Tackling the Everyday: Race and Nation in Big-Time College FootballA Black feminist take on exploitation and care in America's favorite game. Big-time college football promises prestige, drama, media attention, and money. Yet most athletes in this unpaid, amateur system encounter a different reality, facing dangerous injuries, few pro-career opportunities, a free but devalued college education, and future financial instability. In one of the first ethnographies about Black college football players, anthropologist Tracie Canada reveals the ways young athletes strategically resist the exploitative systems that structure their everyday lives. Tackling the Everyday shows how college football particularly harms the young Black men who are overrepresented on gridirons across the country. Although coaches and universities constantly invoke the misleading "football family" narrative, this book describes how a brotherhood among Black players operates alongside their caring mothers, who support them on and off the field. With a Black feminist approach—one that highlights often-overlooked voices—Canada exposes how race, gender, kinship, and care shape the lives of the young athletes who shoulder America's favorite game. |
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Tackling the Everyday: Race and Nation in Big-Time College Football Tracie Canada Limited preview - 2025 |
Tackling the Everyday: Race and Nation in Big-Time College Football Tracie Canada No preview available - 2025 |
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academic Academic Majors activities administrators African American Alexander Allen Iverson American football anthropologist anti-Black asked athletic body ball basketball Black athletes Black college football Black feminist Black football players Black male Black masculinity Black mothers Black players Braxton campus Carter chapter Charlie Coach Smith Cobb college athletes college football players College Sports cool cornerback corporeal concern Culture defensive backs described disciplining Duke University ESPN everyday experiences explained exploitation football brotherhood football brothers football family football programs football team fraternity Gender graduate gridiron head coach highlight injury institutions interactions Jaden jokes Jordyn Kevin Durant kindred labor learned linebacker lives Mellon Football moms NCAA Nick Saban normative offensive lineman organizations pandemic participation performance physical plantation potential Power Five Race racial racism relationship Savion social sons space student-athlete surveillance tackle teammates tion told training camp University Press violence Walter Byers weight room York young Black