With the support of President Dr. Adam S. Weinberg and Associate Vice President/Director of Athletics Nan Carney-DeBord, Denison University has sent more student-athletes than any other Division III school to the annual Black Student-Athlete Summit. Under the guidance of Dr. Robert Bennett III, an assistant professor in the Health, Exercise, and Sport Studies (HESS) department, more than 50 Denison student-athletes have had the opportunity to attend the event that greatly benefits not only them, but also the athletics department and the university.
The Beginning
Bennett has been a part of the summit since the inception nine years ago. The summit’s founder Dr. Leonard Moore has been Bennett’s mentor since 2006-07 and both men earned their PhDs at The Ohio State University, where Bennett worked for more than a decade as an instructor and resident director within the Department of History, College of Education and Human Ecology, and Department of African American and African Studies before coming to Denison in 2018.
“Dr. Bennett is an impact player in our department and in the integration of the Mitchell Center where we house multiple campus constituencies. He has done a wonderful job using the living classroom for HESS, where his focus is sport studies with a lot of different parts, including history, marketing, and sport law,” Carney-DeBord commented. “He has done a great job with mentorship, which is one of our core competencies. He mentors students in his classes, a plethora of student-athletes, and our own Black student-athlete group on campus.”
“When I left Ohio State and went to Denison, we presented a panel on what it is like to be a Black football player at Denison. I came from Ohio State where most football players are Black and now was at a place where they were relatively few and far between on the football field,” Bennett recalled. “Talking about what it looks like to be one of the few Black people in athletic, academic, and social settings was one of my first iterations of helping our community understand the necessary work to be done at Denison.”
Bennett recalled meeting a Denison student at the Black Student-Athlete Summit and was excited that Denison was willing to support four student-athletes to attend the 2019 summit at the University of Texas at Austin where Moore is the George Littlefield Professor of American History. “The next year we were able to bring six students to the summit at Rice University in Houston. The students returned from the conference and raved about it to Nan and President Weinberg. They wanted to go back and increase the number of students able to attend,” he explained.
Mikaila Carpenter, a 2023 Denison graduate who is currently in medical school at the University of Toledo, was among those at the summit at Rice during her junior year. “Dr. Bennett sent me an email asking me if I was interested in attending that year. I was preparing for track season and really didn’t know if I had the time. He had been my professor and he wanted me to have the opportunity, so I told him to tentatively put me on the list,” she recollected.
Carpenter went to the summit not with trepidation, but with curiosity. “I didn’t know what to expect, especially with the dawn of NIL (the NCAA approved student-athletes being able to profit from their name, image, and likeness on July 1, 2021). Many Division I athletes were making a fair amount of money. My mom was a D1 athlete in the 1990s and it was a whole different world,” she stated. “But it was an awesome experience. It was monumental to see not only the student-athletes, but those who wanted to support us. I found that D1 athletes were just normal people. A few of them were flashy with celebrity vibes, but most people were from smaller Division I schools who didn’t have that same level of fame.”
Then a freshman, men’s basketball player Jaylon “Jay” Jackson attended the summit and returned to campus ready to become more involved. “It was a great experience, and I learned so much being around other Black student-athletes at PWIs (predominantly white institutions). It inspired us to start our Black Student-Athlete Association (BSAA),” he explained. The BSAA’s mission is to provide a safe space for Black athletes at the university, while offering support and community.
“The group (BSAA) is really special, and I am so proud of the work they have done. Jay is a rock star. The men’s basketball team’s culture is fantastic because of him and others,” Carney-DeBord commented.
2023 Black Student-Athlete Summit in Los Angeles
Based off the experiences of those who attended the event at Rice, Denison’s administration decided to send nearly 20 student-athletes to the summit the following year, the first of two at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles. “We uplift the professional development of Denisonians. The summit is a great way to connect people and build networks. There is a lot you can do in athletics off the field,” remarked Bennett, who was awarded the Black Student-Athlete Summit Faculty Member of the Year in 2023 based on his scholarship in the field and engagement with various student-athlete populations.
