Soaring with Eagles

The people that truly make history rarely set out with history in mind. 

Whether we are talking about a textbook, or a college sports record book, the individual names chronicled within did not wake up one day and decide that they wanted to see themselves written about somewhere. 

History starts with love. History starts with passion. History favors the bold, not necessarily those with the loftiest ambitions.

Sometimes, history is something you stumble into. Zoe Slaughter did not transfer to Texas A&M from Houston because she wanted to be the first African-American women’s golfer to wear the Maroon & White. 

Slaughter came here for the same reason so many of her fellow students did because it felt like home. Regardless, she takes great pride in her historic distinction.

“It’s incredible, because you don’t really see a ton of black women out on the golf course in general,” Slaughter said. “There are not a ton of Black women out there playing in tournaments. Just to be recognized as the first one here at A&M, I was honestly shocked. But it’s such an incredible feeling to show other people that it’s possible. You can make it here. You can be great. It’s just important to believe in what you do.”

If you are not already aware of her game, Slaughter’s performance on the course will make a believer out of you. During her first collegiate season at the University of Houston under current Aggie head coach Gerrod Chadwell, Slaughter cleaned up at the awards table, garnering American Athletic All-Conference honors while being named the league’s Freshman of the Year.

“I always wanted to go to a big Division I school in a classic college town, and hearing my mom talk about A&M and her experiences here, it just sounded like a fantastic place,” Slaughter said. “I used to come up here for games when I was growing up, and it always gave me a good feeling in my heart. When I committed here, I just knew that it was the perfect place to be.”

Slaughter’s mother, Kafi, was a member of the Aggie Track and Field team during her college years. Her experiences and memories served as a crucial element that ultimately drove Slaughter to Aggieland. 

“(My mom) told me about the amount of support that she received while she was running here. Other people, just walking down the street, would see my mom wearing an Aggie Track shirt and stop her,” said Slaughter. “They would tell her about themselves, and they would bond over their shared experiences of being an Aggie. It is those little moments that she always told me about, and I was so excited to have an opportunity to experience those for myself.”

Monumental life changes like transferring colleges are never decisions that one should take lightly. With that understood, a wide variety of compounding factors made Slaughter’s decision to follow Chadwell to Texas A&M a lot less difficult.

“Obviously, A&M is an incredible school. There is an incredible network of people that support everything we do here. It genuinely feels like a family atmosphere, and it represents a lot of the values that I truly believe in,” Slaughter said of her experience at A&M. “Texas A&M feels like a whole different culture, and it puts life in a whole new light when you step on campus.

Everybody has a fantastic attitude just from being here. The facilities are awesome, I already knew and trusted Coach G (Gerrod Chadwell) and the 12th Man is insanely supportive. It’s a place that anybody would be blessed to be a part of.”

Both her father and grandfather played an instrumental role in introducing Slaughter to the game at an early age. As a result, she developed a passion for the sport that is still present today.

“It was both my grandpa and my dad. My dad is literally obsessed with golf. He just loves it. He plays it all the time, regularly,” Slaughter said. “My grandpa played golf in college at Prairie View A&M, so it’s a huge part of my family. I think I first had a club in my hand when I was about three years old. I started playing in tournaments when I was 10, and I just never stopped.”

Ever since that first tournament at 10 years old, Slaughter knew that the golf course was where she wanted to be. Never mind the fact that she didn’t look like a lot of her competitors. She didn’t plan on changing the game, she just knew that the game had changed her. 

All the accolades, all the conference awards, even the barriers she continues to shatter at Texas A&M; all of it has happened because she loved a game, and she loved a school. 

That’s what we mean when we say that history starts with love.

Since her arrival at A&M, Slaughter has already brought a steady presence to the Aggies’ lineup. Already a key cog of the lineup, the Aggies completed a successful fall season and open their spring slate later this month in Houston at the ICON Invitational as top-20 team. 

Whether you want to talk about Slaughter’s impact on the course, or her historic recognition as the first Black woman on the Aggie golf team since its inception in 1975, she has already made an indelible mark that will last for generations. 

“For other African-American girls, and honestly all the little girls out there playing golf, I hope that my story will encourage them to believe in themselves and know that they can do it,” Slaughter said. “I was once a little girl, worried that I would never be able to play college golf. But, if you love to work hard and you love the game, then everything is going to work out in the end. Everything will be just fine, so long as you remember to believe in yourself.”