While we may often not understand the 'root causes' of people's behaviors at sporting events, we can understand what their behavior caused for the rest of us to continue the discussion and identify ways to improve the 'club/team culture' especially if it's an athlete, athlete's family and friends, coaches and those directly involved with the sport. Understanding the Sociology of sports can give one the insight on how to make changes within the culture of our sport. For the first time in the 83yr competition history of our sport of artistic swimming: diversity, equity and inclusion has been moved to the 'forefront' of changing the dynamics of who makes up our sport from athletes all the way to the spectators. Diversifying a sport takes it into the future with keeping the sport 'alive and well' for generations to enjoy. Our sport of Artistic Swimming is one of the smaller Team USA sports, but one that packs a punch with its growing popularity. This past weekend (May 13-14-15) I had the amazing and proud opportunity (as a Coach of Color) to be represented with my athletes with disabilities (who are also athletes of color) who were formally invited to participate at a Regional competition held at the Santa Clara Haines Int'l Swim Center in Northern California. Our athletes had never been invited to participate or categorically included to compete in this level of competition. While there, I experienced 2nd hand, two incidents brought to my attention that were with racial undertones. While our team has gotten use to adversity whether intentional or not, we keep our composure and start another discussion about how to address these issues when they happen. The first incident was about my swimmers families in which they were told, after being loud in the bleachers, including cheering on their swimmers, that their behavior is why nobody wants 'them' at competitions. Of course they were loud. They were proud to be finally represented. This had nothing to do with obnoxious or publicly unacceptable behavior but everything to do with race in my opinion. The 2nd incident was when one of my African American coaches for our team, tried to enter the pool deck, and although she had her coaching uniform on, was physically blocked by the 'gate keeper' (maybe a volunteer parent from another team) who stood directly in front of her and challenged her as to "who she was". The person blocked her from entering the pool deck to assist me, and explained to her that 'She doesn't look like she belongs here' (at the competition). Again, who was she suppose to look like? the other coaches who were white? Coach Tulisha and myself were the only coaches of color coaching a team with athletes of color with disabilities. Apparently that may not have 'sat well' with some folks. But, this is not the first time we have experienced this nor unfortunately will be the last. Until the club/team culture is addressed, not much will begin to change and if we do not learn from and understand the past transgressions with racism at sporting events, it will be repeated and here we are...AGAIN. I feel that the weekend's Regional competition went well for our athletes, however, myself and our team and families left with the feeling that more will always need to be done and addressed by our Federation until the archaic belief (stereotyping, ableism, etc) system is dismantled. It starts with strong leadership and those not afraid to address and not tolerate the issues that affect the entire culture of clubs and teams. We do have that hope for the future of our sport. For more information about Sociology in sports, read this article: http://www.actforlibraries.org/what-is-sports-sociology/
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