Not Just an Athlete: The Impact of High School Coaches on the Educational Pursuit of First-year African American College Football Players

Abstract

Elite high school football players face a barrage of pressures from their external environment that determine where they attend college as well as what factors, whether academic or athletic, they consider in a school. This study aims to analyze the relationship between African American high school football players, who go on to play intercollegiate football, and their high school football coaches. African American freshmen football players at a predominantly white institution in the Southwest United States were interviewed. The responses were compared and analyzed using two tenants of critical race theory (CRT): the centrality of experiential knowledge and the challenge to the dominant ideology. In an educational context, CRT utilizes storytelling and the experiences of people of color to highlight their experiences against the dominant culture in order to transform the educational environment for the benefit of marginalized people. After analyzing the interview transcriptions, the researchers found that these athletes were positively influenced by their high school coaches to perform well academically in high school, as well as to consider academics as a major point of emphasis in choosing to attend a university. Athletes developed positive relationships with their coaches, regardless of the sport in which they coached, that encouraged them to perform well academically and see college as a means to attain a degree as opposed to an avenue to professional athletics. This positive relationship contrasted some previous literature about college students that suggested that college coach–athlete relationship could be a major source of exploitation and stress for the athletes. Overall, the research found that these coaches were a source of positive influence on these student–athlete's lives athletically, personally, and academically.