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noom.com. up, y'all. This episode

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language, which means it's fitting to be

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some cousin. What's good? You're listening to Code

0:23

Switch. I'm Jean Denby. By the time you

0:25

hear this... The winner of Super Bowl 59

0:28

will be decided, but since we're recording this

0:30

before the game, I can't really know if

0:32

my eagles have won. Let me back up

0:34

a little bit. Let me just do some

0:37

story time with you. So when I first

0:39

met my now wife, one of the things

0:41

we found out we had in common was

0:43

football. Like when we first started kicking it,

0:45

she would come over to my crib on

0:48

these fall Sundays with her big ass 49ers

0:50

scarf, and she would drape it over the

0:52

back of my couch. It was really long

0:54

to like fit the whole length of the

0:57

couch. And I'll put on my eagle's fitted

0:59

hat, you know what I mean? And we'd

1:01

settle in, put on NFL Red Zone. That's

1:03

this channel where you can basically where you

1:05

can basically watch all the action across the

1:08

action across the league that day. but with

1:10

no commercials. It's just guzzling straight from the

1:12

hydrant of football. And my now wife used

1:14

to get so mad when the Niners lost.

1:17

She would just have a stink attitude for

1:19

the rest of the afternoon. And I just

1:21

completely understood that like I empathize because

1:23

I was the same way. So I

1:25

realized like, oh, she was my people.

1:28

When her people first came to the

1:30

States in the 1980s, they settled in

1:32

a little suburb of San Francisco and

1:34

football. was a big part of how

1:37

they became. I mean, American. Her

1:39

fathers, her uncles, they watched the

1:41

games and they learned the absolutely

1:43

Byzantine rules of this sport just

1:45

so they had a way to

1:47

make small talk with strangers, right,

1:49

to make it easy to connect

1:51

with people. It also helped that

1:54

this was in the days of Joe

1:56

Montana and Jerry Rice who came from

1:58

the future to change the. sport. Her

2:00

family just stumbled into a legendary football

2:02

dynasty. I'm not hating. Maybe I'm hating

2:04

a little bit, but she just wasn't

2:06

steeped in anguish like a lot of

2:08

people were. Anyway, so you might be

2:10

wondering, gee, why 'all talking about this on

2:12

CoatWish, baby? Okay, let me explain. Let

2:14

me explain. The Super Bowl is the

2:16

biggest event on TV. It is the

2:18

most watched broadcast in America. Even some

2:20

college football games regularly top the ratings.

2:22

And of course, most of the players

2:25

who play the sport on the college

2:27

level and on the pro level are

2:29

black and brown. And amidst all that,

2:31

it's more and more information that we're

2:33

learning about the huge costs of playing

2:35

football for the people who play it,

2:37

like a host of debilitating brain diseases

2:39

that won't show up until long after

2:41

most players have hung up their cleats

2:43

for good. Can I say that I

2:45

am a fan of a sport that

2:47

is inherently violent, that's disproportionately black, that

2:49

has a ton of issues that deal

2:51

with labor, that deal with injury, that

2:53

deal with race, that deal with gender.

2:55

Can I say that? Like, no, I

2:57

can't say that. That voice you're hearing

2:59

belongs to Tracy Canada. Tracy is a

3:01

cultural anthropologist at Duke University and she

3:03

studies the experiences of black college football

3:05

players. We talked to her a couple

3:07

years ago, but we've been thinking a

3:09

lot about that conversation we had with

3:11

her lately. There's some academics that say

3:13

that the sport should go away completely.

3:15

That it's just too, there's too much

3:17

that's wrapped up in it and it's

3:19

too bad of a thing and it's

3:22

not doing any good. And so we

3:24

need to get rid of it. I'm

3:26

not in that camp. I see the

3:28

potential in it. I see why people

3:30

play it. I see why people are

3:32

interested in it. I just think it

3:34

can be better for the people that

3:36

are participating. And that's what I'm motivated

3:38

by. The way football

3:40

is played and who plays it

3:42

from the Peewees to the pros,

3:44

it tells us so much about race

3:46

and labor and power in the

3:48

United States. And so for today

3:50

and the next two Mondays, we're

3:53

going to break all this down because

3:55

if you're a football fan like

3:57

me and my lady and much

3:59

of the nation as we talked

4:01

about. We are implicated in so much of this. Especially if we're

4:03

looking at college, we're talking about

4:05

labor exploitation, right? The fact that

4:07

coaches, the fact that conferences, the

4:09

fact that the NCAA, the fact

4:11

that these universities make money off

4:13

of what is happening on a

4:15

field. So there is a complete

4:17

disconnect between who makes the money

4:19

and who makes the money, like

4:21

who actually has money in their

4:23

pocket, and who makes money in

4:25

their pocket. And so that's one

4:27

thing. And then once we get to...

