On November 3, Tiara Mack was busy visiting polling stations in Rhode Island’s State Senate District 6. The 26-year-old Democrat and Independent Kevin Gilligan were vying for a seat that had for 14 years belonged to Harold Metts, whom Mack defeated in the September primaries. On Nov. 4, it was official: Mack had claimed nearly 89% of the vote and will join the state legislature.
In 2012, the South Carolina native relocated to Providence, R.I., to begin her collegiate career at Brown University, and has never left The Ocean State.
“For the first time in my life, the ideas I had grown up with were being challenged, and I was afforded so many opportunities to act,” Mack writes on her campaign website. “I learned how to challenge myself, to change how I was taught to think, and began to introduce more and more new ideas into my life.”
The Brown rugby team was an important part of that transformative experience.
“My older brother played rugby at the University of Georgia, so I knew about rugby and had seen matches,” Mack said. “I went to my first social when I was in 8th grade. Probably shouldn’t tell my mom that.”
Kerri Heffernan, Brown’s head rugby coach from 2001-13, had contacted incoming freshmen who had indicated athletic backgrounds, and the professor shared information on the high-achieving rugby team. The current players then reported to move-in day for some in-person recruitment.
“It was a bunch of women who were strong, lots of women of color, and they were helping us move into the dorm. ‘You look like you’d be a rugby player,’” Mack remembers first interactions with the team. “So I came out to the first practice – ‘try rugby day’ – but I misread the flyer and showed up in a dress. I sat on the sideline with a player who had graduated a year before, and today she’s an international ref: Em Hsieh! She was one of the first people to introduce me to the team.
“It was the one sports team on campus that had the most women of color,” said Mack, who played lacrosse in high school. “There were also other women who had low-income backgrounds. … So being in a community of people that not only looked like me but who were athletes trying to build something with the sport, that was really awesome.”
When Mack started teaching sex education to high schoolers, she did so with a rugby teammate. That experience piqued her interest in reproductive health rights and justice, and the summer after her sophomore year she interned with Planned Parenthood’s Public Policy and Advocacy department. She helped pass the 2019 Reproductive Privacy Act and continues to serve the organization as a youth organizer. She’s a board member of the Women’s Health & Education Fund, and healthcare remains as one of eight major issues central to Mack’s political platform.
Another teammate encouraged her to apply to Teach for America senior year, and that program facilitated Mack’s career as a math educator. On the pitch, Mack was a captain, an All-American, and helped elevate the university’s club team to a varsity program administered by the athletic department.
“We actually filed a Title IX complaint for the university … and petitioned to become the first [women’s rugby] varsity team at Brown,” Mack said of the process. “Shortly after Harvard, we became varsity [in 2014] and were among that first group. We played in the first Ivy League varsity rugby match, which was amazing. We were the first Ivy League champions for varsity rugby. It was a lot of very formative first experiences, being an advocate not just for women’s reproductive health rights but for women in sports being treated equally.”
When Mack graduated college, she joined the Providence rugby club and was serving as captain through last season. Women who find rugby in their adult lives tend to have different catalysts compared to their younger counterparts. Mack continued to meet a diverse group of women, ranging from those who were getting out of a bad relationship or divorce, to those who were celebrating be cancer free.
Former and current teammates and coaches account for some of Mack’s biggest backers. Since announcing her candidacy, they’ve knocked on doors and placed phone calls every weekend, have donated to her campaign, and anchor a support system that is otherwise difficult to assemble during a global pandemic. She likened that sense of mutual investment to the Rhode Island Political Cooperative, a non-profit that provides campaign services to progressive Democrats and became a vital resource for the aspiring politician.
With all of that said, rugby is having a troubling moment right now, as World Rugby has recently approved a ban on transgender players competing at the women’s international level.
“Rugby has always been a place where I’ve felt included and that was made for every single body,” Mack said. “I remember being in a college photo shoot [with the theme of] ‘Every body is a rugby body.’ I’ve played against differently abled people. I’ve played against trans players. I’ve had trans players who were teammates. I have a trans brother who still is a rugby athlete. We went to the 2018 Rugby World Cup together right after he came out.
“Rugby has just been a big part of my queer experience and my own personal experience, and to see that not translate to a larger level was pretty alarming and really disappointing,” Mack continued. “It’s the community that also kind of fostered my own queerness. I came out through the rugby community; they were the first group of people I came out to in college. Not having that space be a universal place of acceptance for everyone is kind of hard to swallow.”
Mack hasn’t had much time for rugby recently, but the Covid-19 pandemic has meant virtually no rugby since May anyhow. Providence has been holding some joint, socially distanced training sessions with the men’s and women’s teams, but Mack has been focusing on the campaign trail this summer and fall.
“Today was actually a lot more calm than I expected on the local level,” Mack said while at a polling station Tuesday. “A lot of folks were really fortunate to have a pretty accessible voting experience during a global pandemic. Folks could vote early at their local city halls or board of canvassers 20 days before the election. It was also open in some of our larger cities like Providence on Saturdays the last two weekends. We also have pretty accessible mail ballot voting so folks could apply for their mail ballot over a month ago and get those turned in or drop them off across the state.
“So I think the vast majority of our voting actually already happened and today it’s seeing little groups of people,” Mack continued. “But I’m really confident because a lot of folks have been sending me pictures the last 3-4 weeks with their ‘I Voted’ sticker, which made today a lot more manageable. … I have hundreds of e-mails saying, ‘So glad I got to vote for you twice. So excited to see your name,’ that have been slowly rolling in for three weeks since early voting started, so it’s been nice.”
By night’s end, the District 6 State Senate election had not been called, but Mack was in a good place. A bottle of champagne and a rugby teammate awaited, and that combination is a good end to any night. On the morning of Nov. 4, it was confirmed that Mack had won 89% of the vote. Ten of Rhode Island Co-op’s candidates were elected and will become future Senators, Representatives and City Councilors in pursuit of a shared platform.
“My mom would probably be upset if I didn’t call her first,” Mack said of the first to-do after the results comes through, “but I have an extensive text chain of friends and different support systems. Covid’s made it really, really hard to feel kind of grounded and have a support system during a really crazy time like running a campaign, but I’ve got a solid group.”
Learn more about Tiara Mack, who was also named to the U.S. Women’s Rugby Foundation’s “15 Under 30,” via her website, www.tiaramackdistrict6.com, or follow her on Twitter (@MackDistrict6).