It’s one of the busiest weeks of the year in college athletics—with classes starting or about to start and training and practice for fall sports in full swing. Yet approximately 40 women of color who work in college athletics will convene at Rutgers University on Wednesday for a mini-forum designed to explore and overcome the barriers facing minority female administrators and coaches.
“One of the things in college athletics is we all get so busy in our individual work lives and our individual niches that we don’t always spend enough time utilizing the resources that are readily available and reaching out to each other in a way that promotes mentorship, guidance and leadership,” says Jacqueline Blackett, associate athletics director for student-athlete support services at Columbia University.
Blackett, who will participate as a panelist in the mini-forum, is most eager to meet people that she’s either never met or only met in passing because networking is a vital tool for anyone who works in college athletics.
Emmett Gill, assistant professor at the Rutgers School of Social Work, organized the mini-forum in conjunction with the Black Women in Sport Foundation (BWSF).
“We hope the mini-forum will edify grassroots solutions,” Gil says. “By grassroots, I mean things we can do everyday whether it’s making a recommendation, passing along a job announcement or doing some mentoring. Our next steps need to include little steps and this is what we are going to discuss.
“Rutgers is the ideal setting because of the Rutgers women’s basketball/Don Imus controversy. It’s also the right place and the right time because we have no senior Black female athletic administrators and only one in administration period.”
Panelist Reyna Gilbert, assistant athletics director for student life at Virginia Tech, says this is the third institution at which she’s worked and she has always been one of only two Black female administrators. The Virginia Tech athletic department is making an active effort to increase diversity, but she cautions applicants that the job involves something more meaningful than just filling a quota.
