For many Black athletes at Queen’s, the athletics experience carries layers that don’t disappear with the final whistle.
At a predominantly white institution, for Black student-athletes at Queen’s, the game becomes more than competition. It becomes a site of visibility, pressure, and connection. In response, athletes have built their own networks of support through the BIPOC Student Athletes Committee, initiatives like Culture Day, conference spaces, and, most meaningfully, friendships that extend beyond a single roster. What happens off the field has become just as significant as what happens on it.
Leaving the community you grew up in is challenging for anyone, but for the 10 per cent of the Queen’s student body that identifies as non-white, it can cut an important tie to their cultural identity and life experience. Not being surrounded by the same racial community can cause self-doubt and can take a toll on a person’s mental health, resulting in potentially negative ramifications for athletic and academic success. Representation is important; and being constantly surrounded by people who don’t have the same background can take its toll.
Tattyannah Jackson, ArtSci ’26, has experienced that loss of cultural familiarity firsthand.
“I found that being BIPOC and making friends with someone that doesn’t understand me, doesn’t understand my background, doesn’t understand the way I was raised, kind of made it a little more difficult to connect,” said Jackson in an interview with The Journal. Jackson is both a Women’s Rugby athlete, and the Indigenization – Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Accessibility, and Anti-Racism (I-EDIAA) Coordinator for Queen’s Athletics and Recreation (A&R), as well as president of the BIPOC Student Athletes Committee (BSAC).
For athletes whose days are mapped out by practice times and team meetings, finding others who share their racial identity beyond their own roster isn’t always simple. While strong friendships exist across different identities, Olivia Dibua, ArtSci ’27, spoke to the importance of her friendships with other Black Women’s Rugby athletes. “We’re a big team, so 50 people, and I’m still friends with other people on my team, but I think we [Dibua and her Black teammates] found a shared experience and shared bonding in that sense that we are similar,” Dibua said in an interview with The Journal.
For teams with smaller rosters, connecting with Black athletes on different teams is essential. These connections can foster development, prevent burnout, and create a critical network of support.
“I knew this wasn’t the most diverse school, and I know based on past years it was really white dominated, but I feel like as a Black athlete, especially now in my third year, I’ve found more of a community being a part of the BSAC group,” said a forward on the Women’s Hockey team, Sienna Bullen, ArtSci ’28, in an interview with The Journal.
In the wake of the OUA Anti-Racism report in 2021, which revealed the lack of diversity in the OUA and commonality of racism within sport, Queen’s A&R began to recognize the distinct BIPOC student athlete experience.
Overall OUA Race Breakdown. Graphic from: The Ontario University Athletics Anti Racism Report 2021
Commonality of racism in the OUA. Graphic from: The Ontario University Athletics Anti Racism Report 2021
The report noted that while only one per cent of each group viewed racism as “extremely common,” these results were likely impacted by the 72 per cent of respondents whom identify as white and may not know what racism looks like. In all, the report underscored a need for better representation and increased BIPOC student athlete initiatives across Ontario.
“In the fall of 2021, we had recently launched the I-EDIAA task force within athletics and recreation, so in my first year at Queen’s I was able to sit and serve on that task force and it really allowed me to start to really gain my education,” said Carleigh Collins, Queen’s Manager of Athlete Education, Training & Leadership Development, in an interview with The Journal.
It was the I-EDIAA task force that identified the need for a stronger BIPOC student athlete community, which has made significant strides since 2021. In her role as BSAC President, Jackson has initiated a variety of social and educational activities, including BIPOC student athletes bowling, board game nights, and informative panels and workshops.
While education remains important, social connectivity has helped BIPOC athletes navigate life at Queen’s. “There are certain conversations you can’t have with everyone, certain ways you talk about certain things or even language that you use are only used within certain groups. So, it’s honestly very important for me to just feel comfortable and even just be myself,” Jackson said.
For Bullen, participation in the BSAC has been an important element of her experience in athletics. “You can mingle and you can talk […] I think that’s really helpful and not something that I ever thought I would experience at Queen’s, but now that I have, I’ve
built a lot of relationships that are some of my best friends now.”
These connections can help Black athletes navigate some of the unique challenges they face. Already overwhelmed with schoolwork and athletic commitments, Black athletes must deal with the reality of attending a school where much of the student body doesn’t have the same lived experience as them.
“It’s a great school academically and Women’s Rugby wise; I just knew if I really wanted it [to attend Queen’s], I had to overcome things. So, the reality is it’s going to be hard for me regardless, but I knew that I had to push through […] which to my point is why I’m so grateful for my community, they made it that much easier,” Dibua said. She shared how her parents were worried about her coming to Queen’s after another family members experience of feeling excluded at Queen’s due to her race, as well as the demographic being primarily white.
From being treated differently by referees, to overhearing comments from spectators, many Black athletes explain they must navigate challenges some of their white peers may never consider. “I’ve had good experiences on teams, but I think that kind of changes within games because I will say I’ve not had the best experiences with refs,” Jackson said.
For Jackson, being singled out by a referee can be an isolating experience, especially within rugby, where only the captain is allowed to speak to the referee. This often results in an unfair dynamic, where the captain may not realize a Black athlete is being spoken to differently.
Jackson also spoke to her experience with livestream commentators who sometimes mix her up with the one or two other Black players on the field, even if they look nothing alike.
These experiences aren’t always noticed or understood by white teammates and coaches, making having a community to fall back on even more important.
“I want incoming recruits and future generations to understand that their experience is also valued here, and there are people here to, you know, support them, and there’s a community here as well,” Bullen said.
