NESCAC CoSAoC

Late last month, the NESCAC formed a Coalition of Student-Athletes of Color (CoSAoC) with representatives from all 11 member schools. The announcement describes their mission statement as trying to “encourage dialogue and solidarity around issues of race.” The coalition aims to work with all member schools’ athletic departments in their pursuit to support student-athletes of color, and they will encourage the diversification of athletic departments across the conference. At least two students from each member school will serve on the committee, and they plan to have every sport represented. From Bowdoin, Kendall Rogers ’21, Lester Jackson ’21, Manveer Sandhu ’22 and Cydnie Martin ’22 will serve on the committee. The entire committee will convene  at least once a month, and different subgroups will meet as needed. Bowdoin is part of a subgroup with Colby College, Bates College and Williams College. While the coalition will provide support for current students, it will also provide support to student-athletes of color who have graduated.

DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION WORK

The Bowdoin athletic department announced yesterday that it has partnered with Jen Fry, an anti-racism educator, for a series of five workshops. It will also be participating in a separate program: the 21-Day Ally Challenge which is sponsored by the NESCAC. Jen Fry runs a social justice education firm, JenFryTalks, which presents workshops designed to empower athletes, coaches and staff members through anti-racist programming. The five workshops she intends to lead will be titled “Understanding of Personal Macro and Micro Perspectives,” “Implicit Bias,” “Leading with an Anti-Racist Lens,” “Microaggressions” and “Whiteness.”

GOING VIRAL

Football has had some difficult times the past few weeks, with the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) spreading rapidly across professional and collegiate teams. In the NFL, games have been postponed, but league leaders say that there will be no cancellations and the season will be completed. Furthermore, their postponement policy raised some eyebrows this past weekend when a matchup between the Denver Broncos and the New Orleans Saints was held despite the fact that all of the Broncos quarterbacks were listed as inactive due to concerns about exposure to COVID-19. On the collegiate side of football, many teams have had games cancelled, and this has risked qualification for the College Football Playoff National Championship. Specifically, Ohio State University, usually one of the top teams in the nation, could miss qualification for the championship if they have any more games cancelled.