Black Football Players Research Articles

Black Canadian university football players’ perspectives on the coach-athlete relationship

To develop positive coach-athlete relationships, coaches can acknowledge and support their players’ sociocultural backgrounds (e.g., ethnicities, genders, races). This is particularly important in connecting with marginalized athletes as the history of sport is intertwined with identity politics, racism, and exclusion. To date, little is known about the role of race in coach-athlete relationships from the perspectives of marginalized individuals. The purpose of the current study was to explore the coach-athlete relationships of Black, Canadian university football players and their coaches from the players’ perspectives. We conducted semi-structured interviews with nine Black football players from five Canadian universities coached by individuals of different racial backgrounds. Using a reflexive thematic analysis, we co-created two overarching themes addressing participants’ racialized experiences inside and outside of sport, including their understanding of Blackness, as well as perceptions on how to improve coaches’ cultural literacies. From our findings, we understood that most Black athletes developed strong connections with their Black coaches compared to White or non-Black coaches of color that were characterized by feelings of trust and the ability to express their cultural identity freely. Athletes highlighted the importance of coaches acquiring or strengthening their cultural competency, and provided examples, advice, and descriptions of what they believed constituted an effective coach. By exploring racial aspects of coach-athlete relationships, this study contributes to coaching science literature and cultural sport psychology by emphasizing the need for coaches to develop cultural competency aptitudes when working with diverse athletes.

Abolishing Amateurism: Reimagining the Future of U.S. College Football

Recently, college athletes have won new rights to their name, image, and likeness; to educational benefits; to transfer; and to earn compensation based on the revenue their labor produces. Using critical race theories, we review the desegregation of college football alongside the legal protections for National Collegiate Athletic Association amateurism, as it was practiced from the 1950s through recent days. We argue that such amateurism still structures a racialized property relationship that grants ontological, monetary, and educational benefits to white stakeholders at the expense of Black football players. Throughout, we offer legal and historical insights about the limitations of the law for social change. We conclude with suggestions to dismantle amateurism and establish a labor market for college football players through which athletes can secure just compensation and workplace protections.

“It's All About the U”

Abstract Long before Colin Kaepernick kneeled and after Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists, University of Miami football players revolted against the white establishment and brought national attention to Black Miami. This analysis considers how “the U,” the first predominantly Black program outside of HBCUs challenged blue-blood programs in both a demographic sense and through a style of play antithetical to the political and cultural aims of the Reagan narrative. It broadens traditional understandings of the revolt of the Black athlete beyond the 1960s and 1970s and argues that, historically, Miami boosterism erased Black contributions to the city that the 1980s Black football players’ hypervisibility and hip-hop aesthetic confronted and exposed.

Meanings given to race/ethnicity in everyday football talk by young adult Polish audiences: a reception study

ABSTRACT A wide body of research has focused on representations of race/ethnicity in sport media content, because of its central location in popular culture. These studies found that sport media content serves as a site where hegemonic and reductive discourses surrounding racial/ethnic identities are habitually reproduced. So far, these studies have predominantly been textual analyses. Studies that take into account the polysemic readings of media content by audiences remain few, especially beyond the Anglosphere and Western Europe. This audience reception study addresses this gap by exploring how young audiences of televised football relate to racialized preferred readings, and how they themselves give meaning to race/ethnicity and Whiteness in their everyday football talk, in the little-researched context of Poland. In 13 focus groups (n = 45) with young adults (17–30) several key discourses were identified. This study found that most of the interviewees reproduced hegemonic discourses surrounding racial/ethnic differences, in particular regarding Black football players. The study also identified that in their everyday football talk audiences (re)produced contingent hierarchies of Whiteness.

