Minority Athletes at Kenyon

Felecia Hamilton lugs her bag to the field and drops it behind the bench on the sideline. She just stepped off the bus a few moments ago and, like the rest of her Kenyon College field hockey teammates, she needs to transform stagnation into motivation during the Ladies' warm-up session.

As important as those pregame, tone-setting movements can be, Hamilton is preoccupied and initiates her own exercise, one that no other Kenyon player is even thinking about.

"I count the number of Black girls on the other team," Hamilton said. "I almost put myself in their shoes and wonder about things like how much playing time they are getting or what their relationships are like with other girls on team."

Moments like that, whether occurring on fields or in classrooms, sparked Hamilton to establish Minority Athletes at Kenyon (MAK), a newborn campus organization designed to foster conversation about race, while working toward a more inclusive and diverse athletics environment.

Hamilton, an African American in her junior year, does not have an agenda that reflects a toxic 'us versus them' mentality. Instead, she radiates concern and a genuine determination to alleviate burden through sharing of experiences.

"I didn't anticipate some of the effects that being a minority within a predominantly white institution would have," Hamilton said. "At times, there is a certain loneliness that comes with it and that feeling is best addressed, for me, by talking and sharing with other people who might be feeling the same way I do."

With MAK, Hamilton envisions biweekly meetings, group members evaluating and participating in the Athletics recruitment program, presenting panel discussions, hosting overnight visits with students of color and creating campus activities to support the group's mission. 

There are certainly more well-established minority organizations on campus that have similar approaches, but Hamilton and other Kenyon student-athletes found difficulty attending those meetings since they typically conflicted with team practice times. Additionally, Hamilton's desire is to focus, as the group's name suggests, on minority student-athletes and athletics-related topics.   
Hamilton is not flying solo in her quest. She's getting a helping hand from Assistant Football Coach Andy Allison, who is now in his second year at Kenyon.

"Diversity was on the radar from the word go. Even in my first interview with [Director of Athletics, Fitness and Recreation] Jill McCartney, she talked about how diversity, or lack thereof, was a concern not just within Athletics, but across campus," Allison explained. "At the time, I was the only full-time minority coach on staff and I jumped at the opportunity to help out."

With Hamilton and Allison at the forefront and McCartney and Chris Kennerly, Kenyon's Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, present for advice and support, MAK started to take shape. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic took shape at the same time and put a major pause on MAK's progress. Plans to send Allison to multiple national diversity and inclusivity seminars had to be scrapped. However, the simple fact that those plans were even made, gave Allison optimism.
 
"I think our administration truly does want to increase diversity" said Allison, who has coached on five other campuses. "There are other places that I've been at where they talk about it, but they take no action. They think that publicity alone will get the job done, but I've never felt that way about Kenyon."
 

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What Can I Do?

The first, and most obvious, step you can take would be to tune in to the aforementioned virtual panels on October 26 and 29. Listen and learn. Be attentive to different perspectives. Detach opinion from fact.

In asking Allison and Hamilton what others can do, key words from their responses included listen, support, share and understand.

"Truly listen to what your minority athletes are not just saying, but what they are feeling. Put things into perspective like that," Allison said. "Try to forget everything that you heard growing up about what it is like to be a minority and just sit down and talk to one of your closest minority friends and ask them… What is it like? What does it feel like? Help me to understand why this can be so painful for you. Hopefully, that will open up conversation and thoughts that he or she might not have ever had before."

For struggling minorities, Hamilton suggests the same. "Express your experiences in a way that hits home to others," she said. "The best way to make your point is to share your experiences and let others know what it's like for a minority to navigate through life, especially at a predominantly white institution."

"This carries so much more weight than anything I do throughout my day, because it has such long-term ramifications for so many people," Allison concluded. "I realized very quickly that I can't do it alone. The more support and the more understanding we have, the better off we will be, not just as minorities, but as a society."
If you are interested in becoming a part of Minority Athletes at Kenyon, please contact Felecia Hamilton at hamilton3@kenyon.edu or Andy Allison at allison1@kenyon.edu