Outing Odell: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Athletics

Dr. Drew Brown is currently an African American Studies Visiting Scholar at the University of Houston. Prior to that, he taught at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. Dr. Brown studies a wide range of topics surrounding the culture and existence of African people, both continental and diaspora. More specifically, his work focuses on the construction of gender and identity through contemporary social practices. His work examines the cultural relationship of race, sports, and gender to Black lives. Dr. Brown is a native of Windsor, Ont. Canada and is of Jamaican ancestry. He attended Lafayette College where he played varsity football and received a BA in Economics and Business. In 2006, he was drafted into the Canadian Football League and spent a short time with the Edmonton Eskimos. He went on to complete a Master’s in African American Studies at Clark Atlanta University and his Doctorate at Temple University. His dissertation focuses on NFL draft prospects’ conceptions of manhood and ideas of playing in the NFL.

Dr. Brown is one of the foremost emerging scholars in the area of race and sports. While at Temple, Dr. Brown conceptualized the nation's first annual race and sports conference. The Passing The Ball: Race and Sports Conference is the country's leading conference and conversation, which explores the role of sports in our daily lives through the lens of blackness. The conference has attracted international attention and garnered high praise from his contemporaries from around the country.

As a scholar-activist, Dr. Brown has participated in several social justice initiatives. In 2013, he was invited to the White House as part of the Black LGBT Emerging Leaders program and participated in cabinet-level conversations as an expert on Black-male identity in sports. As an LGBT ally, he worked in the Human Rights Campaign and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Dr. Brown also is an active member of the national movement to end mass-incarceration and free political prisoners.