“Developing a Womanist Sports Ethic of Care for Black Women Athletes and Cultivating Athletic Spiritual Care Providers ”
The project intends to work with a small group of Black women athletes, mainly college student-athletes. We will create vulnerability-dialogue circles to understand and record the experiences of being a Black student-athlete. Based on the information recorded, I will further develop a Womanist Sports Ethic of Care (a concept based on my M.Div. thesis) and create an online semester-long course for coaches, parents, pastors, and sports chaplains to learn how to lead vulnerability-dialogue circles and implement the teachings from the online course. Once participants complete the course, they will facilitate vulnerability-dialogue circles and work with Black women athletes to provide better spiritual care. This project intends to create safe and brave spaces in person or virtually for Black women athletes to share their experiences being an athlete of faith and build competent facilitators and spiritual leaders on how to better nurture Black women athletes’ spirituality while navigating the challenges of intersectionality to include racism, sexism, classism, and other categories of discrimination.