Duke Rowing Alumni Feature Spotlight: Liam Miranda and Sarah Fletcher

The experiences that a Duke student-athlete can immerse themselves in are often limited substantially the moment they arrive on campus as a freshman. There is a commitment made to the program they are competing for, and while college is often regarded as the environment for young people to discover their passions, try new things and step outside of their comfort zone, the schedule of athletics can typically negate such freedoms.

Getting involved through campus clubs and initiatives is, in many cases, viewed as a moot point for a student-athlete, given that the time they have devoted to their team outweighs the efforts they can grant to pursue other interests. For a select group of student-athletes like Duke rowing alumni Liam Miranda and Sarah Fletcher, however, there is a balance between sport and community – an overlap weaved into the values of athletic comradery and social inclusion – that serves as a highlight of their collegiate experience.

DWR Pride Race

Miranda, a 2016 graduate, first discovered Athlete Ally as a sophomore with the rowing team. The organization, started in 2011 by a Maryland wrestler named Hudson Taylor, is a nonprofit group that fights against homophobia and transphobia, advocating for inclusion and acceptance of athletes, coaches and fans. Through public awareness campaigns, educational programming and resources, Athlete Ally fosters inclusive sports communities regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. Miranda, working alongside fellow rowers and student-athletes from other Blue Devil programs, formed a group that aimed to offer that same support and inclusion within Duke athletics and the broader Duke community.

"We knew there was some interest also coming from the wrestling team and fencing team in starting something up, so we worked with some other student-athletes to kind of get a chapter started," Miranda said. "We had an Athlete Ally ambassador on campus – his name was Dylan Ryan, he was on the wrestling team and he was an ambassador of the program, which essentially meant you had identified yourself as an LGBTQ inclusive athlete and that you had publicized that athletes in your program can come to you and you'd be a supportive force at Duke and beyond."

Through collaboration with Ryan, fencer Kodia Baye-Cigna, rowing seniors Caroline Kiritsy and Oscar Hyland, and others, the Duke Athlete Ally chapter was born. And while the Blue Devils representing the organization have led campaigns that received national attention, spoken with athletic programs from multiple schools and reached out to numerous student-athletes looking to support an initiative surrounding inclusion, Miranda admits that the early days started with a lot of hard, honest conversations between athletes, teams and programs. However, he maintains that the involvement of those in administrative roles at Duke played a large role in getting the word out.

"We started pretty modestly, just getting a bunch of interest and getting a lot of folks in for discussion groups, having really important conversations on our teams about LGTBQ inclusion and what our teams could do better, what our programs could do better," he said. "We had tons of support from our coaches and from administrators at Duke. We got linked up with the Center for Sexual Gender Diversity. [Director of Sports Psychology & Leadership Program] Greg Dale got involved, [Director of Student-Athlete Development] Leslie Barnes and [Former Senior Woman Administrator] Jacki Silar were involved, SAC (Student Advisory Council) got involved. From there, we just started developing a bunch of different initiatives and it grew throughout our time on campus."

Sarah Fletcher

As Athlete Ally began to earn more recognition among student-athletes, it would prove to make a distinct impact on the incoming freshman class a year later. Notably, for Fletcher, who found a spot in the 2V8 boat with Miranda that season, the initial friendship paved way for introduction to what he and other teammates were doing outside of the rowing hours. And although Fletcher's first semester in Durham was spent primarily navigating college life as a London, England, native, she soon realized the impact that Athlete Ally could have at Duke and made it a goal to get involved.

"I will say my first semester, I was still learning the ropes and stuff, so I hadn't really heard about it," Fletcher said. "I think my second term is when I tuned in and was more aware of the conversations. My sophomore year was definitely where my interest was more and I tried to get more involved with them directly. Then, Liam graduated at the end of my sophomore year, and so after that I did my own kind of configuration."

