Climbing the ladder or getting stuck: An optimal matching analysis of racial differences in college football coaches’ job-level career patterns

Abstract

To better understand the documented racial inequality in access to high status positions within the American labor market, this study investigates racial differences in job-level career patterns within the college football coaching profession. Using data on the career histories of 319 college football coaches from the 2009 season, this study examines whether black and white coaches have different job-level mobility patterns throughout their careers using optimal matching sequence analysis. Descriptive results identify five common career trajectories within the college football coaching profession that are distinguished by their relative levels of job mobility and stagnation, and the amount of time spent at the lower college and high school levels of competition before reaching the highest level of college football. Subsequent analyses indicate that white coaches are more likely to follow upward career trajectories while black coaches are more likely to get stuck in careers characterized by low-level positions. These racial differences are due, in part, to coaches’ experience as football athletes (i.e. position played). However, even given the same pre-career experience, racial differences emerge in the likelihood of traversing mobile or stagnant career pathways. The results point to particularistic processes operating to perpetuate racial inequality within the college football coaching profession similar to those that have been shown to operate in other high-status labor market contexts.