Young Kings: Marcus Rashford and Theopolitical Charisma

ABSTRACT In the aftermath of the UK loss in the 2020 Euro Football Cup, I analyze a theopolitical force of contemporary black football players, as a sovereignty from below epitomized by the figure of Marcus Rashford. Given his meteoric rise in British culture and his prominent social activism against child hunger, Rashford, among the other targets of racial abuse, is a particularly apt exemplar. By integrating anthropological ideas on theopolitics, totemism, charisma, and the sacrality of substance, this paper asks how the iconography, life histories, and social media interventions of young, kingly, Black (mainly Christian) athletes, effect a theopolitical force as an elastic movement of self-referentiality and sovereignty from below that is agonistic rather than antagonistic to the state. Specifically, it explores how these black footballers enliven an exemplar of theopolitical sovereignty that does not decide on letting live or making it die, but on doing a work of undoing injustice.

Prejudice in the People’s Game: A Content Analysis of Race/Ethnicity in Polish Televised Football

This study explores how televised football in Poland serves as a site for the (re)construction of discourses surrounding race and ethnicity and to what extent this squares with previous studies on sport media conducted mainly in Western countries. In our analysis, we identify the discourses surrounding race and ethnicity that the commentators in televised football draw on and examine how they relate to hegemonic discourses and categorizations in wider Polish society. Our findings show that Polish football commentators draw on transnationally circulating racialized/ethnicized discourses on assumed superior physicality when talking about Black football players and on supposed negative psychological capabilities when talking about White Southern European football players. The findings also show that when talking about non-Polish players and head coaches, the commentators regularly rely on an us-versus-them frame that constructs foreign influences as a threat.

Pray the White Way: Religious Expression in the NFL in Black and White

Athletes, particularly players in the National Football League, have repeatedly invoked God in order to glorify, praise, or even credit the divine with success on the field. This essay examines the ways in which different types of religious language used to bring God onto the gridiron are received and evaluated along racial lines. I seek to show that speech by athletes, in particular black football players, that communicates a God who is partisan and intervenes in action on the field is routinely dismissed by fellow players, the media, and religious authorities who favor a God who either intervenes softly and generally or is above the game altogether. I contend that a double standard is applied to this theological debate due to a disregard of historical African American theology and to hegemonic white evangelical norms that police such discourse.

An Examination of the Experiences of Black Football Athletes

The purpose of this study was to understand the experiences of Black college athletes that played football and graduated from a Division I Power 5 institution. It is well documented that Black football players graduate from Power 5 institutions lower rates than any other student or athlete group, due to a variety of obstacles they face on campus. Despite these obstacles, there are athletes in this group who do graduate from their institution and successfully transition into professional careers. The research conducted for this article is adapted from a dissertation that explores the campus environment that Black college football players must navigate. This article focuses on the impact the social support network has, helping these athletes maneuver through their organizational environment and prepare for life after athletics. Understanding the possible influences of a support network can be a critical strategy for the survival of this group of athletes.

Who is Whistling Vivaldi? How Black football players engage with stereotype threats in college

In light of the impact of negative stereotypes on student-athlete academic performance, the purpose of this paper was to conduct a qualitative study that examined how Black American male football players engage and cope with negative stereotypes at a predominantly White institution. Data were collected and analyzed from semi-structured interviews with 10 Division I Black male football student-athletes employing grounded theory methodology to examine how they experience and respond to negative stereotypes. Empirical results elucidate various strategies employed to engage with stereotype threat. These findings have implications for students, faculty, student affairs professionals in athletics, and others who frequently interact with student-athletes and are committed to reducing pernicious stigmas in higher education environments.

Noncompaction cardiomyopathy, a frequently overlooked entity (…but beware of over diagnosis!)

Noncompaction cardiomyopathy, a frequently overlooked entity (…but beware of over diagnosis!)

The hubris penalty: Biased responses to “Celebration” displays of black football players

We posit that pride and arrogance are tolerated for high-status group members but are repudiated for low-status group members. Thus, we predict that Blacks, but not Whites, who behave arrogantly will be penalized. Specifically, we investigated the context of penalties against football players for “celebrating” after touchdowns. We propose that such celebrations reflect a racially biased “hubris penalty” because: (1) celebrations are primarily perceived as displays of arrogance (rather than exuberance), and (2) arrogance is penalized for Black but not White players. Three experiments demonstrate that all players who celebrated after touchdowns were perceived as more arrogant than those who did not celebrate. Although celebratory Black and White players were perceived as being equally arrogant, Black players were penalized with lower compensation whereas White players were not. Mediation analyses show that perceived arrogance mediated the effect of celebration on compensation, even when controlling for perceived aggression.

