“Tackling the Everyday: Race and Nation in Big-Time College Football” by Tracie Canada, offers a Black feminist perspective on the exploitation, kinship and care shaping the lives of Black college football players, revealing how the sport harms these young men despite the “football family” narrative.
As a Duke undergraduate student, Canada was fascinated by the popularity of basketball players on campus.
“The basketball and football teams were both predominantly Black teams, the athletes were all marked by their exceptional embodied size, and both sets of athletes dedicated a significant amount of time to their sport, but the hardwood athletes were valued in a completely different way because they contributed to a winning program,” Canada said. “I started to pay attention to how my friends on the gridiron were treated, as members of a team that wasn’t as successful and as Black athletes on a historically white campus.”
It was important for Canada to produce a book that highlighted the actual lived experiences of Black college athletes.
“Instead of these repeated — often stereotypical and problematic — narratives, I hope that readers gain a different perspective about what it’s like to play a dangerous and violent sport like football at this competitive level and how this participation directly impacts the lives of players,” Canada said. “This sport not only has tangible impacts on the bodies of those who play, it also influences their relationships with one another and with their universities and teams, challenges what is expected of a college student who is pursuing a degree, and often limits their career opportunities post-graduation.”
Canada’s intended audience includes a broad range of readers, primarily students and scholars in fields such as anthropology, sociology, race studies, sports, education and social inequality.
Her favorite part of the book is revisiting the authentic voices and stories of the football players.
“They animate not only the finished product, but also the immersive research I conducted in order to even write the book,” Canada said. “I think it’s good to constantly remind myself of the who and why of this book.”
In addition to being an author, Canada is the Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor of cultural anthropology at Duke University. She is based in Durham, North Carolina.
For more information about the author and her work, visit traciecanada.com.
“Tackling the Everyday: Race and Nation in Big-Time College Football” is available for $29.95 online through the University of California Press, Bookshop, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon.
