May 1 marks the start of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. While the Asian Student-Athlete Group will not be officially chartered until the fall semester, the group is ensuring that athletes are able to celebrate their heritage and find community.
First-years and co-chairs JJ Gray and Peyton Lee met in an Economics class and decided to found ASAG, noting that affinity spaces for Asian-American athletes did not exist on campus. They shared an awareness of how being Asian-American affected them in their respective sports of basketball and lacrosse.
Though participation is slowly increasing, Asian Americans are still disproportionately underrepresented in athletics. While they make up approximately 7 percent of the population in the U.S., only 2.1 percent of NCAA athletes are Asian-American. This statistic gets lower in professional leagues. In 2020, players of Asian descent made up less than 0.5 percent of players in the NBA, NFL, and WNBA.
“There’s almost a narrative around Asian athletes: they think we’re smaller, can’t do as much as the person next [to] us,” Gray said, who noted that his identity had an impact on how coaches viewed him throughout the recruiting process. “Just growing up, I was always the last pick in pickup. I was on B teams when I was more skilled than most of them. You just learn to use that as a chip on your shoulder to get better to where you’re not in those positions.”
The board also consists of fourth-year Secretary Jay Aghanya, second-year Liaison Anora Lee, first-year Treasurer Sean Obana, first-year Media Liaison Zubin Bhattacharya, and first-year Events Coordinator Leila Burki. As a board that has members from various ethnicities and sports, the group has ensured that they represent all of the Asian diaspora. One example of this looked like changing their profile picture on Instagram so that it didn’t exclusively include East Asian imagery.
“We’re all young — inexperienced — so we’re really just relying on each other, being forgiving to everybody,” Lee said.
Gray and Lee also credit those within the Athletics community for helping them get the group started and running. Gray reached out to Head Men’s Basketball Coach Shiva Senthil. Senthil, who is Indian-American, reached out to other coaches to let them know about the group’s creation. Fourth-year Aidan Loh, a lacrosse player and Student-Athlete Advisory Committee President, allowed the group to do a takeover on SAAC’s Instagram account.
Another thing that ASAG hopes to establish is an alumni network. While only one member will graduate and the group will continue to grow through the upperclassmen, they cited the thriving network that the Black Student-Athlete Group has as an example of what they hope to achieve. They hope to ensure that their own members are able to establish connections and find resources and support.
The group was founded after budgets were due for the spring 2024 semester, meaning that it wasn’t a chartered organization and could not host official events. Despite this, the group still consists of approximately 30 members from a variety of sports. During March Madness, they held watch parties to support Asian players such as Zach Edey of Purdue University and Kayla Padilla of the University of Southern California.
“Having a group of predominantly student-athletes, you feel more welcome,” Gray said. “If you know that there’s 30 other people like you in the same position as you, there’s just this focus and determination to be as good [at your] sport and it’s a really good thing you have on campus.”
