Alyssa McQuaid is Black Canadian with generational roots in Ontario and Nova Scotia’s historically Black communities.

She has been playing sport since she was four years old living in Rexdale, ON. She made her first high performance team at the age of ten after a skills clinic that changed everything — proof that individualized support brings out talent that systems often miss. She went on to play provincially and made the York University varsity soccer team.

She also knows what it looks like when that same system fails an athlete. Too often, when athletes struggle, the system calls it a personal failing. Sport ExtendED exists to challenge that.

Alyssa has spent her career working directly inside university athletics — as an Athlete Services and Academic Success Coordinator at York University, and as an EDI, Anti-Racism and Student-Athlete Engagement Specialist at McMaster University. She has also worked at the national level as Manager of Education and Training with Canadian Women & Sport. She currently serves as a Career Consultant at Wilfrid Laurier University.

She holds a Masters of Fitness Science (Kinesiology) from York University, a Masters of Teaching from Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), and is currently completing her Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology at Yorkville University. She is also a Certified Exercise Physiologist and Ontario Certified Health & Physical Education Teacher. She has contributed to national conversations about the future of sport in Canada, including her role as a contributor to the Future of Sport in Canada Commission.

Sport ExtendED is her way of building something she needed and never had — a space where athletes are supported because they are human and deserve it, not just because of what they can produce on the field.