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In 2008, I boarded a plane to Boston for the Gender Equity Forum hosted by the NCAA Equity and Inclusion office.

At that time, I worked as the Emerging Sports Program Manager for USA Rugby. My job was to expand opportunities for NCAA Women's Rugby by campaigning and targeting athletic directors and presidents to add the sport. Women's Rugby was 6 years into its tenure on the Emerging Sports list and in good company with our longest-running fellow sport of Equestrian who had also been lobbying to expand their membership since 1999. My colleague and I met with the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics armed with stats, video, proof of expansion, FAQs, prospective divisional budget sheets, competition options, and conference-specific targeted proposals answering each of their unique needs.

After years of cold-calling, following up on leads, creating content, marketing material and attending conferences where I was literally patted on the head numerous times and called "sweetie" by old, white male athletic directors, my colleague and I devised a strategic plan of attack for this particular meeting.

That year we vowed to go big. We would outright ask the committee for their help. We would create an eye-catching campaign and appeal to our audience by showing them the power of supporting women in their pursuit of full-contact competition in the sport of women's rugby. We crushed our presentation.

Our team answered every question and boldly showed the expansion of our sport nationally at the high school level, something we had been required to compile for the committee. At the close of the presentation, I stared out into a group who looked less likely to add any sport and would be more likely to "plan to plan". I addressed the then-chair of the committee and former Commissioner of the America East Conference, Patrick Nero. I asked him directly for the committee's help and for any volunteers willing to become a liaison for rugby to distribute information to any interested conferences or presidents.

The room went silent until Nero responded.

"We appreciate your presentation, but I don't think any of us know enough about rugby to be able to talk about it to others."

Me: "Thank you for your feedback. Your statement is exactly why we should have a liaison from the CWA to serve as someone on the inside that we can educate and utilize for expansion and networking."

The conversation was interrupted abruptly and cut off by the then-Emerging Sports Program Director who thanked us for our presentation and the committee attending.

My colleague and I stood puzzled and slightly deflated at the swift dismissal. This was a forum to educate and support women's sports, but was becoming painfully clear that this was not the objective of the body.

Following our presentation, it was now sand volleyball’s turn.

The spokesperson for sand volleyball was unlike the rest of us. She didn’t appear to need a presentation, data or proof of participation. She had administrative NCAA friends in the room while the rest of the us looking for a seat at the table were not afforded a place in the circle of NCAA nepotism.

The representative worked the room with existing administrative relationships from the sport of indoor volleyball. Even if they didn't want to add the sport of sand volleyball at their schools, they were more than willing to be ambassadors for it. Sand volleyball was later rebranded beach volleyball and granted full championship NCAA status in 2015 after less than 5 years on the list.

We watched beach volleyball’s 2.5-minute speech with zero stats or data as they invited ADs to speak with them after in a breakout session. The attendees assembled quickly on the beach volleyball side of the room at the close of the conversation. My colleague and I had two ADs at our table in total, four for equestrian and one for synchronized swimming (removed off the list in 2010)

Relationships are key to any business expansion but, in this case, this was a forum explicitly designed to bolster equity in athletics and where each sport was promised a fair shot. It was then that I realized the NCAA Emerging Sports Program had far less to do with proven interest; high school or national participation, and if rugby or any other sport were going to ever succeed it would be about who or what sport was in the cool club and/or how much money they brought to bear.

If you are not familiar with what the Emerging Sports initiative is, the short lesson is that this program was designed to carve out space for burgeoning women's sports in the NCAA. Each sport was offered the opportunity to enter into the process and onto the list in the long slog to achieving 40 teams, to then be considered for  NCAA championship status.

Women's ice hockey, water polo, bowling, and rowing were the first Emerging sports in the mid-90s; the halcyon days of the initiative.

Before you stop reading this piece, indulge me in offering you the history of why Emerging Sports even came about; it's going to answer a number of questions for you on why you are seeing girls' flag football pop up in every state high school association and now as the NCAA's newest emerging-non-Emerging Sport darling drenched in free messaging, marketing and endorsement by a who’s who that would catapult any of the other sports well past 40 with a fraction of the former…

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