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Are You Leading DE&I Efforts on Your Team?

  • April 1, 2023
  • Leadership
Athletes

If you’re reading this article, you likely want to start improving the diversity, equity, and inclusion on your team or at your school, but you’re simply not sure where to begin. Here, TrueSport Experts Michele LaBotz, sports medicine physician; Nadia Kyba, MSW, President of Now What Facilitation; and Kevin Chapman, PhD, clinical psychologist and founder of The Kentucky Center for Anxiety and Related Disorder, are sharing their best advice for leading effective DE&I efforts on your team.

 

Understand your role as a team leader

A captain's band being placed on an athlete's arm.“If you are going to be a leader on your team, I think it’s important to not avoid hard topics, and you need to have a social justice and a compassion-driven mentality,” says Chapman. “You also need to pay attention to what people are saying and whether people are being excluded. That could be in language—like what pronouns someone uses—or it could be noticing the makeup of your team as a whole.”

As a team leader, you can also acknowledge and celebrate that you are all different, says Chapman. “Everyone on a team is important and unique,” he explains. “As a leader, it’s essential that you recognize that not everyone shares that same experience that you do. We all vary in our socialization, demographic, sexual orientation, spirituality, and race. We all come from different places, and many of us have multiple identities.”

 

Start with a team audit

“The team audit is a tool to help you get started,” explains Kyba. “Look at your team as a whole and ask where there are issues that need to be addressed. Is there diversity on the team? If not, why not? Can that be addressed? Are you considering barriers to joining the team, and whether the barriers are more emotional or practical? Is the team hosting practices on days when certain religious groups can’t practice, or charging high prices for uniforms or extra training camps? What are the issues that could prevent the team from being a welcoming place for everyone?” This conversation can also address more systemic issues like equity for women in sport—start with your team, but feel free to open up the audit to more global issues.

 

Remember, nothing about them without them

“When picking an area of focus, remember: nothing about them without them,” says Kyba. “If you want to learn more about the Black Lives Matter movement, you need to go to the source and not just make up your own ideas.” Do you want to address the obstacles that make it hard for Black students to participate in school sports? Before you plan any specific actions, bring Black students to the table.

 

Identify the one area of focus

“After a team audit, you may be feeling pulled in several different directions,” says Kyba. “That’s difficult to negotiate because each area is important. But if you try to focus on everything at once, you will likely not see much change.” Pick one area of focus—like bringing more women into the school’s athletics program, for example—and choose activities that will directly impact that area.

 

Identify activities

Young women at soccer practice.It’s great to have a team with strong values around diversity, equity, and inclusion, but without action, those values can fall flat. Once you’ve selected an area of focus, now you can work with the team to come up with ideas for activities to improve the situation. To improve women’s participation, for instance, a team could do ‘recruitment’ in clubs and classes that tend to be more women-dominant, or host open practices for women to see how they like the sport before committing, or even add in ‘field trips’ to professional women’s sporting events, suggests LaBotz.

 

Start small

Once again, it’s worth pointing out that you may come up with a list of 25 activities, but you don’t need to do them all at once, says Kyba. “You can’t do 800 fundraisers!” she says. “As a team, you may decide that there’s one activity that you want to focus on first, such as adding land acknowledgments at the beginning of every competition.” After a few successful events, the team can pick the next activity to add in.

 

Make it fun

While some activities like land acknowledgements, reconciliation ceremonies, or protests are more serious in nature, remember that DE&I efforts can have elements of fun too. “Doing things that are tangentially sport-related like going to a WNBA game together or making a list of podcasts or books that are written by women athletes can be fun team bonding activities in addition to helping make positive change,” Kyba says.

 

Push against pushback

Diverse group of young men during rugby practice.While these efforts are obviously positive and necessary, there is a chance that some people may push back against your efforts and suggest focusing solely on practice and competition. “It is up to each person on the team whether they want to be involved, but hopefully you’ll be able to find something that resonates for everyone,” says Kyba. “If you do have members who are skeptical, it’s worth asking them what their concerns are and what’s giving them pause. They may simply be concerned that the team won’t be as focused on competing. In that case, you can remind them that a team that’s more inclusive and unified is going to play better.”

