April 24, 2008
Subscribe to Commodore Nation magazine / View Archived Issues
By Ryan Schulz
In conjunction with Project Safe, Vanderbilt athletics has taken its own approach in opposition to violence against women by creating Athletes Against Assault.
Formed this past August, Athletes Against Assault is an organization comprised of student-athletes from each of Vanderbilt’s 15 athletic teams, as well as advisers from the athletic department (Alison Bush, Neal Clark and Brian Reese) and Project Safe (Vicky Basra and Kacy Silverstein). The group meets every other Monday to discuss ways to challenge cultural values that support violence against women and ways to hold individuals accountable who perpetrate these crimes.
Located at the Margaret Cuninggim Women’s Center, Project Safe is an organization that strives to prevent violence against women on Vanderbilt’s campus and provides services such as education, advocacy and response service for victims, as well as outreach.
Despite playing different sports and hardly knowing each other before being selected for the organization by each of their head coaches, the student-athletes have come together to serve one common purpose: “We are just trying to raise awareness between our teammates and the rest of campus, and see if we can stop violence against women,” said Alan Metcalfe, a senior on the men’s basketball team.
With two other organizations on campus already dedicated to the same cause as Athletes Against Assault (Men Promoting a Solution and Peer Educators of Project Safe), Project Safe looked to athletics to help spread the word around campus even more quickly.
“We really wanted to have more voices on campus who are talking about violence against women, and we know athletes are well respected and are a great way to get that message out on a larger scale,” Silverstein said.
Although the organization is still in its infancy, the group has already accomplished quite a bit and is growing in size. Just this past fall, the organization participated in Take Back the Night, These Hands Don’t Hurt, The Clothesline Project and Mentors in Violence Prevention training, to name a few.
However, none of those projects may be as influential as the one that will take place at 8 p.m. on March 31 when the group will perform the reading of “Body & Sold” in front of all of Vanderbilt’s student-athletes at Sarratt Cinema.
“Body & Sold” is a documentary-style play that aims to raise awareness of the issues of child abuse, runaways and child prostitution.
Through the performance of “Body & Sold” and the other aforementioned projects, Athletes Against Assault hopes to spread the word across campus that others should join them in standing up against violence against women.
Helping Athletes Against Assault spread their message is the way the rest of the student body views the student-athletes as leaders on campus. That type of respect has Bush, Vanderbilt’s CHAMPS/Life Skills Coordinator, believing that the message will spread throughout campus. “Athletes are viewed as leaders on campus, so if they are setting good examples then maybe that can help influence others.”
Despite the organization still being fairly new, Silverstein has been pleased with the success the group has experienced.
“I think it has been really successful and that is all because the students that are on the task force,” she said. “They are interested and passionate about this issue and they have really grown as a group in terms of feeling a responsibility for their community.”
Although they were unsure what they were getting into at first, the student-athletes in the organization have come to embrace what they are doing.
“It’s just been a wonderful experience getting to talk with fellow athletes and getting to hear their opinions, share my opinions and become more aware of what’s going on not only on our campus, but around the country,” senior women’s golfer Liebelei Lawrence said.
Senior men’s tennis player Evan Dufaux added: “It is an area that I knew nothing about coming in, so it is good to get the education and pass it along to my teammates.”
While there are numerous organizations throughout the country against assault, Athletes Against Assault is unique because it is it is the only known organization that is made up of both male and female student-athletes.
Although the organization is still just in its first year of existence, the success it has experienced has people looking toward the future.
“Depending on how successful this is (at Vanderbilt), we’d like to branch out to other campuses,” Bush said. “That is something we are looking at for possibly next year and beyond.”
Lawrence hopes that they are at the forefront of a trend that spreads around the Southeastern Conference.
“We are the first committee in the SEC, so we hope it will spread to other schools in the SEC beyond just Vanderbilt.”
