Giving matters: empowering sport for all

EMPOWERING SPORTS FOR ALL.

Anna Goorevich has a passion for gender equity in sport that is rooted in her own experiences as an athlete. “I played soccer growing up and throughout college, and I have first-hand experiences of the gendered barriers that many athletes face in sport,” she says.

In particular, in her first year of college in 2017, Goorevich suffered a season-ending injury due to RED-S (relative energy deficiency syndrome), a menstrual disorder common in women athletes that is shaped by various socio-cultural factors, like menstruation stigmas and misinformation.

Currently, as a PhD student in kinesiology and a research assistant at the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport, Goorevich recalls her days as a soccer player and strives to leverage her position and research to help make sport a better place for all athletes, regardless of their identity.

“Generally, my research interests revolve around gender and sport, but I have three specific areas of research at the moment: the gendered nature of coaching, menstruation and sport, and gender identity and sport participation equity,” she says. “My planned career path after my PhD is to enter the sport industry, sport governance, or the sport non-profit world. My aim is to use research to inform sport policy and programming that can help create sport into a more welcoming, inclusive, safe, and empowering environment for all athletes.”

Helping her on her journey are the Pam Borton Endowment for the Promotion of Girls and Women in Sport Leadership and Gender Equity in Sport Graduate Fellowship she received this year, and the Edith Mueller Endowed Fund for Graduate Education in the Tucker Center she was awarded last year.

“The assistance I have received has been instrumental in my academic and career development so far,” she says. “It provides valuable resources and time for growth and development, to ensure that I am not just doing research for the academy, but also finding ways to directly make a difference in people’s lives.”

For instance, the Tucker Center hosts a Gender Equity internship for high school and college students every summer. The internship and other Tucker Center-related fellowships gave Goorevich the support to directly participate in the program in a leadership role, where she was able to help guide the interns and focus on giving them a nourishing and transformative summer experience.

“Without the assistance from various scholarships and fellowships, I would not have been able to focus on the public aspect of my scholarship as much as I have,” she says. “Donors’ contributions and support are a key part of making the work that we do possible.”

-KEVIN MOE