As an ambassador for Athlete Ally, perhaps Fletcher's most significant form of initiation came through the You Don't Say campaign, an initiative started by other student organizations at Duke like Blue Devils United and Think Before You Talk. In 2014, Athlete Ally spearheaded the campaign to raise awareness about offensive words used in everyday conversation and slang. The campaign would go on to garner attention on a national scale, with features from CNN, Huffington Post, Cosmopolitan and others publicizing the effort. Although Fletcher's position as an ambassador yielded the extent of her involvement to observation, Miranda, who was then working on the research side of Athlete Ally, had a firsthand look into just how influential the organization was becoming.

"I think something that really stood out to me and I think surprised folks that weren't involved in it was that it did gain a lot of traction," he said. "We weren't super surprised. They always tell us 'You're wearing the Iron D. That puts you on a certain platform.' I think also what folks weren't super prepared for was that we got a lot of positive reception, but with positive reception sometimes comes an opposite and negative reaction. There were a lot of folks online who thought it was too much [and said] 'Why are they talking about this? Why don't they stick to sports? This is ridiculous.' I think that was really eye opening to people."

Yet even with the negative reactions that the campaign brought with it through online comments and derogatory posts, Miranda saw that as an opportunity to reflect on how Athlete Ally at Duke could become more entrenched in both athletic spaces and the larger Blue Devils community.

"I think to see a lot of negative reactions kind of showed that you can get wrapped up on your team, with the people that you see every single day, and it's really important to remember that outside of Duke, outside of our teams, there's still tons and tons of work and that it's important to make sure our work can touch those spaces as well," Miranda said. "That was a really important lesson that we learned from that campaign. I think it influenced some of the later programming that we did and some of the additional trainings that we did after that were really focused on using our platform here at Duke to get outside of Duke and in the communities around us."

With a growing involvement among student-athletes and an affiliation with a campaign that generated buzz throughout the country, both Miranda and Fletcher were fully engaged. At the end of her sophomore year, Fletcher took the next step within the organization, moving to an executive position. She would find increased responsibility but more freedom in the role, and with the experience she gained as an ambassador along with the personal resource she had in Miranda, Fletcher was able to make it her own.

"As an executive, it's more organizing them and leading them, creating your own initiatives and trying to form your own network," she said. "I think that's what's really cool, is with each person that sort of takes over it, you see them take their own stance and have their own goals and own ambitions towards it. We've also had different athletes take it. I know rowing had a really strong hold on it for a while. It was briefly handed over to soccer for a minute and then came back to rowing, and then I handed it on to one of the divers. It's been really cool to see that grow and see it take different directions. That's definitely the biggest change, is just having your own hold onto what you want to do with it."

Miranda, meanwhile, was promoted to Research and Program Coordinator following graduation, and in his position would assist Fletcher in communicating with the Athlete Ally staff to figure out the best ways to support initiatives through resources and advice.

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However, while both members of the DWR family worked to keep raising awareness, education and conversation relating to diversity and inclusion, there were constant reminders of the work left to do. The most famous such reminder came in the form of the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, more commonly known as North Carolina House Bill 2, which severely limited LGBTQ rights within the state and quickly became a national talking point. The public reaction to the bill carried over into the sports world, where collegiate and professional athletic events, including ACC and NCAA Championships, were pulled out of North Carolina in protest of its passing.

But even while the bill's enforcement would indicate a step backwards from what Athlete Ally and other organizations promoting inclusion and diversity were striving towards, both Fletcher and Miranda witnessed acts of solidarity among NCAA programs that perhaps no one had ever experienced. One team that did so was Maine men's basketball, who reached out to Athlete Ally asking them to speak to the team after a practice.

"It was quite something," Fletcher said. "The University of Maine actively sought us out and brought us to their practice, which was pretty cool because at that point I never really had heard from other universities. We'd had small interactions with UNC and people more directly, but this was the first time that we had real interest from completely foreign schools that were coming around, which was really cool to see, but also we were sort of aware of what the cause was behind it."

"As devastating of a law as that is, and with nondiscrimination protections still suspended today, it was good to see the athletic world step up," Miranda said.