Creating this community is equally important but looks different for every sport.
Rugby Union was invented in England and disseminated throughout Canada by English colonial officers. Ice Hockey is also predominately white, without a Black athlete in the National Hockey League until Willie O’Ree in 1985. These histories continue today, where representation in some sports is limited.
Bullen grew up as the only Black girl on her hockey team, aside from her sister. “I would feel kind of lonely and isolated […] and sometimes I felt like I had to work that much harder just to prove that I deserved to be there,” Bullen said.
Athlete Diversity in Few Sports. Graph From: The Ontario University Athletics Anti Racism Report 2021
Sports like Basketball have a rich history of Black participation and excellence. But even with this history comes a need to examine the sport at Queen’s and foster open dialogue regarding different experiences within teams.
“We [the basketball team] have weekly meetings […] and we talk about different topics like Queen’s, how it is as an institution, how we can change it, and how people on our team experience different things, and I feel like that’s a good conversation,” said Men’s Basketball player Sam Kong, ArtSci ’27, in an interview with The Journal.
Queen’s is unique, because while it’s a PWI, non-white student athletes make up a larger percentage of the student athlete community than they do student population. According to a 2018 study study by Madison Danford and Peter Donnelly, There’s a larger increase in the ratio of non-white to white student athletes compared to other schools in Canada.
The study found that while white student-athletes were significantly overrepresented across Canadian interuniversity sports teams, there was more representation than in the overall student population.
Students, Athletes, and School Demographics. Presented by Sabrina Razack at the 2025 Diversity in Sport Conference
The ratio of non-white athletes to non-white students highlights the role athletics can play in fostering representation and inclusion across campus. “Queen’s Athletics can be a testament to how we can shift the culture throughout the whole school,” Kong said.
The number of white students and student athletes also emphasizes the role of allyship. A&R put an emphasis on providing monthly I-EDIAA training for staff and providing workshops and promotional materials to athletes for how they can be a better ally.
“I think education is the base of everything, you can’t fix what you don’t know,” Collins said.
Recently, Bullen, alongside a fellow hockey athlete Sam Marburg ArtSci ’27, released a video with the Queen’s Shift Project, helping educate students on the importance of representation in Hockey. Bullen is also involved in the Women of Colour Hockey Collective, and helped organize the Women of Colour Hockey Collective game at Queen’s.
Bullen, Dibua, and Kong, are their teams’ respective representatives on the BSAC, and Jackson is the president, as well as I-EDIAA Coordinator for A&R. This work can add up, but it’s a role they’ve all taken on with pride.
“Everyone talks about change, but you have to literally be that change,” Dibua said.
One thing Collins would like to see in the future is a full-time position within Varsity athletics dedicated to I-EDIAA work. “Equity deserving students are often the ones doing equity work,” Collins said. This phenomenon isn’t uncommon, often called the “minority tax,” where equity deserving students are frequently called upon to identify systemic barriers and advocate for change.
A full-time position would help to remove some of the pressure from current student-athletes. Jackson expressed how she’s paid for 10 hours a week, but gives over 15, depending on what needs to be done. This is on top of her responsibilities as a student athlete.
Kong also expressed a desire for increased representation within administrative roles, highlighting the decision-making side of athletics. “Having that visible representation not only on the athletics side, but even throughout admin positions as well,” he said.
In the absence of a full-time position, Black athletes have been at the forefront of pioneering change, representation, and community within athletics. “I’m constantly thinking about how I can do more, how I can educate more, just trying to figure out how I can do more for our team, which obviously it shouldn’t all fall back onto me, but that’s kind of how I feel,” Bullen said.
This is something Collins hopes will change in the future, as the student-athlete population continues to grow and become more diverse. “[I hope] a recruit five to 10 years down the road doesn’t look at one of our teams and think, oh well, I have to be the one that’s paving the way.”
Instead of arriving with the assumption that they’ll be challenging biases and educating their teammates, Collins aspires for recruits to step onto campus knowing the foundation has already been laid.
The BIPOC community that’s been created across teams has helped to ease some of the burden and foster an important support network that stretches far beyond a single roster. “It brings that feeling of home that some people sometimes lack when you live so far away, and you kind of struggle when you don’t feel that you have a community, or you don’t have people that will understand you,” Jackson said.
Athletics is unique because one of sport’s purposes is to bring people together. “A special thing about sports is people from all backgrounds and lives come together and play,” Kong said.
While sports create community, the 2021 anti-racism report highlights how not every athlete has the same experience. It’s through their own leadership that Black athletes have been able to create a community to help navigate the complexities of existing within a white institution.
“We don’t all have to be best friends, at the end of the day, but to know that we’re here, we’re in solidarity, we’re here as a community, and we don’t have to be afraid to say hi to each other,” Jackson said.
For incoming athletes, it’s important to know they can be represented and included. Even in a PWI, Black athletes are creating spaces for community, fostering a network where they’ll continue to thrive for years to come.
As Kong emphasized, sports are about more than competition; they’re about belonging. At Queen’s, Black athletes are highlighting what belonging truly means by creating a space where future recruits won’t have to be pioneers. Instead, they can arrive confidently, knowing a strong community awaits them.
While meaningful work still needs to be done, particularly in increasing representation and ensuring equity-deserving athletes are properly supported and compensated, the BIPOC athlete community at Queen’s has become far more than a demographic statistic. In a town students call home for four formative years, Black students like Jackson, Dibua, Bullen, and Kong, are building a community that took work, but has become essential.
Tags
athletes, Black Athletes, community
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