Dr. Ahada McCummings is not afraid to make changes, on the playing field or in life. It might surprise you to learn that Up2Us Sports’ Senior National Director of External Affairs and Organizational Learning began her professional life in the field of mathematics, working as an actuary for an insurance company in New York City. That career was short-lived: “It was Corporate America, and I hated it…It wasn’t me, it didn’t fit with who I was. I knew something had to change but I really wasn’t sure what.”

This instinct to find something that fit began a series of pivots and maneuvers that eventually led Ahada to her current position at Up2Us Sports. It was, in Ahada’s words, a journey of happenstance. She and her then-fiancé moved from New York City to Atlanta and had just finished planning their wedding when Ahada discovered she was pregnant with their first child. It was after giving birth to her daughter that the next major career change occurred: while scanning the newspaper Want Ads, Ahada came across an opening for an outreach worker for teenage mothers. Although she hadn’t done this kind of work before, she immediately felt it was something she could manage. “[I thought] ‘Hell, I just had a baby. I can tell them what to do.’” This was Ahada’s entrée into social work and the business of helping others. She began working for the county as an outreach worker, counseling pregnant and parenting teenage women who were often dealing with homelessness and other difficult situations, and eventually she joined with Prevent Child Abuse America. But soon after the move, she found herself in her own difficult situation: going through a divorce and wondering how to support two young daughters.

Ahada made a move that thrilled her parents—both PhDs and proponents of academia: she went back to school. She decided she would need at least a Master’s degree to stay in social services, so she moved to North Carolina to be closer to her parents and enrolled in a Master’s program. 

These were rigorous years; Ahada was simultaneously working towards her credentials, raising her children with help from her parents, and working several jobs. “I was working for the county during the day. I would go to class in the evenings. My mom would pick the girls up from daycare, take them home and get them ready for bed.  I would be in class until about nine o’clock at night, so by the time I got home the kids would be asleep. I would get up at two in the morning and sling boxes for UPS; I worked four hours for UPS unloading and loading trucks. And then on weekends—I also had my license as a bail bondsman—so I would go and bail people out of jail. I didn’t have to do any bounty hunting, but I was certainly going into jails at 3 o’clock in the morning.” 

With the support of her family, she made it through. Once out of school, Ahada worked for a few years with Easterseals, a nonprofit health care organization, before starting her private practice. She worked primarily with Medicaid clients in both rural and urban under-resourced communities; it was intimate work that brought her directly into the homes of her clients. All during this time, her focus remained on girls and women. “It’s always been a focus for me just to ensure that our girls are okay, that we’re okay. I would see a lot of things in counseling. Girls who had been abused, girls who were just in some tough situations, and my heart would break for them. Because I was fortunate to have support, but not every girl and every woman does. I wanted at least to be that: some type of support and some type of mentor for girls and women.”

Alongside her counseling work and raising two girls, Ahada was playing volleyball in adult leagues. Athletics had always been important in her family; her two brothers played a range of sports, and Ahada figure skated competitively from 1st through 9th grade. She quit when her mother was given a late diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, wanting to spare her the rigorous training schedule that required rides to 5 AM and after-school practices. She switched to volleyball, played through high school and college, and kept playing into her adult years, eventually piquing her daughters’ interest in the sport. 

Unfortunately, where they lived, sports opportunities were not readily available for Ahada’s daughters. In addition to a 40-minute drive to practice, the exorbitant club fees that all but prohibited participation by many kids from her community incensed Ahada. She decided to start a volleyball club, and to coach its participants herself. They were able to use the gym of a charter high school in the area, and soon Ahada was asked to coach the high school’s varsity volleyball team—the program was in bad shape, and the coach had quit. Ahada agreed to stay on for all four years with the incoming freshman class; she also let them know that in that time, they were going to win a State Championship. With her brother coaching with her, they turned the school’s athletic department around and won the 2020-2021 NCHSAA 1A Championship. “This was the first State Championship that school has ever had, period, in any sport. It sort of flipped a switch for their athletic department. These girls really worked hard, and they reached this goal. I think it set the tone for that program from there on out.” 

From her deep commitment to girls and women to her mental health and coaching expertise, it’s no wonder Ahada was drawn to Up2Us Sports’ She Changes the Game initiative, which she learned about through a Keep Girls in Sport training, Up2Us Sports and adidas’ initiative to recruit more women into coaching and retain more girls in sport. Ahada was inspired by the intentional work of “making sure girls and women recognize that sports has the ability to make them powerful and feel confident,” especially having seen volleyball help her own daughters become more confident and vocal advocates for themselves. Ahada’s focus and passion is making sure that She Changes the Game is not just a phrase, but that “our program reflects it, that our training reflects it, that we’re moving in the right direction with the advisory counsel we’re putting together, and that we’re making sure that we as an organization, and the host sites we’re dealing with, are creating opportunities for women to be in the sports field.”

From insurance actuary to Up2Us Sports, Ahada has not been afraid to seek what feels true to her and to change course accordingly. She has experienced challenges, as well as witnessed many other women facing challenges, from her female clients to her daughters and their friends. This has strengthened her commitment to girls and women, and reinforced her belief in their ability to overcome obstacles and do what needs to be done, even “in the craziest of circumstances… in these situations that seem to be unbearable at the time.” After some pivots and a few crazy circumstances, Ahada has expanded her scope from individual client work to the organizational level, where she brings a wealth of expertise and experience to her role at Up2Us Sports. “For me this is important, and it doesn’t feel like work. I’ve moved out of that space of being the actual counselor…now I can help [Up2Us Sports] figure out how to help people.”