Miranda's response to the bill was, as he stated, more complex. Nearing graduation when it became law, Miranda had not yet made it public that he is a transgender man. He says he didn't know how to navigate that process, and wondered what it would be like to come out while still competing for a women's rowing program. And although making sense of the law was only a layer of Miranda's personal situation, it yielded disappointment but also offered a reassuring response from the sports family at large.

"It's really important to recognize that while I was a closeted transgender person, North Carolina had passed this bill essentially stripping rights from LGBTQ people and focusing on the behaviors and the bodies and the 'Bathroom access' around transgender people and transgender inclusion," he said. "That was really challenging to navigate and it was really hurtful to see that pass."

He added, "It was really heartening to see the response in Duke athletics and to see the response of athletics at large. I think Duke immediately came out with statements against it, folks started mobilizing and doing work and getting involved. Our SAC representatives immediately went to their meeting and they started talking to all the other SAC reps in the ACC, talking about how they could get the ACC to put out a statement. All the ACC North Carolina programs teamed up -- Ezra-Baeli Wang, a UNC fencer and our ACC SAC President orchestrated a sign-on letter from NC student-athletes to repeal HB2 that got tons of traction. At the end of the day, collegiate athletics were so transformative in actually showing North Carolina and showing the general assembly that HB2 is entirely inappropriate."

Despite the never-ending conversations and struggles that are experienced in pursuit of non-discrimination in modern society, both Fletcher and Miranda acknowledge one unwavering source of support in Duke rowing. Miranda has held different positions at multiple organizations since his time at Athlete Ally, including The Human Rights Campaign and The Inclusion Playbook, a group based in Washington, D.C., that seeks "to help sports organizations and sports governing bodies do better diversity and inclusion work." With each stop, his work has focused on diversity and inclusion in sports, and perhaps the largest obstacle, but one that he finds most important, is increasing access to sports for marginalized communities. And while Miranda works in different spaces to make that goal a reality, he often recalls his experience at Duke, where the program he competed for and spent every day around helped instill the mindset that sports should be offered to anyone and everyone.

"For me, being an athlete changed my life," he said. "Rowing at Duke changed my life. It made me a better person. It taught me things and it continues to teach me things that I use every single day, and I think everyone should have the opportunity to have an athletic experience. Everyone should have an opportunity to be able to access and play sports. It shouldn't be based on your sexual orientation or gender identity or economic situation. I think we see a lot of forces that deny folks the lessons and benefits that sports provide. Through all this work, it's just really been about how we can increase access to athletics for folks who have been under-represented in athletics and who haven't been valued the right way in athletics."

While the goal of Duke rowing, in its most fundamental form, is to compete for ACC and national championships, the culture that Miranda and others helped cultivate brings with it a familial nature that is hard to find past graduation. With a new roster every year, consisting of international students coming from different socioeconomic backgrounds and experiences, it would be understandable to assume that the love for rowing is the driving force in any success that Duke enjoys. But according to Fletcher, it is that togetherness and the understanding of one another, despite all apparent differences, that gives the program its strength.

"The person I came into Duke as and the person I graduated as are very different. I attribute that a lot to the people that I met and interacted with, and because of that diversity and because of all these people who had different backgrounds and different viewpoints, it was honestly one huge conversation that started freshman year and it kept going. It was always being able to have that with different people, having different outlooks. Our team, fundamentally, always has been one that really respects each other. It doesn't really matter what you have to say – everyone will listen and you get that opportunity to express your opinions, your beliefs and your values."

Both Miranda and Fletcher were curious as to whether the culture would undergo changes with the arrival of head coach Megan Cooke Carcagno in the summer of 2015. As a rising senior and distinguished leader on the team, Miranda knew how hard he and his teammates had worked to establish the values built around inclusion, comfortability and trust within the program. It did not take long for him to be reassured that with Cooke Carcagno, that culture would not only be supported, but that student-athlete leadership is reinforced and encouraged.