“It is always good to be recognized by your peers and your students. I was an administrator at Ohio State when the chance to become a visiting professor at Denison came up and I have been doing that for seven years now. Part of my research focus is the reality of life as a student-athlete and I realize I need to bring that research into practice,” he acknowledged. “What we have done toward that end is expose students, regardless of race of socio-economic status, to as many opportunities to learn and grow as we can. I have been doing this kind of work for more than a decade. It is a grind but worth it to better the lives of our student-athletes. I couldn’t do that without the resources from President Weinberg and Nan. They could have sent two or four students, or even zero, to the summit.
Carney-DeBord saw sending student-athletes to the summit and the formation of BSAA as a continuation of the diversity work that has taken place over the past decade at Denison. “In 2014, we took inventory of our SAAC (Student-Athlete Advisory Committee) and saw that it was very white. It did not align with our teams, who are very diverse in all ways. We asked ourselves if it was serving our student-athletes as intended in the SAAC model,” she described. “We started Denison DIG, our Diversity and Inclusion Athletic Advisory Group and the two groups worked together. Now we have individuals who serve on both committees.”
Then a sophomore men’s basketball player Dre Rogers knew he wanted to attend the summit in 2023 after his teammate Jackson shared what a great experience he had at the summit the previous year. “For most of us, hearing a free trip to Los Angles was a no-brainer,” Rogers joked. “Dr. Bennett made sure we realized how important it was to have this opportunity to attend the event and what his expectations of us were.”
“We hold pre-summit meetings to gauge interests, talk about academic majors and what opportunities there will be around those majors. We want to expose students to this opportunity,” Bennett stated. “Due to budgetary concerns, we can’t take everyone. Of course, going to Los Angeles may seem nice, but we have checks and balances to make sure they are going for the right reasons and that they are committed.”
Rogers, who is interested in global commerce with interests in supply and chain management, anthropology, and finance, found it helpful to learn how people with different academic paths came together. “There was a panel with four speakers who talked about leadership and initiative in four separate fields that all landed them in the same place in sport communications. Majors matter, but life will spin you a whole lot of ways,” he pointed out. “It was good to network and meet as many people as you can, but it is more than that. You want to build a relationship with those you meet, to follow-up and take advantage of the opportunity you were given. You can leave a mark as who you are fully as a person, not just an athlete.”
2024 Black Student-Athlete Summit Back at USC
Women’s basketball Bryana Woodard, who transferred after playing her first two seasons at Oberlin College, heard about Denison’s commitment to sending people to the summit even before she transferred. “Since it was my first year at the university, I thought attending the summit would be a good way to get closer to the Denison community. I went through the vetting process with Dr. Bennett to make sure I was going for the right reasons,” she commented. “I felt so seen because I he asked me where I wanted to go with my career, which is to get a psychology degree and eventually a PhD. Even though I knew exactly what I wanted to do, attending ‘Career Day’ and other sessions at the summit opened my mind to other things like money management and marketing. I got a lot of tips on how to better run the Denison BSAA Instagram account by seeing what other programs, even those who may differ in size, were doing.”
In addition to their work at Denison, Jackson and Woodard decided to expand their impact beyond their own BSAA in the summer of 2024. With the support and encouragement of North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) Commissioner Keri Luchowski, they started a Division III Black Student-Athlete Association Instagram page with the intent of providing a sense of belonging and community to Black student-athletes across all Division III programs. Woodard also created the logo for the account.
