Minorities in Sports(MIS) partnered up with the Women’s Business Alliance hosted a panelist event to highlight women’s involvement in sports on February 13th to celebrate Women in Sports History Month in T. T Allain.
Sports Journalist Ashley Lovelace and Assistant Director of Marketing and Development for SU Athletics, Taylor De’Bourg had the chance to discuss their journeys, challenges, and their advice to women interested in getting involved in sports. Lovelace and De’Bourg were asked a series of questions from the members of both organizations and when MIS committee board asked about key skills that women should work on when getting involved in sports. Lovelace replied” Adaptability and being a student of the craft,” she goes on to mention how this helps women be successful when entering a male dominate work-fields.
De’Bourg added “The relationships you build are important because you never know where they can take you, and you don’t know who knows who. Being able to communicate effectively and annunciate and pronounce your words correctly and use the education that you are getting right now, gives you a good place in the field of networking.” The ladies were asked how does having adaptability affect your career and how does it being versatile help you better yourself, Lovelace responded “I’m a journalist, so I get the pleasure to sit down and get to learn people every day, however, sometimes the battery on your camera might not be charged or maybe you erased your notes of something someone said, but being able to called upon facts and things that you have already sat down and mentally prepared yourself to do then finding another option not hard to do, a particular situation last year, a group of us had to work the SWAC Championship last year for football, and we do a pregame show every single football game we like to tape during pregame for kickoff and this day the camera died and we had to shoot on our iPhone 10 mins before kick-off.”
This puts emphasis on the importance of being versatile and being able to think on your feet and adapt and pivot. De’Bourg says that her definition of adaptability is “Having multiple plans for the event, just in case something happens I have a plan A, B, and C.” The ladies were asked how has attending a HBCU impacted yourself and your craft, and with both of them being transfers from PWIs they agreed with saying the support because De’Bourg stated, “Networking and the relationships matter when it comes to this profession.” Lovelace adds the “ The support from being at a HBCU is different because they people who you network with want you to win and you don’t get that from everywhere like at a PWI its more like a competition, and making the switch to Southern, it’s more like whoever gets in we want them to win and ultimately make a pipeline or an avenue for more connections for women and people who are looking into that profession later down the line.” Also adding that, “The networking starts now, and your network is your net worth.” A major question asked in the panel was, how can we better support black women and each other involvement in sports? Lovelace says, “Help each other without sacrificing yourself, and just helping each other out when it matters like sending someone a internship goes a long way.” Taylor De’Bourg backs her up by saying, “Don’t underestimate the women in sports, I feel as if it should never be about women versus men, more about who is more fit for the job.”
The panelists gave helpful statements and knowledgeable opinions on Women’s involvement in Sports with credit to them being heavily involved in those positions and making an impact not just as women in sports, but black women in sports and showing that it is just as possible to be successful in a male dominated industry.