4:29

who is actually on the field doing

4:31

all of this, we see that it

4:34

is disproportionately black men that are doing

4:36

it. So let's just use even numbers

4:38

and say that there's 100 players on

4:40

a field, 100 players on a team.

4:42

It'll probably be about half of

4:44

them are black. Right? And so that is

4:47

a complete disconnect between the population of

4:49

black folks in this country, between the

4:51

population of black students on a campus,

4:53

but they are completely overrepresented on this

4:56

field. And so even if all of

4:58

the players are impacted by the injuries,

5:00

even though not at the same rate

5:02

because different positions are impacted differently, even

5:05

if all of the players have the

5:07

potential to be injured, it's still disproportionately

5:09

affecting black men. And I think that

5:11

that is like those two things together are

5:14

what people are often. targeting as like why

5:16

this shouldn't exist in the first place. And

5:18

that imbalance does not start in college. It

5:20

starts when kids are really little, when they first

5:22

put on their pads in the Pewy days. So

5:25

one thing you need to know if you're not

5:27

a football head, if you're not like a sports

5:29

fan, is that there are... a lot of racial stereotypes

5:31

that go along with who plays, which

5:33

positions in football. If it's a position

5:35

that requires speed and strengthen athleticism, those

5:38

are generally considered black positions, right? Think

5:40

about wild receivers who catch the ball,

5:42

running backs, defensive backs, but positions that

5:44

are considered more strategic, that are considered

5:46

more strategic, that require a lot of

5:48

savvy, like quarterbacks, like centers, those are

5:50

considered white positions. And players are kind

5:52

of nudged into these positions. I mean,

5:54

there's a long history of black quarterbacks,

5:56

for example being converted into other roles

5:58

on the field, you know. roles This

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in IMAX everywhere, February

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14th. Gene, just Gene, code switch. So

9:10

college football teams are disproportionately black. But

9:12

even before they get to college, black

9:15

players, black players are often tracked. into

9:17

the most physically taxing position based on

9:19

what coaches assume about what their bodies

9:22

can do. We've been hearing from Tracy

9:24

Canada, who studies the experiences of black

9:26

college football players about all of this.

9:29

But before we get back to Tracy,

9:31

I want to introduce you to someone

9:33

you'll be hearing from more next week.

9:35

Dominic Foxworth played pro ball for seven

9:38

years, but he was telling me about his roommate

9:40

in college who never even made it to the

9:42

NFL. He's gonna have to have

9:44

his hip replaced also and his knee probably

9:46

replaced also and he had his finger shattered

9:49

He had all this stuff and he didn't

9:51

even play in the NFL now think about

9:53

the guys who played four years in college

9:55

Accumulated all those bumps and bruises then played

9:58

three years in the NFL and then has

10:00

minimum salaries based on your years

10:02

of service. So you play three

10:04

years in the NFL. Why that

10:06

matters is because once you play

10:08

that, then your salary may jump,

10:10

which then makes it more expensive

10:12

to keep you, which then runs

10:14

you out of the league before

10:16

you can get vested. And then

10:18

you are left with all this

10:20

stuff and then, all right, you

10:22

haven't even made enough money. to

10:24

like I got the second contract

10:26

I went down Atlanta I played

10:28

well enough to get a big

10:30

contract in Baltimore I was fortunate

10:32

that worked out for me but

10:34

there's so many other people who

10:36

then get run out of league

10:38

without access to a pension without

10:40

the the five years of health

10:42

care and also frankly well behind

10:44

where they should be and Dominic

10:46

said it's not just the injuries

10:48

that set people back I mean

10:50

playing football in college means you're

10:52

not really ready for life beyond

10:54

football You had your major determined

10:57

by how it fits your football

10:59

schedule. When I got to Maryland,

11:01

I wanted a computer science major.