To that point, it is worth noting that while DE&I efforts are important from a human standpoint first and foremost, they truly do make teams stronger in competition as well. “That team cohesion leads to success,” says LaBotz. “If you’re not making an effort to make a team diverse and inclusive, you’ll likely end up with a team that has bullies and cliques, and that’s very destructive in terms of performance.”

________________________

Takeaway

Starting a DE&I effort on your team can feel overwhelming but there are ways to make it manageable and effect real change. And remember in everything you do: nothing about them without them.

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Goal-Setting Lesson Video Transcript

Hi. I’m Trevon, Trey, Jennifer. Team USA wheelchair basketball player, paralympian, and true sport athlete. Today, I want to talk to you about goal setting. And there are three things that I would like you to know. First, successful athletes set goals and a planned roadmap. Second, goals should be written down, assessed over time, and changed if necessary. And third, goals need to be challenging in order to be worthwhile. As a freshmen at Edinboro University, I was a part of a team that made the national championship game. And at that time I recognized I was the low man on the totem pole, but I felt in my heart that I knew my dreams were so much bigger than winning a national title. I wanted to make Team USA. I knew what achieving my lofty goal was not going to be easy and that I would need to work hard every day.

So, as a reminder, I created a pyramid of goals that I kept right above my bed. This pyramid reminded me of the accomplishments that I was working towards and visually represented my need to create a solid foundation underneath me before reaching the top. In the bottom roll of my pyramid of goals I listed goals such as obtaining my bachelor’s degree, becoming a scholar athlete award recipient, and becoming an All-American. The middle row listed winning a national title and playing for a professional team. And at the top row, the most challenging of them all, I listed becoming a gold medalist for Team USA.

By understanding that there are smaller stepping stones to achieving my ultimate goal of being on Team USA, I was able to stay motivated and to stay focused on completing the smaller stepping stones fully before moving onto the next one. Now I’ll be the first to admit that not every goal that I listed on my pyramid was accomplished, but seeing my goals every day when I went to bed, I was able to push through the days that I felt like doing nothing in hopes of achieving the bigger picture. Remember, create a clear goal roadmap, assess your goals often, and continue to challenge yourself. I hope that you never stopped dreaming big or reaching for the stars. And I look forward to seeing where your roadmap takes you.

Body Image Lesson Video Transcript

Hi, I’m Kara Winger, Olympic javelin thrower, and true sport athlete. Today I want to talk to you about body image and I have three things I’d like you to know. First, healthy thoughts often lead to healthier bodies. Second, there are varying body types and no one’s body is exactly like another. And third, true beauty goes deeper than the skin. As a multi-time Olympian, I’ve experienced a lot of variation and progression in my training. My coaches and I adapt to my training frequently, all with the goal of supporting my long-term success and health in the sport of javelin. I’m talking to you about body image today because sometimes even with the best of intentions and a common goal in mind, the changes you make to your training habits can prove to be detrimental if made for the wrong reasons. In the lead up to the 2012 Olympic trials, I was told in order to improve my performance on the field, I should try to become a leaner, skinnier version of myself.

So I changed my diet. I went along with what I was being told to do, even though I’d had great success at a slightly heavier weight and higher body fat percentage, and became much leaner than ever before. It seemed like a successful change at first, but I didn’t have nearly the results I’d had before. And I believe becoming leaner than my body naturally wanted to be was what caused my ACL to tear. In the end, it cost me heavily going into the 2012 London games. The takeaway for me, and hopefully for you, is that it’s important to know what works for you and your body and to not compare yourself to others. You should do your research and experiment with your diet to find what makes you feel the best, rather than focusing on what you look like. Today, if I feel like having a chocolate chip cookie, I have one, just not every day.

