The Legacy: Being a Woman of Color in Strength and Conditioning: Interview with Au’Vonnie Dorsett

Au’Vonnie Dorsett, a senior Exercise Science Major, discusses what it’s like being a woman of color in her field and her accomplishments throughout her 4 years at Ithaca College. Dorsett has experience as an instructor at the Fitness Center, an Intern at Cressey Sports Performance Field Work, the Strength and Conditioning Coach for the men and women’s varsity basketball teams, and a peer mentor in her department. In the spring 2019 semester, she will be interning with Duke University’s varsity athletics program.

Why did you choose Strength and Conditioning as your field?

Coming in, I didn’t even know that exercise science was a degree. I didn’t know it existed. I’m from Boston. I’m from Dorchester. Low-income area, the schools are low-income. So, when you talk about exposure to higher education, I never had that. I had it compared it to my other peers, but compared to the world, I didn’t have that. So, graduating high school, we had these big obituary goals. I wanted to be a doctor. We mainly wanted to be doctors, lawyers, engineers. We didn’t know what it was like to do what you loved. Everything was just about being better. They were these goals that we had that weren’t for ourselves but it was like “okay, this is something I have to do.” So, coming in, I wanted to be a doctor. I was Pre-Med. I was doing okay. I remember my first class, I think I got a D. My first science class, I think it was biology. Mind you, in high school, I was in AP Biology, AP Literature, I was getting all As. But, we just weren’t exposed to that level. So, when I took that class, I was like, “alright, I wanna drop out.” I was like, “I don’t wanna do this anymore. This is too much for me.”

I got to my second year and that is when I realized I really didn’t wanna be Pre-Med. I took chemistry and was like “hell no.” I withdrew from that class so fast. I was not going to get a D again. It wasn’t for me. It wasn’t even about me being incapable. It was about me liking the work and feeling motivated to do it. I had no interest in it. My advisor advised me to explore other majors. And at that time, I was also on the track team. I did track in high school and in middle school. So I guess this is where the exercise science part comes in.

I’m the type of person that with whatever I do, I like to give me 100% effort in. And, I was always struggling between giving 100% in sports and 100% in school equally. At a certain point, school became more important than what I really loved to do. The commitment just wasn’t working. I also suffered from a stress fracture. Again, where I’m from, we didn’t have a real track coach. We didn’t have our own weight room. We didn’t even have our own gym at my high school. We worked out at the YMCA. We just didn’t have that kind of training. So, between the stress fracture and just not being able to give my all, I dropped out of track. And, that’s when I realized I loved working out, I loved the team dynamic, I loved lifting. At the same time I was having that epiphany, I was also looking for a new major. So, I found Exercise Science. In my sophomore spring, I declared Exercise Science. Everything after that just fell into place for me. And I haven’t had any second thoughts ever since.

What is it like being a woman of color in your department?

Personally, I feel alone a lot of the time. Not because I don’t have the support, it’s just that there is no one who can really relate to me without trying. I have female professors but I do not have any professors that are women of color. No one is from where I’m from. When people think of Boston, they just think “oh, Boston is so nice.” We’re known for our sports, our medical field, our sports. But no one knows the trenches of Boston. So I guess, having people that relate to me, I don’t have that. They can relate to me as far as my profession and where I wanna go and who I wanna be. But, as far as my struggles, no. No one really understands that besides my friends who are people of color.

But within my department, it’s mostly like being the underdog. Because honestly, there’s like 1% of people who look like me. It’s kind of like being the rut of the litter. It’s like I’m foreign. It’s like, “what are you here for, what can you do?” Because you’ve never seen people who look like me do this. So I feel like I always have to prove myself. I feel like it took me 4 years to gain my respect. People know what I’m capable of now. But I feel like I have worked harder than my peers just to prove that I’m here and I’m capable.

How do you think you are opening the door for women of color at Ithaca College?

Aside from being the only one like me in my department, I’m also the only one like me on campus. Even when I leave my department doors, I’m the only one like me that represents my department and the only one like me on campus doing what I do. I think what I have done so far is create a platform to show women, you can be you. Whatever you want to do, you set your own expectations. You’re special and you don’t have to do what the next person in your department is doing. I think I really stand out and that is what really inspires people. People always say, “I’m so proud of you, you motivate me, you inspire me.” And that’s rare. It’s really rare. But I think people also don’t realize, just to be identified in that way takes a lot of work behind the scenes that people don’t know about. I really stand for women empowerment. It’s not a competition. It’s not a competition for me at all. I like to work with women, I like to empower women. Second, I represent black females within my department.

What have you been involved with on campus throughout your four years?

Freshman year, I started Queens Strength. That is when I quit track because of my injuries. I went through depression because when you’re an athlete and you have an injury, there is a whole onset of things that you go through. I was really depressed because I lost a team. Being injured, you can go to practices and lifts but you’re just sitting there. You can’t participate or anything. I lost a team. I lost a regiment. When I joined the track team, that was my first real sense of training, so I didn’t really know how to train myself. So when I went to the gym, I was just doing my track workouts. That wasn’t working because I was injured and I had to do physical therapy. It was just an onset of not having the sisterhood I used to have to work out with me. In my mind, I needed to create what I want. That’s how I thought of Queens Strength. I was like, in this moment I really need the sisterhood and I’m really into fitness and working out. That was the backdrop on that.

But, Queens Strength was really established over the fact that there is just no sisterhood to workout. Based on stereotypes and how society is right now, there are women who lift but there is really just no sense of community for women to lift. You’re always by yourself if you go. You’re always the only female in the weight room. It’s just really tiring mentally and this was just the perfect way to just bring women on campus together. So, there are women who you’ll find who have a lot of education on exercise and fitness. And there’s a large population who doesn’t. I was like, I wanna bring that together and I want women to feel good going to the gym together and working out. I was also a TA for anatomy for a year. I was the only black female TA and left an impact on a lot of black women that came in that year.

What is the legacy you hope to leave Ithaca College?

The legacy I am leaving behind is: giving back and being your best self. To be a woman of color, you’re always gonna stand out, so stand out the right way. Make it positive. Make it impactful. Be the person that you needed because every person’s career is different and everyone is good at different things. What I’m good at is not going to be your specialty, but you can have an impact on your specialty.

What’s next for you?

Duke is next on the list. Where I come from, we have these big dreams. It’s high, it’s far-fetched. So to make it there after 4 years, I feel like I came to Ithaca College for a reason. The league that I wanted to get into 4 years ago, I wasn’t ready for and I didn’t understand that. It took these experiences and these accomplishments to prep me to be there.

I want to say thank you to Ithaca College. Thank you to everyone who has been a part of my journey. I always say it’s not over for me because I have goals. I’m never really truly satisfied and I’m working on that. But seriously, Ithaca College has been the height of my life so far. I couldn’t have done anything I have done without Ithaca College.