Brookens Receives Bullard-Moore DEI Award at CADA Conference

BRECKENRIDGE – At this year’s 51st annual Colorado Athletics Directors Association Conference, a special award was given to a member of the Colorado High School Activities Association staff.

Bethany Brookens, CHSAA’s Associate Commissioner, was selected to receive the Bullard-Moore DEI Award. This award recognizes profound dedication and demonstration of excellence in promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion within the Colorado Athletic Directors Association (CADA) and its member schools.

“Diversity and inclusion are incredibly important in order for our school personnel and students to have a meaningful and posItive high school experience,” Brookens said. “The leadership in our state understands that recognizing, valuing, and emphasizing diverse opportunities for our student-participants is an integral component to our core value, mission and vision. Founded in 1921 on the need for competitive equity, the CHSAA has valued equity for over a hundred years. Diversity in school size, rural and metro, public and private, in addition to the addition of female sports and now coed sports and activities like unified bowling, spirit, and esports.

”According to our department of education, 49.5 percent of our students across the state are considered a minority demographic. We need to be cognizant of this with our sports and activities offerings, our hirings of coaches and leaders, and be proactive with conversations around inclusion, sportsmanship, and belonging of all students. We need to continue lifting up our students’ voices on what’s important to them, and as leaders we need to continue to grow, learn and recognize biases and microagressions in our day-to-day lives. CHSAA sports and activities are an extension of the classroom, and together, we are stronger, more unified, and more successful.”

The Bullard-Moore DEI Award’s namesake comes from two longtime and legendary athletic directors within the state association that championed the work of DEI, while on their way to the National Interscholastic Athletics Administrators Association Hall of Fame. Christine Bullard served as a coach, athletic director, and district athletic director within Jefferson County Public Schools and at Kent Denver, while Leslie Moore served as a longtime coach and district athletic director within the Denver Public Schools.

“We just really felt like Bethany would be a great recipient of this award with all the work she’s done with Women in Leadership,” said Leroy Lopez, who heads the CADA DEI Committee. “As a strong and passionate female leader, we just felt like she would be a great representative of an award that has an impact on sports throughout the state of Colorado.”

Brookens has been an administrator at CHSAA since 2008. She oversees the CHSAA Equity Committee, has been a speaker at the Douglas County Women in Sports Banquet and is a former board member of Sportswomen of Colorado. Prior to joining the staff at CHSAA, she served as Intermountain Section Player Development Coordinator at the United States Tennis Association from 2004-08.

Most recently, Brookens pioneered CHSAA’s tremendously successful Women in Leadership conference, titled “The Many Faces of Leadership” in September. The first-annual event took place at Stanley Marketplace and was created to build a supportive and encouraging community for women in education-based activities and athletics across the state of Colorado.

As for receiving the Bullard-Moore DEI Award, Brookens said it is an honor.

“It’s quite an honor to be given this award, however, I feel like I’m just doing my job,” Brookens said. “My job is to ensure that students and schools across the state are given equitable opportunities in order to participate, and if I can be a leader or an example of speaking up and questioning norms, it’s my responsibility to do so.”