Kiandra Browne had little interest in religion growing up in multicultural Montreal. But she did have a curious mind. “If you know Kiandra, you know she questions everything,” her mother, Sheryl White, said with a loving laugh.
When the coronavirus pandemic hit, Ms. Browne, then a high school senior with a lot of time to think, began to consider the question of faith. Soon, she was peppering a Muslim friend with questions about Islam. As Ms. Browne, who ultimately converted to Islam, peeled back pages of the Quran, she found that many of the messages resonated with her, particularly in relation to her basketball ambitions.
The structure and discipline that are required — stopping for prayer five times each day, fasting during the holy month of Ramadan — echo the commitment demanded of an elite athlete. The concept of sisterhood and setting aside her ego mirrored the fabric of a team sport.
“As somebody that already had a very disciplined lifestyle, Islam just made sense,” she said.
But as Ms. Browne dived deeper into the religion, she was presented with a conflict: Women’s basketball uniforms, with their shorts and tank tops, did not conform with stricter Islamic standards of modesty. But revealing less of her body by wearing a hijab — a head scarf — along with baggy pants and loosefitting long-sleeve shirts presented its own conundrum on the basketball court.
“You kind of feel like you’re wearing a garbage bag,” she said.
Ms. Browne managed to make do, first at Indiana University, where she began her college career, and then at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, where she is a forward for a team that begins play in the Atlantic 10 tournament on Thursday. But she wondered why there were not more clothing options for Muslim women who had a passion for sports — something less cumbersome than XXL men’s athletic wear and more affordable than $100 name-brand garments.
Eventually, Ms. Browne arrived at a solution: starting a business that sells affordable modest athletic wear, which she obtains from a small family business in Pakistan.
It is, at least for now, a very small business. There is no website. She takes orders through direct messages on Instagram. And she sells about a dozen outfits a month. The small scale is necessary for someone who is pursuing a master’s degree in business administration, playing basketball and working as a personal trainer.
“It’s hard to grow a business in college,” Ms. Browne said. “It’s not my 9 to 5.”
What has been helpful, though, is that it has been made abundantly clear there is a worldwide market for women who prefer not to exercise in sports bras and skin-hugging leggings. Ms. Browne is scheduled to graduate in May and once she is finished with school, she plans to seek an investor to expand her business.
Not so long ago, Ms. Browne would have been prohibited from such a venture, but the N.C.A.A., the governing body for college athletics, was forced in 2021 by the passage of state laws to allow athletes to profit from the use of their name, image and likeness. And before last season, the N.C.A.A. followed other athletics governing bodies in easing restrictions that required athletes to file for a waiver to wear religious headwear provided it was safe for competition.
Still, wearing a hijab is not permitted in some circles.
France, which hosted the Paris Olympics last summer, prohibited its own athletes, which it considers civil servants, from wearing a hijab, saying it violated a secularism law that barred civil servants from wearing overtly religious symbols while performing their duties. Similar restrictions apply in Ms. Browne’s home province of Quebec for teachers, police officers and other civil servants.
Only a handful of college athletes play with a hijab. Ms. Browne is one of three Muslim players on the Duquesne team, but she is the only one who wears a hijab. Earlier this season, Ms. Browne and Yasmine Djibril, a freshman at Canisius University, were believed to be the first two college basketball players to compete against each other wearing hijabs.
“Honestly, it’s not about how many sales I make, it’s really about all the messages I get on social media and people thanking me,” Ms. Browne said. “It’s removing a barrier for women who want to work out but can’t find what they need to wear because they overheat or feel uncomfortable or it’s just too complicated.”
Ms. Browne said she believed covering her body with loosefitting clothes was a form of female empowerment that pushed men to appreciate her intellect, talent and personality. “Women are so incredibly objectified and sexualized,” she said. “My hijab is not allowing anyone to do that to me.”
Last month, a group of Muslim girls in Chicago, whom Ms. Browne had instructed at a clinic last summer, came to watch her team play. After a recent home game, Ebtehal Badawi, wearing a hijab, brought her 14-year-old daughter, Layal, to meet Ms. Browne, who was signing autographs with her teammates. Soon, Ms. Badawi said, her daughter will decide whether she wants to wear a hijab.
“Kiandra is a role model for little Muslim girls if they choose to cover up,” said Ms. Badawi, an avid distance runner who founded Pittsburgh Builds Bridges, a community organization that encourages connections through making art. “Not everyone has the courage in them to do what they want. In the Oscars or a big event, you don’t see a lot of women covering up. People don’t want to stand out.”
Ms. Browne understands that, too. Occasionally, an opponent has yanked on her head covering or a fan has taunted her for wearing it. She said she was warned by friends and family when she entered the transfer portal that some coaches might view her hijab as an unwanted distraction, but the Duquesne coach, Dan Burt, signaled his interest by asking her what color head coverings the equipment manager should stock.
When Mr. Burt learned after a road game this season that a fan of the opposing team had taunted Ms. Browne, he implored her not to keep it to herself. “If it happens again, I’ll have the game stopped,” he recalled saying.
The first time she was heckled was at Indiana by an opposing player.
“I was really, really shocked in the moment,” Ms. Browne said. “Obviously, people aren’t stupid. They’re trying to get you to think of things other than the task at hand. Now it’s your choice and you have the opportunity to choose whether to let them cause the hurt that they intended or go ahead and play your game.”
Her parents have watched her from afar, with some trepidation but also with a good deal of pride as they have seen their eldest daughter grow. (Another daughter, Serena, is a water polo player at Stanford who represented Canada in the Paris Olympics.)
Ms. White said her older daughter had always embraced being different. Her father, Ken Browne, appreciates her commitment. A former college football player, he recounted fasting during Ramadan in a show of solidarity with his teammate at the University of Colorado, the Heisman Trophy winner Rashaan Salaam.
“I lost 15 pounds, which is not great for an offensive lineman, but it strengthened me in ways I never imagined,” Mr. Browne said. “What Kiandra is doing is not easy. She isn’t looked at as a regular basketball player and oh, by the way, she’s Muslim. Fortunately or unfortunately, men don’t have that.”
