth. That’s what makes Gauff’s decision to focus on tennis—not just HBCUs in general—stand out.
Her connection to HBCUs is personal, not performative
Gauff has been open about why HBCUs matter to her. In an interview with Tennis.com, she said that if tennis hadn’t taken over her life, she would have seriously considered attending an HBCU. Both of her grandmothers went to HBCUs, as did other close family members, and she grew up attending HBCU Classic games and events.
That background gives her donation a different weight. This isn’t a one-off gesture or a brand-aligned moment. It’s someone reinvesting in the kind of institutions that shaped her family long before she ever picked up a racket.
What the money actually does for HBCU tennis players
The funding is directed toward scholarships for HBCU tennis student-athletes. For players in these programs, that support matters in very practical ways. It can mean fewer out-of-pocket costs, less pressure to juggle extra jobs, and more freedom to focus on academics and competition.
At many HBCUs, tennis teams fight just to stay afloat. A scholarship can be the difference between a student staying enrolled or walking away from the sport altogether. Over time, consistent support like this helps programs recruit, retain, and compete—quietly, but meaningfully.
Legacy doesn’t always look loud
Coco Gauff is still early in her career, but this kind of giving shows how she’s thinking about impact beyond wins and rankings. Supporting HBCU tennis isn’t flashy, and it won’t dominate highlight shows. But it’s real. It reaches students who often go unseen, in a sport that rarely gets resources in Black college athletics.
For the HBCU community, stories like this matter because they remind us that progress doesn’t always come with cameras. Sometimes it comes as a scholarship, a plane ticket, or a reason for a young athlete to stay in the game.
