ABOUT DR. G
Gyasmine George-Williams, Ph.D.
Professor. Author. Activist. Sports Justice Alchemist.
Associate Professor of Race, Sport & Social Justice at Cal Poly Pomona. Creator of SportsCrit™. Host of The SportsCrit™ Lab.
A scholar of what happens when athletes — and the people who teach them — decide the game is worth changing.
THE STORY
Her work begins from a simple refusal: sport is never just a game.
Dr. Gyasmine George-Williams is an Associate Professor of Race, Sport & Social Justice in the Department of Kinesiology & Health Promotion at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, where she coordinates the Sport and Social Justice Minor.
She came to the classroom after years inside higher education — in athletics, academic initiatives, student involvement, and counseling — where she saw how institutions read athletes’ bodies, voices, and protests. Her doctoral research gave language to the lived experiences of Black college athlete activists. Her frameworks turned that language into tools that are now taught, adopted, and put to work on campuses and in communities.
Today she leads The SportsCrit™ Collective and the SportsCrit™ Lab Research & Praxis Team, hosts The SportsCrit™ Lab podcast, writes Talking SportsCrit™ with Dr. G on Substack, and teaches educators, coaches, and institutions how to see the power moving beneath the spectacle — and what to do once they see it.
“The field isn’t leveled — it’s colonized.” — Dr. G
RECOGNITION
Kinesiology & Health Promotion Faculty of the Year, 2025
Wall of C.O.O.L. Award, 2026
CCEP Faculty Fellow, 2026–27
Digital Humanities Consortium Faculty Fellow, 2025–26
LEADERSHIP & SERVICE
Founder, The SportsCrit™ Collective
Coordinator, Sport and Social Justice Minor
Elected Chair, CFA Council for Racial & Social Justice, Cal Poly Pomona
Executive Board, Black Faculty and Staff Association
Founding Board Member, Coalition for African Diaspora Student-Athletes
NIL Educational Liaison, Delaware State University Football
EDUCATION
Ph.D., Higher Education — Azusa Pacific University, 2019
M.Ed., Educational Counseling & PPS Credential — University of La Verne, 2014
Graduate Certificate, Sports Management — American Public University System, 2012
M.S., College Counseling & Student Services — University of La Verne, 2010
B.A., Psychology — California State University, Los Angeles, 2005
ORIGINAL FRAMEWORKS
Frameworks Built for Use
SportsCrit™
A nine-tenet critical race pedagogy applied to sport, media, health, and education.
The Other Caitlin Clark Effect™
A SportsCrit™ lens on racialized fan violence directed at Black women athletes.
Activism Growth Model™
A tiered guide to cultivating activist identity.
Black Athlete Activist Leadership Model
Engagement, education, and empowerment for Black college athlete activists.
Activist Tiered Systems of Support
An ecosystem of care and well-being for student and athlete activists.
Somatic Liberation™ Praxis
An embodied approach to liberation and healing in academic and athletic spaces.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
2026 — SportsCrit™: Teaching the Tough Plays. SheShed Media.
2026 — Illuminating the Field: The Transformative Power of SportsCrit in Sports Education. Sport, Higher Education, and Critical Pedagogies series, Routledge.
2025 — Activist Tiered Systems of Support (ATSS) Framework: An Ecosystem of Care and Well-Being for Student and Athlete Activists. Sport Social Work Journal, 7(1).
2025 — From the Field to the Frontlines: Exploring Activism Through the Lens of the Black Athlete Activist Leadership Model. Oxford Intersections: Racism by Context in Sport.
2025 — Voices of Activism and Transformative Journeys: Students’ Lived Experiences with the Activism Growth Model. Journal of Campus Activities Practice and Scholarship.
2025 — On Being a Unicorn: Motherhood and Academic Leadership (co-authored chapter). In E. G. Bradley & V. Agosto (Eds.), Navigating Academic Motherhood: The Possibilities of Effective Mentorship for Tenured Faculty Mothers. Routledge.
2024 — Challenging Norms: Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf’s National Anthem Protest and Its Pedagogical Implications. Handbook of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Sport.
2021 — Love Is at the Root of Resistance: Strategies of Activism, Advocacy, and Liberation. Seven Ten Legacy. Required text at the University of La Verne and the University of Michigan.
THE SIDELINE PLAY SHEET
Eight Plays. One Body of Work.
Every framework, model, and analytical tool Dr. G has built — from SportsCrit™ Pedagogy to the Media Framing Model and Somatic Liberation — mapped as plays a classroom, a team, or a movement can run.
Read the Field → Name the Power → Choose the Play → Build Care → Rewrite the Game.
Peer-reviewed with Routledge, Oxford, and the Sport Social Work Journal, and required reading at the University of La Verne and the University of Michigan.
KEYNOTES & SELECTED SPEAKING
From Summits to Seminar Rooms
Keynote, 2025 — Global Congress on Gender & Sexuality Studies
Keynote, 2025 — City of Pomona Inaugural Girls Summit
2026 — Critical Race Studies in Education Association
2025 — IDEAL Conference, Indiana University
2024 — North American Society for the Sociology of Sport
2024 — American Association of Blacks in Higher Education
2023–2024 — NCORE, New Orleans & Honolulu
Invited Panel — Tucker Center Distinguished Lecture Series, University of Minnesota
SEE DR. G IN THE ROOM
Lecture — “Black Women in Sport: Voices of Resistance”, Tucker Center Distinguished Lecture Series, University of Minnesota.
Podcast — “Women of Color in Sport’s Leadership”, Tucker Center Talks with Dr. Nicole LaVoi.
Feature — “Talking About Activism and Empowerment in Sports”, University of Minnesota College of Education and Human Development.