Meet Shanice Hamilton

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Shanice Hamilton a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Shanice , thank you so much for joining us today. Let’s jump right into something we’re really interested in hearing about from you – being the only one in the room. So many of us find ourselves as the only woman in the room, the only immigrant or the only artist in the room, etc. Can you talk to us about how you have learned to be effective and successful in situations where you are the only one in the room like you?

When I moved to Los Angeles, I expected to be at odds while working in a male-dominated role. Surprisingly, while working as a personal trainer for Equinox, I was the only Black Female trainer. As well as the only female athletic performance trainer. At first, I let fear overtake me, and I had a very hard time adjusting and getting new clientele. It was hard to connect with the client base, so I stayed quiet and to myself most days, which did me a disservice.

I started to put myself out there more and brainstormed ways to make myself more approachable. I used to demonstrate the technique that I use when coaching kids. I started to work out at all hours of the day and watch people stare. Instead of getting defensive at their staring, I started to invite them to try the exercises, and the job became much more bearable.

Being a Personal Trainer and a Track and Field coach in wealthy settings. I am often the only woman or the only black person on the staff.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I wear several different hats. I am the Head Track and Field and Cross Country coach at a private school. I will not mention the name of the school for my safety and job security. I am also a trainer at Equinox.

Outside of the staff roles, I run my own fitness business, offering private training in private gyms, at home, running trails, and private Track and Field sessions. My business is new and growing. My website is ShaFitnessLLC.com.

I also started a juicing business for fresh pressed juice during the pandemic. I originally started the business as a quick way to boost immunity. The juicing business is on pause as I am studying for my master’s degree and juggling the other roles mentioned above.

I have been coaching Track and Field for 8 years now. I became passionate about coaching as I am sure I can change the lives of youth athletes. I focus on coaching the athletes through the sport but also focusing on helping them learn discipline and time management that they can carry into the real world. I make them feel heard and empowered and try to give them opportunities I did not have. As I am currently coaching the high school level, It is important for me to find colleges for my athletes that fit their needs and demographics. I had no guidance leaving high school and going into college sports.

My High school coach focused on the male side of our team, so I had no idea what I was doing. I ended up in a track and Field program that was built on a lot of racism and discrimination. Coming into the program was welcoming, but the coaching staff changed my junior year, making my junior and senior years of college sports almost unbearable.

Coach Novara came into my college program very nasty and racist to all the black athletes, and every day was an uphill battle. By senior yearof college, I was assistant coach for the high school near my college. After all of the verbal and emotional abuse from Coach Novara and her advising me that I would never be a good leader. I hated the sport and avoided it after I graduated. I had become a paralegal for a foreclosure firm.

After a year of doing a job I hated, I stepped back into coaching with the help of my mentor, Coach Lafrance. I walked in with a new mindset. The mindset was to prove her wrong. I wanted to become the best leader and most inspirational track and field coach I could. In that, I wanted to give my athletes everything I could. I studied to become a personal trainer through NASM’s (National Academy of Sports Medicine) Certified Personal Trainers program in 2018.

I moved to Los Angeles from New York in November 2019 with the goal of creating my own club team on the West Coast. I started coaching at a high school a bit. I love coaching athletes, but soon after I started coaching here In Los Angeles, schools and sports shut down due to the pandemic. When the schools opened back up, the virus was still pretty heavy. I decided to wait before going back to coaching, which landed me with a job at Equinox now coaching sedentary adults, which was a huge change for me.

As I have been through a lot in my journey through sports and fitness, I try to turn all my adversity into power and fuel to change other people’s lives. Sports is the best way for kids to learn the balance of life, and the experience should be positive. On the other hand, with adult fitness, I believe it is the key to preventable health issues like obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Unfortunately, the first and most impactful experience for me was the racism and abuse from my college coach. I wanted so badly to prove her wrong and show her that coaching doesn’t have to be a dictatorship and doesn’t have to be abusive.

The second would be my love and discipline for the sport. I truly believe sports can change and save lives for the better. Specifically, track and field, as it offers many different events and talents, will continue to be the only co-ed sport.

Lastly, my mentors. Fortunately, My first assistant coaching job in Rochester was run by a man named Coach Lafrance (Micheal Lafrance); he was the kindest coach I had ever met and taught me so much about coaching. My 4th assistant job with the Harlem Children’s Zone was run by Coach B (Syretta Miller). She was one of the toughest women I had ever met. She taught me how to build a team that is a family and how to get through adversity in an industry that wasn’t built for us. She was unapologetically black, always herself no matter what, and the community and parents loved her.

How would you spend the next decade if you somehow knew that it was your last?

Currently, I am in a situation where a lot of the staff as my current school simply aren’t supportive of me or my coaching style. I have proved myself over and over again as the athletes won league finals. Even though we had no throwers and barely any jumpers. Several athletes made states, and for the first time in their school’s history, I took relays to nationals in Oregon.

This season has taken a lot of mental strain on me as the staff plays against me, claiming the athletes practice too much, lift too heavy, and I am taking them away from their studies. They claim the practices and meets are too hard and time-consuming.

Time and time again, I prove them wrong as all my athletes have great grades, and the parents love me. Some staff constantly report me to HR for these things, causing me to constantly have to attend meetings and prove to the board (who doesn’t know anything about the sport) that I am doing nothing wrong.

On their quest to make me look bad, I think they just want to push me out. For me to get sick of the reporting and quit. But I am a fighter! I’m from New York! I will not back down.

Contact Info:

• Website: shafitnessLLC
• Instagram: _Coachsha

Image Credits

Terrance T. Young for my track photoshoot.