TOWN HALL MEETING PARTICIPANTS

Mike Boit joined Kenyatta University as a Senior Lecturer in 1987. In 1990 he was appointed Kenya's Commissioner for Sport. He would later rejoin Kenyatta to teach Human Anatomy in 1997. In 2002 he was promoted to Chairman of the Department of Exercise and Sport Science, becoming an associate professor. Apart from teaching, he is also currently coordinating the International Associa­tion of Athletics Federations (IAAF) Athletic Academy. His sporting accomplishments are impressive: at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich he won a bronze medal. In 1975, Track and Field News ranked him number one in the world, and his consistent results allowed him to be ranked in the top ten for nine years. Doctor Boit received a BSc from New Mexico University, and two Masters degrees from Stanford University. His Doctorate in Education on Curriculum Instructions and Physical Education Administration is from the University of Oregon.

Ben Carrington is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas.  He received his PhD from Leeds Metropolitan University, England and his BSc from Loughborough University, England. He joined the University of Texas in the fall of 2004. His research interests include the politics of race and sport within the black diaspora, masculinity and national identity formation, and the nature of cultural resistance within the arena of popular culture. He is also a Visiting Research Fellow at the Carnegie Faculty of Sport and Education, at Leeds Metropolitan University, England.

 Kevin Chief is a graduate from the University of Winnipeg where he received a bachelor degree with majors in Justice and Physical Education.  Kevin also balanced academics with athletics as a 5 year member of the University of Winnipeg’s basketball team.  Kevin is no stranger to being an advocate for the Aboriginal community of Winnipeg. This young man’s endurance and enthusiasm is making a difference in the lives of many Aboriginal children and youth.  Through his position as an Aboriginal Community Networker for the River East Transcona School Division and as Executive Director of the Winnipeg Aboriginal Sport and Recreation Association, Kevin promotes a multi-cultural and multi-dimensional approach to education that involves all children and youth in their community.  Kevin’s dedication is evident through his participation in numerous community and national events on the subject of education and recreation., such appearances include:   Manitoba Association of School Superintendents Conference, Manitoba Association of School Trustees Conference, Manitoba Teacher’s Society Seminar, Walking in Both World’s Conference, Aboriginal Northern Links Workshop, and Manitoba Aboriginal Achievement Awards to name a few. With endless passion and drive, the community are benefiting from his exceptional gifts. 

Gerald R. Gems is a professor of health and physical education at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois.  Gerald was the past president of the North American Society for Sport History, and is currently the book review editor for the Journal of Sport History.  He was written numerous articles and reviews on sports-related issues.  He is also the author For Pride, Profit, & Patriarchy: Football And The Incorporation of American Cultural Values, and Windy City Wars: Labor, Leisure, and Sport in the Making of Chicago.  His forthcoming book, The Athletic Crusade: Sport and American Cultural Imperialism analyzes the role of sports in the expansion of US empire from the 1890s through World War II.  Gems details how white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant males set the standard for inclusion within American society, transferred that standard to foreign territories, and subtly used American sports to instill allegedly desirable racial, moral, and commercial virtues in colonial subjects.  In the realm of such expansion, sports provided a less harsh, less militaristic means of instilling belief in a dominant system’s values and principles than more overt methods such as war.

Tina Sloan Green is Co-founder and President of the Black Women in Sport Foundation. She is Professor Emeritus in the College of Education at Temple University. During her 32 years at Temple University, she was co-principal investigator of Sisters in Sports Science, a National Science Foundation funded program. She was also director of the Temple University National Youth Sports Program.  As the first African-American head coach in the history of women's intercollegiate lacrosse, Ms. Sloan Green was head coach of the Temple University Women's Lacrosse Team from 1973-1992. During that time she amassed a 207-62-4 career coaching record with a .758 career winning percentage. She led the Owls to three National Championships and 11 consecutive NCAA Final Four appearances.  Professor Sloan Green has co-authored two books, Black Women in Sport and Modern Women's Lacrosse and has written chapters in the books Racism in College Athletics and Basketball Jones. She was inducted into the Halls of Fame at Temple and West Chester Universities as well as the Lacrosse Hall of Fame and Women's Sport Foundation Hall of Fame. Professor Sloan Green competed on the U.S.A Women's Lacrosse Team (1969-1973) and the U.S. Women's Field Hockey Squad (1966).

William C. Rhoden has been a sportswriter for the New York Times since 1983, and has written the “Sports of the Times” column for more than a decade.  He also serves as a consultant for ESPN’s Sports Century series, and occasionally appears as a guest on their show The Sports Reporters.  In 1996, Rhoden won a Peabody Award for Broadcasting as writer of the HBO documentary Journey of the African American Athlete.  His current book, Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete, weaves a compelling narrative of black athletes in the United States, from the plantation to their beginnings in nineteenth-century boxing rings and at the first Kentucky Derby to the history-making accomplishments of notable figures such as Jesse Owens, Althea Gibson, and Willie Mays. Rhoden makes the cogent argument that black athletes’ “evolution” has merely been a journey from literal plantations-where sports were introduced as diversions to quell revolutionary stirrings-to today's figurative ones, in the form of collegiate and professional sports programs. Weaving in his own experiences growing up on Chicago's South Side, playing college football for an all-black university, and his decades as a sportswriter, Rhoden contends that black athletes’ exercise of true power is as limited today as when masters forced their slaves to race and fight. The primary difference is, today’s shackles are often of their own making.

 Darius Smith has served the American Indian community since 1992 as the Director of Indian Education-Denver Public Schools, National Director of the Native Peoples’ Initiative-Habitat for Humanity International, Board member for the Denver Indian Center and is the current President of the Colorado Indian Education Association.  Darius serves as the Director of the Denver Anti-Discrimination Office within the Mayor’s Agency for Human Rights & Community Relations.  Recognized for his service to the community, Darius has received various honors and awards including being selected for the American for Indian Opportunity-AIO Ambassadors Program, awarded a Denver Mayoral Proclamation declaring July 1, 1999 as “Darius Lee Smith Day,” and selected as a 2002 Colorado Trust & American Marshall Memorial Fellow. 

Charlotte F. Westerhaus is the NCAA vice-president for diversity and inclusion.  Prior to her position at the NCAA, Westerhaus was the assistant to the president and the director of equal opportunity and diversity at the University of Iowa.  She was the manager of diversity and equal employment opportunity at Rockwell Collins, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  She also served as the director of Purdue University’s affirmative action office and as the assistant to the chancellor for equity and diversity at the University of Wisconsin, Parkside in Kenosha, Wisconsin.  In addition to her experience working with diversity and inclusion issues, Westerhaus was an attorney with Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, Milwaukee and an associate attorney with the Milwaukee law firm of Foley & Lardner.  Additionally, she was a law clerk to the Honorable Justice Brent E. Dickson, Indiana Supreme Court.