The Tufts Athlete Ally chapter being honored with the national Athlete Ally’s Action Award on Oct. 17 in New York City was the culmination of a vision Tufts’ chapter president and founder Ryan Kane had early in his college experience. The award is given annually to the top campus chapter across all divisions.
READ TUFTS ATHLETICS STORY ON ATHLETE ALLY ACTION AWARD HONOR
“I came to college as a recruited rower without really knowing anything about inclusion at Tufts or on my team. I came out early in my freshman year and thankfully my team was relatively supportive, but I didn’t see any resources at the intersection of my identities,” Kane recollected. “I went to the LGBT Center during pre-orientation week and an upperclassman said they had never heard of a gay athlete at Tufts, which made me feel rather invisible.”
Indeed, Kane did struggle to find other queer athletes at Tufts. “I wasn’t concerned about Tufts as a progressive school going against the idea of supporting queer athletes. I did question how many folks would want to get involved,” he reflected.
Early Organizing
He was able to find friends on the rowing team who expressed an interest in being part of an organized group, so he started the Alliance of Queer Undergraduate Athletes (AQUA). “In the beginning of my sophomore year, we brought in a pro rower who is a lesbian icon in the athletic world and a friend of mine, and that went really well,” he described. “I somehow got connected to Harvard Athlete Ally and made some great connections there. With a small but passionate team of leaders including Sophie Novitsky, Michael Damelio, and Brian Uribe, we were able to gain traction and begin mobilizing on the vision. We transitioned to Tufts Athlete Ally by the end of the fall semester. We started doing more events, more people got interested and involved, and it accelerated from there.”
Kane quickly found an ally in rowing teammate Harrison Sweet, who now serves as the event coordinator for the Tufts chapter. “Ryan has done an amazing job for the club so far and has been able to motivate so many people to help him out with his goal of creating safe, queer spaces for athletes on campus. I am a straight man so creating those spaces wasn’t top of mind for me but after seeing Ryan’s dedication to the club and how much this movement means to him it inspired me to help him in any way that I can,” Sweet communicated.
Although he was encouraged by the early support from some of the teams on campus, Kane witnessed that a few teams had several student-athletes attend, while others didn’t have any. “We took note of who was showing up to our events. There were consistently a couple of teams like women’s rowing who were great, but we also wanted more team diversity. I talked to a friend who was part of the Tufts Athletes of Color group and found out they had team representatives,” he recalled. “I thought that was an interesting idea. We decided that having team reps would be great for queer-identifying athletes on each team and allow us to reach more athletes, both those who identified as queer as well as allies.”
Growing with Team Representatives
In the spring of 2023, the group contacted coaches and asked them to reach out to their teams. “A decent number of teams jumped on, but we still had eight of 28 who were not receptive. From there, we tried to do more connecting on an individual level, friends talking to friends. By the end of Fall 2023, we had 26 of 28 teams on board. The more teams we got involved, the easier it was to talk to people because they were more likely to know others who were involved,” Kane explained. “It seemed more credible if more people were doing it.”
Kane recognized that deeper conversations may be necessary with the two remaining teams yet to become involved, men’s ice hockey and football. “We needed someone to work directly with team reps and improve team engagement, so we added a community engagement director onto our executive board,” he pointed out. “She was a well-connected member of the women’s soccer program who was able to have great conversations with both teams and now every team has a team rep. It took multiple discussions, and we needed to understand their hesitancies. Every team’s culture is different. Some sports generally face less pushback for being involved. More times than not, a Pride game at a school is not in a space where it is needed the most. We are trying to break barriers in more traditionally masculine sport like men’s basketball and men’s lacrosse.”
With all 28 teams at Tufts being represented, Kane saw the Tufts Athlete Ally chapter grow from no more than 10 people at any one time to more than 150, making it the largest chapter in the country in all divisions. The executive board now has 10 members, and even more people applied for board positions.
“Ryan has gained so much confidence over the past couple years and has been able to build a following of like-minded athletes to support him. One of his best traits is his ability to push the club into uncomfortable spaces to make change. For example, he was instrumental in getting a Pride game for lacrosse, which is stereotypically a heteronormative space. We are currently focusing on a Pride game for ice hockey, another heteronormative sport, and will hopefully host that game this month,” Sweet explained. “By focusing on these difficult spaces for queer athletes, he is making change in the places that need it most. Rather than being comfortable with teams that have already hosted many Pride games, he is always looking for ways to increase that circle of acceptance and safety into spaces that are more difficult and reluctant to host these games. He has inspired me to be okay with being uncomfortable to make change happen on campus.”
Challenges of Being Division III School
In late June, Kane attended and led workshops at the 2024 Athlete Activism Summit in Louisville, Kentucky. “University support for Division III athletics is so much less as evidenced in the turnout at the summit. There were very strong groups from large D1 schools. The University of Miami sent multiple administrators and athletes. Michigan had a lot of people there and schools like Ohio State, Nebraska, Kansas, and North Carolina all sent numerous people. The only other people from D3 that I met were from Brandeis and Johns Hopkins,” he commented.
Funding is an issue faced by affinity groups across the Division III landscape. “Most of the first year, we had zero money. Holding free events is tough. We were able to have a mixer with a neighboring school in the spring of 2023 because Athlete Ally gave us a grant. At Tufts, once a group is in existence for a full year, they can apply for a budget that gets approved in the spring. Fortunately, once we were established, we were able to get a healthy budget, but before that I had to go to the Office of Inclusive Excellence and ask for enough money to keep us afloat,” he described.
“The funding depends on the university. If schools are clear about being dedicated to DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) efforts and they have the resources, affinity groups have a strong argument for receiving funding. Athlete Ally or any group that supports queer athletes are a very unrecognized demographic that is struggling if you just look at the numbers,” he pointed out. “It is a group that needs help. If you are not sending people to get the resources they need, how are you promoting change?”
One challenge that is not be limited to Division III athletics (though the total number of athletes is generally less than bigger programs) is the turnover in membership and particularly leadership as student-athletes graduate. “Succession planning is our big focus this year. We are bringing in people in waves to train as people are set to graduate in the spring,” Kane expressed. “We have four people (including himself) graduating, so we brought in three people this semester and will bring in two more in the spring to train under the seniors and be ready to take over the reins.”
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