Sprinter Akindele Aboyade-Cole, a first generation Nigerian-American student-athlete, attended the summit for the first time in May after his sophomore year. “As athletes, we have a critical platform to understand and thrive, especially for people who look like me. It gives you the opportunity to delve into what it really means to be a Black student-athletes and how to leverage that, he remarked. “I talk a lot about LeBron (James) who has been on the highest stages since he was 16 years old and uses his platform to help kids who look like him with programs like I Promise (which seeks to create generational change for kids and their families in his hometown of Akron, Ohio through education and co-curricular educational initiatives). He is willing to share his voice and opinions, ignoring calls to ‘Shut up and dribble.’ If we use our platform wisely, we can change lives for the culture, not just the people you are close to.”
Freshman men’s basketball player Kellon Smith had the unique opportunity of attending the summit as a high school student when he and others from Shaker Heights High School in Ohio went to the 2022 summit at Rice. “I was more of an outlier that year, but my goal was to get the experience and bring it back to have a Black Student-Athlete Association for Shaker and for Cleveland. That was my focus then,” he described. “This year I was viewing it from the college student’s perspective, to look at life after basketball, what to do when the ball stops bouncing.”
“There was a breakout room where we were asked to describe yourself without your sport. That was difficult. You don’t really pay attention to that, but you need to. Look at life outside of sport. I want to figure that out and what I want my journey to look like,” Smith described.
Anaya Jolivette, a sprinter on the Denison women’s track and field team, heard about the summit in her first year from a teammate who was planning to attend the event at Rice and coordinated with Bennett to go after her sophomore year in 2023. “I didn’t know what to expect. I read up on it and looked at potential breakout sessions, but I was in a transitional period in terms of determining what I wanted to do with my career. I always had a plan, but it changed when I got to college,” she expressed. “I didn’t capitalize on the summit as much as I could have, but I did go to sessions and meet nice people. I was still a little shy and didn’t interact very much unless I was with my friends.”
This May, Jolivette again attended the summit but this time with a different mindset and goals. “Heading into my final year of undergrad, I was homing in on what I wanted to do so I attended multiple tents in the career fair, even if it was not necessarily something I could see myself doing,” she explained. “I met with people from a fire department who told me that if I was interested in becoming an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician), I could intern at the Department of Forestry. Even though I wanted to go into the health field rather than be an EMT, it was helpful to speak with people about their career paths. I talked with people in the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) and companies like Razorfish (an interactive web development agency).”
“This time, I attended more informational sessions and met with a lot of other athletes. I branched our more than the year before and made more connections academically and socially,” Jolivette continued. “One thing that really caught my attention was a Whova message from an administrator at the University of Texas at Austin Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs who said she saw my resume and major, asking me what I wanted to do after Denison and telling me that UT-Austin would be a great option. I met with her at the career fair and found out they have a master’s program in public policy and global health, which is one of their master’s programs. I connected with her on LinkedIn and added that as a school to apply to.”
Division III Student-Athletes at Predominantly Division I Event
While some of the Denison student-athletes initially had concerns about how they would fit in at a summit consisting of mostly Division I athletes, they quickly discovered that divisional differences did not matter.
“Even if we were the only Division III school there, the playing field is level. Our athletes are great ambassadors, and the summit is not a competition, but rather a chance to gain knowledge to get better in both career and leadership spaces,” Carney-DeBord stated.
“There are intricate differences between divisions, but you are still a Black student-athlete at your school with the same pressure and burdens, regardless of whether you attend Texas, WashU (Washington University in St. Louis) or Denison. It is important to be around people who understand your struggle is important,” Aboyade-Cole described.
“I was a little intimidated being around D1 athletes at first and thought they would carry themselves differently, but when we went into activities and breakout rooms, I realized that though they are on a higher stage with more opportunities, we are all trying to maneuver though our experience with most of us attending PWIs,” Rogers described. “Except for those few who are going pro, we are all trying to figure out what we will do after college. We are all there to learn, to be sponges, and take in as much information as we can.”
“I didn’t think about being D3 that much at the summit. Some people had their school logo on their clothing or backpack, but no one acted any differently based on what school you attended. We were all still able to relate to one another,” voiced Jolivette, who has competed against runners from Ohio State and Tennessee. “Running with bigger schools, I felt I could relate on some level to their experience, but I was happy that even when I met other track people, we weren’t just talking about track. People asked what other things I did and what I am interested in.”
