In 5C courses, professors and students from across the consortium create their own classroom cultures. Athletics in Claremont function similarly, with coaches and student-athletes setting the tone. There is, however, one key distinction: through recruiting, coaches decide who joins their team.
“Coaches don’t just recruit athletes,” Pomona-Pitzer (P-P) Director of Athletics Danielle Lynch wrote in email correspondence with TSL. “They recruit a team’s culture. Every recruiting class shapes who a team is, how it treats people and who feels they belong there. Teams with a wide range of backgrounds, experiences and perspectives tend to be stronger communities, and athletes who learn to work with people unlike themselves bring that onto the field.”
In the wake of racist incidents within the department last spring, students began drawing increased attention to lack of diversity on certain rosters. Some of this lack of diversity can be attributed to the recruiting process, where following established pipelines and relying on expensive showcases limits the prospect pool.
“In many sports, the path to being recruited runs through club teams, showcases and camps that are expensive, and that shape who coaches see,” Lynch wrote. “Recruiting networks are built on relationships. Coaches go back to the same clubs, high schools and contacts that have worked before, and that pattern repeats unless someone deliberately widens it.”
For Alaina Woo PO ’17 CG ’21, P-P women’s basketball coach and 2026-27 Institute for Inclusive Excellence fellow, creating an inclusive environment means recruiting prospective athletes who not only fit her schematic goals, but also the culture she has helped cultivate. She prioritizes diversity not only in race and ethnicity, but also socioeconomic and regional backgrounds to build the best team she can.
“A player who might not be concerned or interested in prioritizing support or inclusion in a program might not be a player who chooses us, and I think that’s okay with me,” Woo said. “Top to bottom of our roster, I really have a strong belief in every single one of our players that they share a value to want to grow, and want to have relationships that reflect those values.”
PPACT, Pomona-Pitzer Athletic Culture Transformers, a new student-athlete reform group, established recruiting reform as one of their main pillars. Across P-P sports, coaches are additionally working to recruit inclusive teams and create a culture that well represents their program and the department as a whole.
“Coaches and programs, regardless of what the barriers are going to be with admissions, our obligation, I believe, is to create an environment that is the best of the best,” Woo said. “Even if there only is one student-athlete from a particular background looking at a select few places, you hope that student-athlete is going to feel as included as possible in your program.”
Recruiting’s impact goes beyond just the individual team. Wins and losses mostly reflect one team’s coach and their players, whereas culture is cultivated by and spreads throughout the department. If one team fails to live up to the standard of inclusivity in the department, the whole department can suffer, according to women’s soccer player and PPACT co-founder Zakiah Sesay PZ ’28.
“When the coaches recruit people who are kind of not going to contribute to the inclusivity, to the positivity, and uphold the different standards we have, it leads to a breakdown of culture, and then it leads to the athletic department not having a very good rep,” Sesay said.
Because P-P coaches are Pomona College faculty, they are bound to the faculty handbook, as highlighted by Sesay. The handbook emphasizes the expectations for faculty to increase “inclusivity” and “multicultural diversity” across campus.
“Coaches are required to be intentional about recruiting because it does have to be inclusive,” Sesay said. “It does have to be diverse [and] intellectually stimulating. Even though it is a sport, those are requirements that the college of Pomona looks at when they are considering tenure. But how much do they really follow up on that?”
Lynch added that for her, setting standards for intentional recruiting practices is key, but the oversight on particular coaches’ performance in that area is out of her hands, no matter which issue may arise. As faculty, coaches report to the Dean of Faculty and Pomona administration, not the Athletic Director.
“[Coaches are] evaluated by the students on their teams and in their classes as well as their faculty peers,” Lynch wrote. “That means the people best placed to say whether a coach is building an inclusive environment are the students themselves, and their voices carry real weight. I’d encourage every student-athlete to take those evaluations seriously.”
Woo strives to live up to the ideals of an inclusive classroom. She sees that not just as something achieved through annual recruiting, but through consistent effort.
“Coaches say all the time don’t get complacent,” Woo said. “I think that’s something we have to think about on the court, but also, off the court or culture-wise when we’re thinking about what excellence looks like.”
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