CU Announces The Colorado Athletics Visibility Award
December 01, 2021 | General, Men's Basketball, Volleyball, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
BOULDER — The University of Colorado athletic department announced Wednesday that it has created the Colorado Athletics Visibility Award (CAVA), a scholarship program that is the first of its kind in collegiate athletics.
The purpose of this scholarship is to create a community of collegiate scholar-athletes who have a desire to use their platform, power, and visibility in their role as athletes to advance LGBTQ+ inclusion in sport.
Currently, CAVA will be a $20,000 tuition scholarship at CU Boulder, with two new recipients to be awarded annually based on their project proposals that seek to advance inclusion, rights representation and safety for LGBTQ+ participants in sports.
"I am thrilled about this award, and deeply touched by the complete and passionate effort the University of Colorado Athletic Department has put into creating it," said Nicholas Turco, a CU undergraduate student and the founder of the award. "Our vision is to serve as national leaders in advancing LGBTQ+ inclusion in sports and through the power of sports."
Turco, who is also an intern in CU's Buff Club, has coordinated raising over $80,000 for the award in partnership with the Buff Club and CU's College of Arts and Sciences. The first two recipients of the award are Alexia Kuehl, a redshirt sophomore on the volleyball team, and Evan Battey, a senior on the men's basketball team.
"I'm very excited to be named the Colorado Athletic Visibility Award recipient," Kuehl said. "My hope with this is to bring both my communities together with sports and LGBTQ+, and help raise awareness for younger generations so they don't have to be afraid to be who they are."
Kuehl is majoring in Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, and Battey is a recent (August) graduate earning his bachelor's degree in Journalism; he is working on his master's of science in Organizational Leadership.
"I am proud to accept the scholarship because I think we need more proud allies in the community," Battey said. "It is incredibly important to me and the people around me that we must have a basic understanding of LGBTQ+ rights and acceptance of them. I just want everybody to be comfortable being who they truly are. "
During his senior year, Turco, a Political Science major, engaged in a major study in to what the sports climate and culture was like for LGBTQ+ members in CU's athletic department. The initiative was fully supported by the athletic leadership and the study gained meaningful response rates.
This study revealed numerous informative findings. For example, it acknowledged that athletes may have a harder time being their authentic selves in the context of male-identified revenue-generating sports communities. It also affirmed that transgender student-athletes may still face a cold environment in the context of coming out and being comfortable in their sport.
"Therefore, we see the Colorado Athletics Visibility Award as a positive step in moving the cultural standard at CU to fully embody outspoken support and visibility for our LGBTQ+ members," Turco said.
"I'm very excited about this award and am proud of the leadership Nicholas, and all those involved, have shown during this process," CU athletic director Rick George said. "Being the first of its kind in the industry is always something we strive for and this will be a significant step for our department in the area of LGBTQ+ support."
As for the future of CAVA, the vision embodied in it is to elevate scholar-athletes who have unique visions about how to use sport to change LGBTQ+ lives for the better. The award also aims to fully support the education, ideas and CU experience of scholar-athletes in every cohort so that they may pour their creativity and efforts into their sport participation, studies, and projects.
The goal is to build a large enough endowment for CAVA to cover the full cost of attendance to CU Boulder for two recipients annually, while also providing scholar-athletes with the opportunity to apply for additional funding to support their projects in meaningful ways.
For additional information, including how to contribute to the endowment, please visit: CUBuffs.com/cava
COLORADO ATHLETICS VISIBILITY AWARD (CAVA) OFFICIAL VISION STATEMENT
To elevate a world-class community of scholar-athletes who want to create meaningful positive change for LGBTQ+ people rooted in the power of knowledge derived from their scholarship and the power of visibility and connection through their athletic platform.
ABOUT NICHOLAS TURCO
Under the mentorship of Dr. Nancy Billica (Political Science), Nicholas Turco earned summa cum laude honors in Political Science at the University of Colorado Boulder for his research into the sports climate for LGBTQ+ athletes at CU Boulder. Nicholas founded the Colorado Athletics Visibility Award in close partnership with Colorado Athletics and has been working to design this scholarship with Executive Senior Associate Athletic Director Kris Livingston since August 2020. He competes internationally in trail running and trains with his coach Kathy Butler and her beloved post-collegiate running team Run Boulder Athletic Club. Nicholas is the 2021-22 Buff Club Development Intern and his future plans are to attend law school to study an intersection of sports law, constitutional law, and international law with the aim of using sports and legal scholarship to advocate for human rights globally. His dream is to attend Stanford Law School to work in their premier Constitutional Law Clinic. Nicholas also interns with the Office of the Alternate Defense Counsel under Jonathan Rosen, Coordinator of Legal Research and Technology. His favorite place in the world is Chamonix, France, and has deep roots in Boulder and looks up to his family and friends and loves them dearly.
ABOUT CU ATHLETICS
The University of Colorado, located at the foot of the Rocky Mountains in Boulder, began intercollegiate competition in the spring of 1890; 131 years later the school sponsors 17 varsity programs on the Division I NCAA level and in the Pac-12 Conference. The men compete in basketball, cross country, football, golf, skiing and track & field; the women in basketball, cross country, golf, lacrosse, skiing, soccer, tennis, track & field and volleyball. Known as the Buffaloes since 1934, the school has won 29 national championships (20 in skiing, five in men's cross country, three in women's cross country and one in football), 205 conference titles and has had 148 NCAA individual champions.