As Woodard’s experience illustrates, Division III athletes often know and/or have competed with friends who went on the play at Division I. “My best friend since the third grade is a gymnast at Penn State so I got to see here and meet the Penn State athletes right away. Between that and having 12 of us from Denison there, I had a large community immediately,” she described.
“I was networking a lot. I was in the process of applying for medical school. I had taken the MCAT and was asking a lot of questions. I met a Kent State gymnast who was just starting at Cincinnati and had gone through the exact same process with the same goals as me,” Carpenter communicated.
Far from feeling out of the place, Smith reveled in being in that space as a Division III athlete. “It was very empowering to be part of a Division III school, representing Denison and D3 as a collective. We are here, we are Denison, and we are D3,” he expressed.
“The summit puts an emphasis on the concept that ‘We are more than an athlete,’ which fits the Division III model well. We get to network with athletes from all over the country, talking about what works for them, what struggles they have, and what their campuses have done for Black student-athletes. You can only have that interaction on a scale that big at this summit surrounded by people who look like you, fostering an environment you won’t find anywhere else,” Jackson explained.
Being in Space of Black Student-Athletes
The experience of Denison attendees at the summit are as unique as they are, but one thing they all have in common is noting the almost indescribable importance of being in a space with thousands of other Black student-athletes.
“It is a whole other level of comfort that I have not experienced in the athletic world,” Woodard communicated. “Teammates are great, but at the summit I was with people who shared an unspoken common experience without having to look around for people who look like me. Someone on the elevator asked if this was a big basketball tournament. I explained what it was and how it is hard to describe how much this summit means to everyone in the room.”
“I was able to do my braids without questions about why I was doing it,” Woodard added. “People were asking if they could use my edge brush instead of asking what one is.”
“People don’t really understand what Black student-athletes go through in terms of our mental, emotional, and physical health. We don’t receive the same attention or resources,” Smith described. “The sports mentality is often to go out there and play not only through injuries, but also through mental health issues as if it they are not as important. The summit addressed the toll that being a Black student-athlete at PWI takes on our mental health. We talked about how to best navigate that reality and make others aware.”
Smith spoke about when student-athletes at UT-Austin refused to participate in recruiting incoming players or attend donor-related events while calling for the removal of statues and renaming of campus buildings named after those who held racist views. “These were Black athletes taking a stand against peers and the higher-ups who did not want the statues removed or changes made. These issues impact our mental health,” he elucidated.
“I have never been around that many Black student-athletes or Black people around my age who I could relate to,” Jolivette expressed. “It was great to see everyone being themselves. A lot of time you don’t know if you are being judged or how you are being perceived by others. People may act differently because of how you look or how you are. We had a lot of conversations about that and how we felt unjudged and able to be our authentic selves at the summit.”
“The point of emphasis for me attending this conference is to help me understand the Black scholastic athlete. I am also a Black former student-athlete. I want to stay current and know what the underlying issues are,” Bennett expressed. “There is a different vibe and culture when we are all there for the same purpose. What commonalities do we have? It is hard to put into words what it looks like for a Black student-athlete in a predominantly white space, particularly in a sport that is predominantly white. What spaces are we creating that are reflecting those experiences in a true and meaningful manner?”
Take-Aways
Beyond the professional and personal development benefits for individuals who attend the summit, they also discover tools and even further motivation to make a difference back on their home campus and in building alumni relations and connections.
For Bennett as a professor, it reinforces his passion for educating others. “There is a lack of cultural engagement that white students are taught. Most of the students in my classroom are white and it is surprising how many of them have never had a Black professor or teacher. It is important to work through those layers and be mindful of people’s experiences,” he explained. “I had a balanced experience growing up with different teachers and cultural relevance. The most important thing we can bring as a professor is teaching from a framework in which everyone can engage.”
