Olukemi “Kemi” Ogundiran is a sophomore track and field student-athlete at Case Western Reserve University. She is a pre-med student majoring in biochemistry. Ogundiran is the Vice President of Finance for the school’s Women in Science and Engineering Roundtable (WISER) and vice president of CWRU for Autism Acceptance.
The UAA “Conversations About Race and Racism” series seeks to lift the voices of people of color and recognize the challenges faced in both athletics and academics at the collegiate level. By sharing personal stories, we hope to elevate the conversation about race to raise awareness and bring about change.
Seeing Results of Socioeconomics in Soccer
Although she runs track at Case Western Reserve University as she did in junior high and high school, Ogundiran cited soccer as her main sport until college. “Most of my club teams were predominantly white. I was typically the only Black player or one of the few. I came to realize that one of the reasons Black people are underrepresented in girls’ soccer is due to socioeconomic inequalities. Club soccer is a middle-class venture requiring fees associated with travel, tournaments, and uniforms,” she explained. “Sadly, in the U.S., a high percentage of Black people live around the poverty line, making them unable to populate girls’ soccer club teams. This is then propagated to the highest levels of the game on the U.S. national team.”
She recognizes that there are other factors that have contributed to the lack of Black players at the national level, though there has been some improvement in recent years. “Some coaches and sports recruiters have biases that Black soccer players do not have the skill or lack the necessary IQ of the sport. The combination of stereotypes and socioeconomic inequalities have led to the historical underrepresentation of Black players on the U.S. national team,” she remarked. “The situation on the national team has improved as more Black Americans find their way into the middle class. This pattern is not unique to soccer in the U.S. and is also evident in sports like swimming and gymnastics.”
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