Breaking the Mold

It troubles me to think how often I tell people I am a Harvard student and they either don’t believe me or immediately inquire about my participation in sports purely based on the color of my skin. It’s time for a change, and Achele Agada ’23, Grace Allen ’24, Annika Bassey ’22, and Chelsea Williams ’22 are initiating that momentum within Harvard’s community. As the founders of Harvard Athletics Black Varsity Association (HABVA), an organization for Black student athletes at the College, they wanted to create a space for Black athletes to feel heard, supported, and respected. 

Entering last school year as a Black eighteen-year-old recruit on the Women’s basketball team, I was incredibly aware of the fact that I would be attending an institution with a plurality of white students. After a few weeks on campus, I applied to be on the board of HABVA in its inaugural year along with 14 other Black athletes. Even though the club was entirely functioning through Zoom last year, I was introduced to more Black people in our first handful of meetings  than I had ever seen in any of my classes or basketball team meetings combined. In hindsight, it was naive of me to expect Harvard to actively recruit a plethora of Black athletes, coaches, and administrators. It became apparent that I had gained a false sense of life at Harvard when competitive sports returned this year and I was introduced to the reality of Harvard Athletics. 

As a board member for the second year, I have learned that every Black athlete at Harvard has a unique experience, comes from a different background, and expects different things from Harvard Athletics. Yet, a common theme persists—we each have to advocate for ourselves or nobody will.

Most of the people you encounter in your day-to-day activities at a majority white institution, as expected, are white. And Harvard Athletics hasmade sure to followed this trend. Growing up living in white suburban neighborhoods, going to predominantly white schools, and playing on majority white basketball teams, I have found disturbing truth in the trope of Black athletes only being appreciated for what we can provide for a sports team. Unfortunately, this same narrative applies to my experience at Harvard as well. 

Being a student athlete at Harvard mirrors my previous experiences for several reasons: I still have a white coaching staff, all white athletic trainers, and an overwhelmingly white athletics department administration. Harvard has about 16 athletic trainers in the training room and a number of interns and trainees, all of whom are white or white passing, except for one trainer and one intern. Of the 42 varsity teams, there are 2 Black head coaches. Of the 23 people on the Harvard Athletics Administrative Staff, 4 of them are Black—an increase from last year’s 3. Not to mention, the Assistant Director of Athletics and – Diversity, Inclusion and Student Development is a white woman.!

These obvious racial discrepancies in Harvard Athletics make it difficult for Black student athletes to  navigate life across the river. For one, we often fall victim to racially motivated comments and microaggressions from coaches and teammates. For example, on my first recruiting visit at Harvard, a coach approached me commenting on my hair and proceeding to touch it without my permission. In addition, when competing against teams with more Black players on their rosters, they’ll be described as “undisciplined”, “arrogant”, and “ready to come after us”—descriptors that have never been used to describe a predominately white team.  Then, there’s a clear lack of representation across Harvard’s varsity sports. Not to mention the shared feeling amongst Black student athletes that we must fend for ourselves because Harvard fails to provide adequate care for students of color. For example, there are no Black  mental health clinicians which forces Black athletes to share their traumas with individuals who will never understand the Black experience.  

“I would say a positive experience that I had personally was when we had a Black trainer come in,” shared Sharelle Samuel ’22, Harvard Track and Field senior and HABVA Co-President. “She was a graduate student who had just graduated from Howard, getting her masters at [Boston College]… The impact that she had on us as black athletes was amazing. She would just talk to us about anything, make us laugh, and help us with everything we requested, even if we didn’t necessarily need it. She would always make us feel better, whether it was emotionally, mentally, or physically.” Samuel noted that when this Black trainer was here, she more willingly went to the training room to get the care her body needed as she was having more positive experiences than what her typical encounters with white trainers entailed. 

Sports have been an outlet for myself and for so many others over the years. Unfortunately, the same issues we want to escape persist within the realm of sports. Achele Agada ’23, Harvard Rugby player and HABVA Founder and Vice-President,  feels as if “[Harvard Athletics] doesn’t really recognize the ways that being Black and more specifically being a Black woman within Harvard Athletics spaces can be really exhausting and lonely.  I feel like in order to feel happy and fulfilled, I have to mould myself into a very reduced and uncomplicated version of myself”. It’s the sad truth that a number of Black athletes don’t feel heard or supported by the Harvard Athletics Administration. 

HABVA is attempting to be the bridge between Harvard Athletics and Black athletes, who have historically  been met with empty promises and performative actions. Last year, at the height of some of the most crucial social justice movements, Harvard Athletics created the Harvard Athletics Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging (EDIB) Task Force to address their shortcomings as an institution. After producing very minimal results, according to an email sent out by Erin West, the EDIB Task Force has now been dismantled and turned into a smaller “advisory group” with goals of “pressure [testing] EDIB initiatives, [providing] feedback on department policies, and [helping to] create programming for the future” that plans to only  meet once or twice per semester. When a vast restructuring is required, what tangible change can come from discussions taking place just twice per year? It’s laughable. Furthermore, the terms “inclusion and belonging” are inherently contradictory when referring to an institution like Harvard that releases blanket statements about “initiatives” with no real action. As Black student athletes, we do not want to be “included” in the violence of an institution that wasis systematically built to perpetuate white supremacy.

Our requests are simple—we want action. We want Black athletic trainers, Black coaches, Black recruits. For any of this to happen we first need Black voices to be heard within Athletics, which means we need Black people in administrative positions who will advocate for Black athletes. We need resources allocated to creating an equitable space where peoples’ needs are met and not dismissed. Although the burden of educating our non-Black peers shouldn’t fall on the shoulders of Black individuals, we have to continue to hold Harvard Athletics accountable for their structural violence and failure to create an equitable and representative environment.

Kennedy Heath ’23 (kheath@college.harvard.edu) is ready for change.