The purpose of this scholarship is to create a community of collegiate scholar-athletes who have a desire to use their platform, power, and visibility in their role as athletes to advance LGBTQ+ inclusion in sport.
Currently, CAVA will be a $20,000 tuition scholarship at CU Boulder, with two new recipients to be awarded annually based on their project proposals that seek to advance inclusion, rights representation and safety for LGBTQ+ participants in sports.
"I am thrilled about this award, and deeply touched by the complete and passionate effort the University of Colorado Athletic Department has put into creating it," said Nicholas Turco, a CU undergraduate student and the founder of the award. "Our vision is to serve as national leaders in advancing LGBTQ+ inclusion in sports and through the power of sports."
Turco, who is also an intern in CU's Buff Club, has coordinated raising over $80,000 for the award in partnership with the Buff Club and CU's College of Arts and Sciences. The first two recipients of the award are Alexia Kuehl, a redshirt sophomore on the volleyball team, and Evan Battey, a senior on the men's basketball team.
"I'm very excited to be named the Colorado Athletic Visibility Award recipient," Kuehl said. "My hope with this is to bring both my communities together with sports and LGBTQ+, and help raise awareness for younger generations so they don't have to be afraid to be who they are."
Kuehl is majoring in Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, and Battey is a recent (August) graduate earning his bachelor's degree in Journalism; he is working on his master's of science in Organizational Leadership.
"I am proud to accept the scholarship because I think we need more proud allies in the community," Battey said. "It is incredibly important to me and the people around me that we must have a basic understanding of LGBTQ+ rights and acceptance of them. I just want everybody to be comfortable being who they truly are. "
During his senior year, Turco, a Political Science major, engaged in a major study in to what the sports climate and culture was like for LGBTQ+ members in CU's athletic department. The initiative was fully supported by the athletic leadership and the study gained meaningful response rates.
This study revealed numerous informative findings. For example, it acknowledged that athletes may have a harder time being their authentic selves in the context of male-identified revenue-generating sports communities. It also affirmed that transgender student-athletes may still face a cold environment in the context of coming out and being comfortable in their sport.
"Therefore, we see the Colorado Athletics Visibility Award as a positive step in moving the cultural standard at CU to fully embody outspoken support and visibility for our LGBTQ+ members," Turco said.
"I'm very excited about this award and am proud of the leadership Nicholas, and all those involved, have shown during this process," CU athletic director Rick George said. "Being the first of its kind in the industry is always something we strive for and this will be a significant step for our department in the area of LGBTQ+ support."
As for the future of CAVA, the vision embodied in it is to elevate scholar-athletes who have unique visions about how to use sport to change LGBTQ+ lives for the better. The award also aims to fully support the education, ideas and CU experience of scholar-athletes in every cohort so that they may pour their creativity and efforts into their sport participation, studies, and projects.
The goal is to build a large enough endowment for CAVA to cover the full cost of attendance to CU Boulder for two recipients annually, while also providing scholar-athletes with the opportunity to apply for additional funding to support their projects in meaningful ways.
For additional information, including how to contribute to the endowment, please visit: CUBuffs.com/cava
COLORADO ATHLETICS VISIBILITY AWARD (CAVA) OFFICIAL VISION STATEMENT
To elevate a world-class community of scholar-athletes who want to create meaningful positive change for LGBTQ+ people rooted in the power of knowledge derived from their scholarship and the power of visibility and connection through their athletic platform.
ABOUT NICHOLAS TURCO
Under the mentorship of Dr. Nancy Billica (Political Science), Nicholas Turco earned summa cum laude honors in Political Science at the University of Colorado Boulder for his research into the sports climate for LGBTQ+ athletes at CU Boulder. Nicholas founded the Colorado Athletics Visibility Award in close partnership with Colorado Athletics and has been working to design this scholarship with Executive Senior Associate Athletic Director Kris Livingston since August 2020. He competes internationally in trail running and trains with his coach Kathy Butler and her beloved post-collegiate running team Run Boulder Athletic Club. Nicholas is the 2021-22 Buff Club Development Intern and his future plans are to attend law school to study an intersection of sports law, constitutional law, and international law with the aim of using sports and legal scholarship to advocate for human rights globally. His dream is to attend Stanford Law School to work in their premier Constitutional Law Clinic. Nicholas also interns with the Office of the Alternate Defense Counsel under Jonathan Rosen, Coordinator of Legal Research and Technology. His favorite place in the world is Chamonix, France, and has deep roots in Boulder and looks up to his family and friends and loves them dearly.
ABOUT CU ATHLETICS
The University of Colorado, located at the foot of the Rocky Mountains in Boulder, began intercollegiate competition in the spring of 1890; 131 years later the school sponsors 17 varsity programs on the Division I NCAA level and in the Pac-12 Conference. The men compete in basketball, cross country, football, golf, skiing and track & field; the women in basketball, cross country, golf, lacrosse, skiing, soccer, tennis, track & field and volleyball. Known as the Buffaloes since 1934, the school has won 29 national championships (20 in skiing, five in men's cross country, three in women's cross country and one in football), 205 conference titles and has had 148 NCAA individual champions.