Lehigh women’s soccer partners with Pride Center

Multicolored flags, a spinning wheel with queer icons, shirts and candy lined the table at the Lehigh women’s soccer team’s Pride Game against American University. 

Lehigh Athletics collaborated with The Pride Center for the game to encourage visibility in sports and set an example of inclusion and acceptance for the university and community.

The partnership began on April 30. They have teamed up on three games so far this fall season, one with field hockey and another with men’s soccer before their third one with women’s soccer on Oct. 10. 

Kaitlyn Powel, a senior undergraduate staff member at the Pride Center, has been committed to the inclusion of the LGBTQ-plus community since her first year at Lehigh, and she said the goal of promoting a partnership between the athletics departments and the Pride Center is to break stereotypes.

“I think it’s really important for queer visibility in sports,” Powel said. “It’s very heterosexually dominated and a very heteronormative community. But there’s a lot of queer people in sports, and I think it’s important for players, but also young players and the rest of the school to see that visibility.”

The Pride Center interactived with fans during the game and set up a table with stickers, candy and a ‘guess the queer activist game’.

Powel said the game is a good opportunity for athletes to display their allyship and their identity. 

“We’re here, we’re queer and we’re everywhere,” Powel said.

Coach Gina Lewandowski said the Pride Game is important to the team because it allows them to better connect with the community. 

Young girls from the Eagle FC soccer team attended the game with their assistant coach, Brandon Johnson. They all wore their jerseys and watched the game together from the bleachers.

“(It’s important) to kind of create that connection and the relationship that younger girls can look up to older women playing this collegiate game,” Lewandowski said. 

After the Mountain Hawks finished their post-game stretch, they invited the Eagle FC girls onto the field to get their shirts signed and connect with the players many of them idolize. 

Lewandowski recognizes how important it is to motivate young girls and support them in any way they can. 

After getting their shirts signed and speaking with the team, the Eagle FC players had the chance to ask Lewandowski questions — which ranged from how to be aggressive on the field and what her career has been like.

Sophomore forward Aminah Baruwa said she enjoyed the support from the young girls. As a former Eagle FC player, Baruwa said their support was important to her. 

“It means a lot to see a team that I played for, the little girls that have come to the games that I went to in the summer also come to games in college,” Baruwa said.

Baruwa also said being a part of a team that supports and accepts everyone is important to her, and having the partnership with the Pride Center showed that. 

“It means a lot to be on a team and be in sports, and also know that I’m part of something that accepts everybody,” Baruwa said. “It’s really nice to know that we’re inclusive towards everybody in that we’re appreciating everybody.”

Rita Jones, the director of the Center for Gender Equity, said the partnership between Lehigh athletics and the Pride Center started in the spring 2024 when the Lehigh softball team reached out. Jones helped to create the first Pride game for Lehigh softball and said the whole center supported it. 

The Center for Gender Equity has also partnered with Lehigh Athletics and other programs in past years to collaborate including the “She’s Got Game” program. Jones said this was a successful initiative, and it created a space within women’s athletes for discussions on gender in sports. 

“Visibility is one of the many ways in which an organization can create spaces where every person can bring their whole self,” Jones said. “I think we need all the pieces for true inclusion to happen, and visibility is one of those key sort of cornerstone spaces.”