A few weeks ago, two U students approached The Utah Chronicle with news of their soon-to-be nonprofit group, Team Aspire. Haoran Yu and Brandon Young are two students with one wish: for LGBTQ students involved in high school and university athletics to have a safe space to be themselves and gain support from a community of athletes going through similar life experiences.
Since speaking with Yu and Young a few weeks ago, they have made some incredible progress. They reached out to a national organization called Athlete’s Ally. This association contains a Campus Ambassador program, which Team Aspire, aided by ASUU, is now in the process of implementing here at the U. It would be the first Athlete’s Ally Campus Ambassador program in Utah.
The club’s ASUU title for our campus’s student group is Athlete’s Ally at the U, and the team is in the process of delivering several different campaigns in order to gain awareness. One specific lobby is entitled, “We Don’t Say,” and the main goal is to generate buzz around these organizations and raise awareness of what they represent for LGBTQ student athletes. The team would also like to organize more tabling events to further their laudable efforts.
In the meantime, Team Aspire has made a big decision: they’ve chosen to switch from identifying as a not-for-profit to a financially-based organization. The prospects for this shift appear bright, as do the implications, which will include an expanded fundraising ability. The group is now launching a fundraising campaign for scholarships for current and future students, with the aim of raising $1,000 scholarships for four athletes.
Another exciting achievement Team Aspire can add to their resumé is their presence in this year’s University Pride Week. They will be involved as a large part of the committee, with a hopeful eye towards securing the position of student co-chair. Their wish for the week is to bring the main focus towards LGBTQ student athletes, a community they feel is truly underrepresented. Yu and Young are in the process of bringing in a guest speaker to address the topic.
The team knows that they have been really lucky to receive the help of Athletes Ally. With a well-designed campus program, Team Aspire is able to utilize their system and follow the handbook to create a smooth-running chapter. Because of all of the prep work, it was easy for the group to follow through as an ASUU student group. Their ASUU advisor is Kim Hackford-Peer, Associate Director of gender study programs.
With all of the new developments, I wanted to know: are their goals different now than they were before? They’re still the same, Yu assured me, but right now their plan is broken into two parts: part one is utilizing Athlete Ally’s resources to build public awareness, as well as learning how to better employ social media to reach out to people. The second part of the path is for Team Aspire to shift to more of a financially-focused foundation by holding event fundraisers.
By bringing awareness to the “less popular” struggles on a campus, we can only improve the quality of life and community for all of our students. Yu’s and Young’s efforts are the first of many towards breaking a social stigma that college athletes can be generalized, and molded into a specific social construct. By expanding Athlete Ally’s vision to Utah’s chapter, the U is moving towards a safer space for self identity and acceptance for its students.