Special Admission: Dr. Kirsten Hextrum Discusses How College Athletic Recruitment Favors White Suburbia

Dr. Kirsten Hextrum, assistant professor of educational leadership and policy studies and a faculty affiliate in women's and gender studies at the University of Oklahoma, sat down with Diverse recently to discuss her book, Special Admission: How College Athletic Recruitment Favors White Suburban Athletes, published by Rutgers University Press and available now.

Q: Welcome Dr. Hextrum. So, you were a rower, right? Where did you row?

A: Yeah, I was a rower at UC Berkeley, also known as Cal. I had never done the sport before I was in college. It's becoming less and less common, which is a big theme that I explore in the book.

Though I was able to row in college and have a lot of success as an athlete, I think one of the misnomers is that you become an athlete overnight. I'd been doing sports my entire life, it was just that I had never done this exact sport before. So, it was much easier for someone like me, who has that athletic background, to pick something up later in life.

Q: What made you want to write a book about college athletic recruitment?

A: After I had finished college, I made my way back to UC Berkeley, working both in the athletic department [and] within our academic support unit for college athletes. Coming back in and being behind the scenes of college sports just gave me completely different perspective.