Katrina Adams enjoyed quite a bit of success when she was one of the top doubles players in the 1980s and 1990s.
She won the NCAA doubles title in 1987, then won 20 doubles titles on the professional circuit and reached the quarterfinals or better in doubles in all four Grand Slam events. Very good. Winning never gets old, but Adams, the first black person to lead the United States Tennis Association, recently felt a different kind of satisfaction when she received a call from the International Olympic Committee and learned she was being named “its »Champion of Gender Equality, Diversity and Inclusion for 2023.
The GEDI Champion, formerly known as the Women and Sports Award, recognizes the work of an individual or organization to open up sports to less well-served groups, which was a hallmark of Adams’ tenure at the head of the USTA.
“Thrilled, honored and humbled,” Adams, who grew up in Chicago and attended Northwestern University, said of the award, although she was quick to clarify that she had never set out on this path. to obtain this recognition. “The work I do should not be recognized or given any awards for it. It’s because it comes from the heart. These are things I believe in.
No one would argue with that. As vice president of the International Tennis Federation, Adams led the Advantage All program, which advocates, among other efforts, for equality between men and women in sports. She is also a long-time board member of the Harlem Junior Tennis and Education program.
Adams spoke with Athleticism recently on diversity and inclusion in tennis, on and off the court, and what the sport needs to do to attract more women into the coaching box.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Your efforts to open up sport and promote equality have been a hallmark of your sporting career. Why did you devote so much of your work to this?
I was a player first. A player who grew up locally, played grassroots tennis, high school tennis, collegiate tennis, and played professional tennis. And when you come from diverse backgrounds and you’re African American in America, it’s a challenge and there are barriers in place.
And so you realize how difficult it can be for people who are similar to you or people who are different in a sport that isn’t always welcoming. And so, as I got older and had an opportunity to use my voice and use my platform to hopefully make it easier for others, that’s exactly what I did .
I wanted to make sure everyone knew he had a place in our sport in the United States. When I came out of our borders and became a member of the ITF as vice president, you know, the world is big and there are so many other nationalities. It became my mission to focus on gender equality and that became my ultimate goal: to make sure I spread this and talk about it everywhere, because that’s where we were lacking the most. global scale.
How so?
Ensuring we have leaders in every pillar of our sport – not just on the field, but as leaders of our game in the boardroom and on committees and commissions.
What is American tennis doing when it comes to inclusion and what does it need to do to improve?
American tennis has done a lot for inclusion. It dates back to Althea Gibson, who broke the color barrier in the 1950s to pursue sports first and foremost. And Arthur Ashe, who started the NJTL (the National Junior Tennis and Learning Network). There are many programs, especially in city centers, to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to hold a racket and play tennis. Funds are in place to ensure these children can remain engaged in our sport.
But tennis is a repetitive sport. It takes a lot of time, a lot of support, a lot of equipment, a lot of coaching. To be the best, there is a lot to do and not everyone is supposed to be a champion or competitive. But if you look at who we have on the professional tours and in preparation, in the juniors and in the collegiate ranks, there are people of color who are developing and rising.
Over the years, the mantra has been to try to make tennis look like America and that means that regardless of the demographics of the United States, we want to make sure that tennis looks like that.
Can the rest of the world learn from what America has done?
We need to understand what the other objectives of the countries are. American policy is very different from other countries when it comes to sports, diversity and inclusion. The definition of diversity in the United States is very different from what diversity looks like in other countries. Because of what our country was built on and what it stands for. So we need to ask these nations, “What does this really look like?”
This means that when I serve on the ITF board, our goal is to ensure that there are opportunities for everyone to play tennis. We always look at able-bodied and non-abled bodies, which includes wheelchair tennis, as well as gender equality. It’s about making sure women make decisions for them, because it’s very difficult for men to tell me what I need and what I don’t need.
We need more women on the boards of our national associations or our national or international federations for athletes. We have a ton of women on our board (at the USTA). I am not sure that it is the same thing everywhere in the world, within other federations.
There is a new understanding that coaching girls and women is different from coaching boys and men, that equality is not just about giving the same, but giving what that specific gender needs. Where do you think?
Coaching is coaching when it comes to X’s and O’s, tactics and the physical side of the sport. Understanding personalities is where there is a difference. Women can coach men and men can coach women. I don’t think it’s necessary for men to only coach men and women to only coach women.
We need to get rid of this kind of gender-only coaching, but we need to have more women coaching women because of the sensitivities when it comes to emotions – but we also need to have more of women dragging men down because of sensitivities. women who understand men. Men grew up under the guidance of their mothers and may communicate a little differently with women. Just ask Andy Murray. He was a strong advocate for female coaches and had great success with female coaches.
We do indeed have a shortage of female coaches, period, in all sports. This is an area that needs improvement.
How are you doing that? How can we attract more women coaches, particularly in tennis?
This is constantly discussed. There is no cookie-cutter process when hiring coaches. Concessions must be made, especially when hiring younger coaches who may be mothers or new mothers. You have to cook during maternity leave. You may need to visit club nurseries if they have young children to accommodate. You need to understand that we are different and have different needs than your male coaches.
If our men can begin to understand the differences in what our women need, then perhaps the conversation can change. Maybe the numbers can go up and maybe these clubs can then be a little more successful because they’ll understand that if you bring women into these conversations and if you have a little more diversity of thought in the room and if you have these conversations, they will flourish. And there’s no limit to what we can do in business, if we have more women in the room to have these conversations.
(Top photo: Nicole Pereira / USTA)