People see the smile on the face of David Jean-Baptiste, effervescent as he skips around the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga campus, his home for six years now. They see the veteran Mocs basketball player usually rocking a backpack – with the Miami native’s Haitian flag, a reminder of his roots, always in tow.
But underneath that smile there has always been an unwavering confidence, one that everything was going to be all right.
Was it always going to be all right? At times, it was fair to question, but he never quit believing.
Asked what his Haitian heritage taught him, he was quick to answer: “To be unfazed.”
“If you look at the Haitian flag, the palm trees and just how still they are, I just think no matter what storm that’s affecting you, no matter what’s happening around you, still unfazed,” Jean-Baptiste said this week. “Still being us, still being resilient. I just think the people of the Haitian culture, how resilient they are, it translates to the game of basketball.”