Throughout the month of February, Bisons student-athletes will be sharing their experiences as part of Black History Month. Today's feature highlights Olayinka Odeleye, a jumper on the track and field team and community advocate.
 
It's rare to find track and field jumper Olayinka Odeleye without a smile on his face or a positive attitude. If you pass him in the halls of the University of Manitoba, the sophomore is the first to ask how your day is going, and to carry on a conversation. It's been that way for Odeleye's entire life, whether that be in Winnipeg – where he and his family moved to when he was six – or back home in Ibidan, Nigeria, where he was born.
 
"It was honestly very easy [to make friends]," he admitted.
 
"I brought with me an energy that was very infatuating for people. I don't remember my life without some form of people in it. It felt the same as Nigeria. I took who I was there and brought it here."
 
Sport was one of the avenues where Odeleye created connections. It's where some of his earliest memories stem from.
 
"For us, movement was just a natural part of how you do things. I remember I would walk from home [in Nigera] to school, and there wasn't really a school bus or anything like that. We would always be taking sugar canes from the road," he recalled.
 
"Some of my most memorable moments when I was younger involved athletics. Movement is something we love."
 
Track and field was an early love for Odeleye, and when he moved to Canada, basketball and volleyball also became fundamental to his life. And while he excelled in all three sports, track took centre stage as he got older.
 
Odeleye was a provincial champion in triple jump and long jump in high school with Glenlawn, and he made a solid transition to the U SPORTS level. He hit the Bisons' travel standard last season, and was part of the group that secured the program their fourth straight conference championship, a school record.


 
But Odeleye's experience as a Bisons student-athlete extends far beyond results.
 
From a personal standpoint, he's shared an "understanding" and connection with fellow Nigerian jumpers Adebare Adegbosin, Praise Oni and Enoch Amolebge.
 
"It's definitely nice to have that. Even the kids I coach, two of them are Nigerian. It's nice to hear an accent every now and then, or understand shared music. There's definitely an understanding of community that comes just inherently from being black," he said.
 
"It's nice that I can go to them and go hey, do you have lotion? I wouldn't walk up to a random white person and ask if you have Vaseline or lotion?" There's for sure a shared understanding amongst black people in the west, that we are sort of all we have here in terms of the discrimination that we face. It's an acknowledgement of hey, I see you."
 
 
'The norm is not progress'
Off the track, the well-spoken Odeleye has been a strong voice for representation and advocacy.
 
This year, he's the University of Manitoba Athletic Council (UMAC) Volunteer Coordinator, alongside teammate Ren Langit. He is also a member of the newly-formed Canada West Student Athlete Engagement Community.
 
As part of the latter, Odeleye has sat in on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion meetings led by the conference. It's a topic that he holds close to his heart, and it's been "eye-opening" to learn more about the realities faced across various campuses when it comes to EDI.
 
"It's nice to see that there are people out there working to get things done. At the end of the day, every institution could be doing more. But I'm also grateful for the things we are doing and that I have the opportunity to participate in the opportunity to do more," he said.
 
"Diversity, equity, inclusion, these should be discussions always. This is our every day lived experience."
 
When it comes to Black History Month specifically, the well-spoken Odeleye sees it as an opportunity for "everybody to catch up."
 
"For us, black history is every day. We're living black history. We reserve these conversations for a certain month or a certain day, and anywhere outside of that, we don't want to hear about it. I feel like sometimes people think progress, while still wanting to maintain the norms. But those are oxymorons. The norm is not progress."
 
When Odeleye speaks about the "norm," he's referring to a broad range of examples. In sport, an area that hits close to home, is "material conditions."
 
Immigrants and newcomer families often face significant barriers to participating in organized sports due to a combination of high financial costs, systemic hurdles, and, for many, the urgent necessity of prioritizing economic survival over leisure activities.
 
"Time and time, stats show again and again that the answer to these issues often lies in material conditions, it lies in poverty and the haves and have-nots," he said.
 
"I played volleyball for the Junior Bisons. I had to be funded, if I wasn't funded I wasn't going to play. I'm thankful to my coach for sure. Hockey is a heavily white-dominated sport, same as volleyball. For those reasons, we don't have as much money as some other groups. We're trying to make it."

In July of 2022, U SPORTS announced an official partnership with Black North Initiative and Sherrard Kuzz LLP, called Athletes on Track. The bursary and mentorship program is eligible to student-athletes who identify as Black (Afro-Caribbean, African Canadian, and/or racialized), are enrolled at a U SPORTS school, demonstrate financial need and are a member of a U SPORTS varsity team.

A $5,000 bursary is awarded to eight black student-athletes? (one male and one female per conference), and each bursary recipient is be paired with mentors, based on identified career aspirations.

Odeleye is passionate about seeing this type of funding and advocacy expand.

"If Canada West as a whole could help fund certain groups or people with less money, to participate in sports, that would be a good start. There could also be equity-diverse camps, where schools provide participants with some volleyballs to take home to train with on your own, things like that."
 
Another proposition Odeleye suggested was creating a group chat across campuses for equity-deserving groups. Establishing an EDI committee with representation from Bisons student-athletes, key stakeholders, industry professionals and staff on campus was also suggested.
 
"It's more of a vague, loose idea, but you could send resources into that [group chat]," he said.
 
"I'm still learning, there's only so much that I know. But it's definitely one of the first things people will do when they set out to do something, is find the right people, or consult with people who do this for their career. Reach out to those people, see what their ideas are. I think those are some nice ideas to start."