"I was one of our two captains that year when they came in, and I think what stuck with me so much was that we had been trying really hard to cultivate this culture and we were like 'What's going to happen when we have a new coaching staff?' Coach Megan comes in and she's just like 'This is your culture, this is your team.' She's been a great advocate for our program and has been super thoughtful about the work that we wanted to do."

For Fletcher, her comfortability both in herself and with her teammates was only enhanced when Cooke Carcagno came. Being heavily involved with Athlete Ally, she used any opportunity she could to speak with the team about its goals, different events and how to get involved. While she often faced the harsh reality of not receiving total support from those outside of the program, both Cooke Carcagno's leadership and the culture that existed among the team allowed Fletcher to promote her activism while being unapologetically herself.

"By the time I was graduating and even at the end of my junior year, I was so aware of the fact that this team was very accepting," she said. "I technically 'Came out' my junior summer, at the beginning of senior year. I never really formally came out, I just sort of existed as 'This is me now.' I used to stand on the bus and talk about Athlete Ally, to tell them about different events we were having. I would speak for 40 minutes and people would always listen and they would share. Every time, they were unwaveringly supportive. Every time I interacted with the larger community, I didn't necessarily see that. It was very easy to take that step back and feel defeated, feel unsupported, but my team always came through. Megan was so supportive at any time."

The support from the coaching staff came in the form of Cooke Carcagno assisting Fletcher in organizing a pride race at the Carolina Cup, sitting in meetings with compliance and other coaches. According to Miranda, Cooke Carcagno's resolute advocacy did not stop after his graduation.

"I never came out as trans while I was still rowing, but as soon as I did, she was one of the first people to reach out to me. We have a captain's plaque with all of our names on it, and she was like 'I've got to go change the sign!' She worked with a former teammate, Alex Stonehill, to get a new sign and made sure to change my name to Liam on the sign. Looking back, I could've came out and I knew we would've figured it out, and I think that's a testament to the culture and the team and to how onboard the coaches were and continue to be with supporting their athletes. They know what sports is about – it makes a good team and a team that people want to be on and work hard on."

Miranda is now back at Duke, working towards his master's degree in public policy analysis. He remains involved with The Inclusion Playbook, and since being removed from the rowing program and his experience in student-athlete activism, his perspective on how efforts towards inclusion within athletics are being continued comes more from observation. And while he knows all too well the hurdles that have yet to be climbed in those efforts, Miranda remains proud of the work being done at Duke and beyond.

"I recognize how hard it is," he said. "Sometimes, it feels like the world is on fire. There are so many things, especially in athletics. Every second, there's something new that we should be addressing and this work is constant, and sometimes it feels like you're going to take 30 steps backwards. I recognize how frustrating it can be to balance all the initiatives and all the things people have to do with their responsibilities. But I do see the work being done and I'm really proud to see it.

"I've seen some programs and I've worked with some teams and leagues that would prefer their athletes not engage in that, and I think Duke has always been really good about fostering that sense of responsibility in us and making us realize that we do have a platform, and we can use that platform to call out injustice and make our communities safer and better. I know the athletes are always going to bring the passion and energy to these discussions, and I know that the administration and coaches are going to continue to foster that."

Miranda's influence on Fletcher, and Fletcher's help towards Nathaniel Hernandez – the most recent Athlete Ally executive at Duke – is part of a support cycle that they hope continues with the conversations being had in the United States about gender diversity, inclusion and education. While the purpose of Athlete Ally goes well beyond one program, and even beyond sports as a whole, both Miranda and Fletcher know that their involvement came through Duke rowing and a culture that helped the program serve as a catalyst in the athletic community's effort towards being an environment for all.

"I've always said allyship is not a passive mindset but something you have to actively practice," Fletcher said. "It also means using your voice and the platform, resources and influence you have to elevate the message of the community you are supporting. From pretty much day one of me trying to do anything related to LBGTQIA+ advocacy onwards, that's what DWR and Megan did."

Duke Rowing Alumni Feature Spotlight: Liam Miranda and Sarah Fletcher

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