I’ve learned what a properly balanced meal for my body looks like and I recognize food as the fuel that keeps me throwing. I hydrate and allow myself time to recover. And I listen to and communicate with my body so that I can be the best version of myself. In the end, you are in control of how you see, treat, and respond to your body. We only get one and it’s amazing to discover how many things our bodies can do. Be a true sport athlete. Love who you are in this moment and get excited for all the places your body will take you.

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I started competing in Modern Pentathlon eight years after my older sister and three-time Olympian, Margaux Isaksen, began competing. I soon realized that people often compared the two of us. I would overhear spectators and teammates asking, “Who’s the better athlete,” and “Who’s going to beat the other.” Instead of letting outside pressures create a negative experience for us, I chose to practice winning and losing with grace and respect. I know that it would have been easy to let our hyper competitive mindset affect our relationship, but instead we decided to support and cheer for each other, regardless of our own performance. My experience of competing against and being compared to my older sister, taught me to focus on how to perform at my best, rather than putting wasted energy into wishing for others to fail.

I believe that sportsmanship reveals true character. So, no matter what situation I encounter during competition, I know it’s important to always treat people with respect and be a good sport. Remember, be a fierce competitor, find grace in all your victories and losses. And I hope to see you out there.

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Edwin Moses: You’re a coach. Maybe what you want is very simple, for everyone to just run in the right direction, score for their own team, to try and try again and again. Maybe you want your athletes to become all stars. You want them to earn trophies, medals, win titles. You want them to reach the highest height their sport allows. And wanting all of that, of course, that’s good. But as every great coach discovers, developing a great athlete means nurturing, nurturing the even greater person within. Truth is, you have even more influence than you know.

You have the ability to affect even deeper change, to take what’s in your hands and do something even more extraordinary. You can be both the coach who provides the skills needed to win the game and the coach who helps them learn and succeed beyond the sport, to become all stars wherever they land in the future, and to enjoy their lives more now, because the confidence and courage they find working with you will stay with them when they need it the most. There are games to be won, lives to change. Coaches have the power to do both.

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At first glance, dietary supplements look the same. They seem safe and healthy, but just because the label says a product is a dietary supplement, that doesn’t mean it’s safe. Unfortunately, you can’t tell whether a product is safe or not just by looking at the label. Most vitamins, minerals, fish oil, and other supplements containing nutrients are probably just fine, but supplements are not evaluated or approved by FDA before they are sold. Although it is rare for vitamins or minerals to be contaminated with drugs, there has been at least one case of a vitamin containing an anabolic steroid.

At the other extreme are products that contain drugs, stimulants, anabolic steroids, or other hormones. Even though these are not technically dietary supplements, many of them are labeled as supplements. For example, body-building products sometimes contain anabolic steroids or Selective Androgen Receptor Modulators, known as SARMs, or other hormones. Some pre-workout or energy products contain illegal stimulants like DMAA, ephedra, or other amphetamine-like stimulants. Weight loss products might contain prescription drugs like sibutramine, or hormones, like human chorionic gonadotropin, also known as hCG. All natural or herbal sexual enhancement products might contain hormones or Viagra-like drugs. Products like these can harm your health and career, but they’re for sale online, in some nutrition stores, and they’re labeled as dietary supplements.

When you pick up a supplement, especially one that promises performance enhancement, you don’t know if it belongs in the “Mostly O.K.” pile or in the “Dangerous” pile. After all, two products might look the same, but one might contain just amino acids and other legitimate ingredients, while the other also contains anabolic steroids. Because of this, FDA has issued a warning about certain categories of supplements: body building products, weight loss products, and sexual enhancement products. Be extremely careful when considering a supplement in one of these categories. We strongly recommend that you avoid products in these categories.

Even when FDA tests supplements and finds dangerous ingredients, companies sometimes refuse to recall them. Sometimes, they simply repackage their product and continue selling it under a new name. Just because a product is on a store shelf doesn’t mean it is safe. You need to do your research and be an informed consumer. The dietary supplement industry is enormous. Supplements that appear to be safe could actually be dangerous products in disguise. If you use dietary supplements without doing your research, you may be taking serious risks with your health and your career. Please visit USADA’s Supplement 411 for more information about dietary supplements.