Carney-DeBord echoes those sentiments in her work as an athletics administrator. “We ask ourselves what we can do to make others better, to enhance the lives of others. We want to be mentors, to create initiatives that are sustainable and live on long after we are finished,” she stated. “Wins are great, but what are we really trying to do? How are we developing leaders? They are the ones who carry the story and the work forward.”
Jackson has attended the summit each of his first three years and looks forward to bringing the knowledge he has gained to further his already substantial work as president of the Denison BSAA in 2024-25. “We focus on building community and providing a safe environment for our Black student-athletes, while also collaborating with other groups,” he stated. “We spend time together, whether it is having game nights or just hanging out. We also want to highlight our Black student-athletes apart from their sport more. We are athletes, but we are more than just athletes.” Examples of that was the BSAA’s Instagram account sharing Rogers’ 2024 summer interning in Berlin, Germany in the Global Internship Program through the American Institute of Foreign Study and Jolivette’s studying abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina and interning at Red Cross-Saavedra in Fall 2023.
“I am bringing back the understanding that whatever sport you play at whatever level, we all have similar experiences internally as athletes. I want to use that to get closer with other teams on campus. As athletes, we go to each other’s games, but I want us to get to know each other better,” Woodard communicated. “I am also reaching out to friends at Oberlin. It can be very isolating being Black at small PWIs, but we are not alone. We have this shared experience.”
Woodard was a member of the Oberlin Black Student-Athlete Group and mentioned how important that group’s existence was for her choosing the school. When she got to Denison, she was impressed by Denison’s BSAA. “It is really strong, so I assumed it had been around for years before I found out how new it was. It shows that with the right people and mission, it doesn’t take long to build something important. That is something we can share with others.”
“There are a lot of take-aways for Division III athletes. There were breakout rooms where you learn from leaders in that field who started from where we are and talked about how they got where they are now. It is a great opportunity to talk to someone in your field and build that relationship and learn how to prepare for entering the job market,” Rogers remarked. “The summit showed us the importance of financial planning and having a realistic plan. Those are things we all need to be talking about more.”
“My teammates and I are close so when I came back from the summit, they asked me about it. Most of them don’t have the same experiences I do so having those uncomfortable discussions about Black student-athletes opened the eyes of my peers who are not people of color. We don’t want to be exclusive. We want to share the information with everyone and spread the love. We should all be accountable to one another,” suggested Aboyade-Cole.
Smith is ready to bring the lessons he learned back to his basketball team and into other areas. “Our biggest team goal this year is overcoming adversity. That can be how we get out of a scoring drought or come up with a big stop when we need it. What I learned at the summit was that we can bring the same tools we use as athletes to foster academic and career success. A lot of companies look to hire former athletes because athletic skills apply to real life. When we are hitting a wall, we can give up and walk away or work our way through it. That is a chance for us to use our sports skills to overcome and excel academically,” Smith communicated.
“We learned a lot about the power and platform we have, no matter what division we are in. We know how good being a student-athlete looks on a resume, but the summit’s speakers put a great emphasis on the power of that and what tools you need to use applying for jobs,” Jackson stated. “We learned how to use our voice as student-athletes in speaking with professionals and potential employers.”
The 2024 summit focused on mental health in the Black athlete space. “We need to check on each other to make sure we are doing okay. Suicide is the leading cause of death in student-athletes, so there was a big emphasis put on that. Those of us who are athletes understand that sports can be a love-hate relationship. Some days you love it, some days you don’t,” further commented Jackson.
“It boils down to investing in bettering the culture of your home campus. You meet people at a conference with people facing similar issues or administrators seeing the issues firsthand. It can be isolating being a Black student-athlete or Black administrator. The summit gives you the chance to collaborate with people across the nation,” Carpenter summarized. “Even if you can’t send as many people as Denison or have a smaller number of Black student-athletes, you can show that you are willing to invest in them and support them.”