Black Football Players on a Predominantly White College Campus: Psychosocial and Emotional Realities of the Black College Athlete Experience

Black student-athletes have been the focus of study regarding academic and psychosocial adjustment to college since the 1960s. Although recent literature generally reports higher graduation rates for Black student-athletes compared to their nonathlete peers, little attention has been given to their psychosocial experiences on predominantly White college campuses. The current study explored the social experiences of a small group of Black football players attending a predominantly White university in the northeastern United States. A qualitative “grounded theory” methodology was employed for data collection and analysis and a coding system was created centered on the main areas of team, campus, and city experiences. Findings revealed that the Black players felt isolated, rejected, and mistrustful of their Black and White classmates and teammates. They also felt unfairly judged by their coaches and campus community. Other team, campus, and city issues were revealed, all of which negatively influenced these players' emotional and educational experiences. Implications for recruitment, retention, and educational policy are discussed.

Point:Counterpoint: Sickle cell trait should/should not be considered asymptomatic and as a benign condition during physical activity

Sickle cell trait (SCT) is found in ∼8% of African Americans and may be found in up to 40% of West Africans. However, most of them are unaware of their status. This observation suggests that SCT may be asymptomatic and remains a benign condition for daily life activities ([5][1]). Indeed, numerous

Perceptions of Black Intercollegiate Football Players: Implications for the Sport Psychology Consultant

The purpose of this exploratory study was to ascertain the feelings of black male intercollegiate (Division I) football athletes about racial issues of personal concern as a sport participant. Twenty-six black football players volunteered to participate in the study. Through a structured interview technique, areas that were investigated included the players’ interaction with the (white) head coach, unique behavioral styles and needs of black versus white athletes, the extent to which these needs were recognized and met, and the effect of their sport environment on skilled performance. The subjects reported a general lack of sensitivity on the part of coaches to individual and sociocultural needs of black players. In particular, receiving negative feedback, a paucity of communication in general, and the lack of honesty and trust were the areas about which the subjects felt most strongly. Blacks unequivocally perceived a sense of unfairness, racism, and a general lack of psychological support by white coaches. Implications are given for providing sport psychology counseling to black athletes, especially by white consultants.

Differences in the Recruitment of Black and White Football Players At a Big Eight University

In the United States, collegiate and professional sports are avenues of social mobility for individuals from low-income households and are particularly important for blacks. But mobility of a few minority individuals does not erase the stereotypical image of their group held by the dominant group. When individual members of a minority group acquire positions in the dominant society from which they formerly had been excluded, they re main inferior and unequal in the minds of dominants. This paper compares procedures at Kansas State University for recruiting black football players with those for recruiting non- black players. Two themes are argued in this paper. First, minority individuals must be more qualified occupationally if they are to participate in a dominant setting. Second, in a dominant setting, members of minority groups are treated unequally regardless of how qualified they are.

Sickle Cell Hemoglobin (Hb AS) in Black Football Players

The prevalence of Hb AS, the sickle cell trait condition, was determined in black football players in the National Football League. Hemoglobin electrophoresis on cellulose acetate of 579 blood samples revealed 39 (6.7%) with Hb AS, 11 (1.9%) with Hb AC, 6 (1.0%) with elevated A2, and 2 samples with a combination of Hb A and a rapidly migrating hemoglobin. This prevalence of Hb AS, 6.7%, is not significantly different from that found in the black population in the United States, indicating that there has not been a selective exclusion from professional football of individuals with Hb AS due to possible limitations in physical capabilities.

Sickle cell hemoglobin (Hb AS) in black football players

Sickle cell hemoglobin (Hb AS) in black football players