Playing without Power: Black Male NCAA Student‐Athletes Living with Structural Racism

Abstract

Black male football players are stigmatized as being aggressive and violent in news media and on campus. The violent behavior of Black athletes is often explained as a result of masculinity “gone awry.” This article examines NCAA Black male athletes’ experiences with structural violence on a university campus in order to complicate this trope. Through ethnographic research with student‐athletes, it offers insights into how Black men experience and respond to daily encounters with racism in a predominantly White university. I show how Black male student‐athletes harbor significant anger, frustration, and sadness where they are aware of their treatment as bodies and not people. This can be seen in how they are expected to meet high standards of physical performance while being marginalized in the university, including lack of access to proper sleep and nutrition, contingent funding, and precarious student status. In addition, these athletes are paraded around the university as specimens of Black prowess, which also impacts their self‐esteem and feelings of power. I argue that we must understand Black male student‐athletes’ behavior through their lived experiences within the structural violence of the university setting. Violent behaviors can thus be read through the context of desires to exert power in relation to their daily lived experiences with racism and structural violence in college sports.

Intersectionality matters: Gender, race/ethnicity, and sport level differentiate perceived coach-created motivational climates and psychological needs.

“…Black male athletes perceived the coach-created climate as being more disempowering and more frustrating of their psychological needs than White male athletes and female athletes of all races/ethnicities; effect sizes were small for all significant differences. These results are consistent with past research on Black male athletes’ negative experiences (e.g., Singer, 2005; Yearwood, 2018) and indicate the importance of considering the intersection of identities in understanding athletes’ perceptions of their sport environments. The perceived ego involving and controlling coach-created climates, and greater frustrations of all three psychological needs, may result from Black male athletes often being forced to play certain positions and show athleticism rooted in gender and racial stereotypes and assumptions about their abilities (Cooper et al, 2013; Singer, 2005).…”

Healthy masculinity construction: The influence of race, faith and athletics

“…athletics, urban community). For example, Black male athletes are often depicted by their physical prowess in the athletic arena (Yearwood, 2018). The media messages that circulate in popular culture can influence youth perceptions of masculinity.…”

“…Due to institutional, systemic and structural racism, young men living in urban cities—particularly young Black men and other youth of colour—are at risk for developing negative self‐identities related to masculinity (Newman et al, 2021). Within the context of athletics, 1 Black males are showcased in such a way as to capitalize on their physical prowess while their individual identities are marginalized (Yearwood, 2018). Simultaneously, Black males are socialized into athletics as a career pathway by limiting exposure to other activities in early life (Beamon, 2010).…”

A Latent Class Approach to Understanding Associations between Sports Participation, Substance Use, Dismissive Attitudes, and Sexual Violence Perpetration among High School Athletes

“…Finally, the societies and communities in which sports are embedded also play a role in ascribing power to athletes. Despite often being manipulated or disempowered by institutions governing sports (e.g., NCAA, NFL; McLeran, 2017 ; Yearwood, 2018 ), socially, athletes often wield social power in their communities. Athletes are often made into celebrities and awarded copious attention and high wages.…”