11:03

And the advisor was like, sure,

11:05

you can do that. But there

11:07

are labs during practice in a

11:09

major like this. So sometimes you're

11:12

going to have to miss practice

11:14

for that. And like, it was

11:16

clear to me what she was

11:18

saying. It's like, you don't, if

11:20

you want to be serious about

11:22

football, you can't do this. And

11:25

I would probably have gotten my

11:27

scholarship taken. In the, during breaks,

11:29

we were working out during winter

11:31

break. During summer, we were up

11:33

there working out while other kids

11:35

were getting internships or other kids

11:37

were developing professional relationships. We were

11:40

working out. And so like... How

11:42

far behind we actually are the

11:44

regular workforce and then all of

11:46

a sudden you no longer have

11:48

a football career and They drop

11:50

you in the world with your

11:53

only relevant experiences hitting motherfuckers like

11:55

That don't that's not all that

11:57

helpful and then on top of

11:59

it if you're a black person,

12:01

a black man, you're like, all

12:03

right, well, I have football experience.

12:06

What Dominic and Tracy are

12:08

referring to are things that are

12:10

deeply ingrained in the game

12:12

and cultural football. But Tracy

12:14

says there are things that could help.

12:16

I would say that the rate at

12:18

which injuries are addressed needs to be

12:20

sped up because often in college

12:23

guys are encouraged to wait on

12:25

surgeries so that they can keep playing.

12:27

So something that I see on college campuses

12:29

all the time is after bowl season or

12:31

after the season ends, that's when you see

12:33

a lot of guys on crutches, a lot

12:35

of guys in slings, because they've had their

12:37

surgeries now, because they made it through the

12:40

season, right? But they got injured in October.

12:42

So I think that that's a problem, because

12:44

those are things that will impact them down

12:46

the line, right? Absolutely. Even if in the

12:49

moment it is probably okay for you

12:51

to not address this immediately, like when you're

12:53

30, that we'll come back up. Almost

12:55

guaranteed. So that's one thing.

12:57

Second thing in college I think needs

12:59

to be done everywhere is to encourage

13:02

players to explore things outside of

13:04

their athletic identities because so much

13:06

time and attention is placed on

13:09

them as football players that statistically

13:11

it is impossible for all of

13:13

them to go to the league.

13:15

Even statistically it's impossible for

13:17

them to play professional, right? Like even

13:19

if they go to Canada or something.

13:21

Most of them are not going to

13:23

play. past graduation. And I

13:26

don't think that most of them are

13:28

equipped to deal with what's going to

13:30

happen when they stop playing. And so

13:32

there needs to be some type of,

13:34

there needs to be some type of programming

13:37

in place at every

13:39

institution and like actually

13:41

serious programming. of connecting players with

13:43

alums at their universities, of connecting them

13:45

to guys that used to play who

13:48

are in different jobs now, that's not

13:50

football related, or like not playing football

13:52

related, those connections need to be made

13:55

for guys that are in college because

13:57

I don't think that they are adequately

13:59

prepared to. graduate, right? And if the

14:02

conversation is that we give you

14:04

the scholarship, which is I don't

14:06

agree with this, right, but if

14:08

the narrative is you get this

14:10

scholarship, you get a college education,

14:12

that is your payment for being

14:14

here, the education, the education that

14:16

they receive are not the same

14:18

education that other students on that

14:20

campus receive because they are not

14:22

able to benefit from being a

14:24

student in the same way, right?

14:26

So I think that that needs

14:28

to be addressed at the college

14:30

level. And there's just two things

14:32

that come to mind. For the

14:34

NFL, the thing that comes to

14:36

mind, and I don't know as

14:38

much about the ins and outs

14:40

of this because I don't look

14:42

at these structures specifically, but it

14:44

came out from the Damar Hamlin

14:46

injury, is the way that these

14:48

contracts work, right? And the ways

14:50

that these contracts work, right? And

14:52

the ways that if you're on

14:55

the injury reserve list, if you

14:57

do get injured and you can

14:59

no longer play, like there has

15:01

to be something that will. So

15:03

that they can still get paid,

15:05

right? Because even if the argument

15:07

between college and NFL is that

15:09

you are now being paid, not

15:11

all of them have these giant

15:13

salaries, right? Like not everyone is

15:15

getting paid the way that Russell

15:17

Wilson is being paid. And if

15:19

all the objects are generally not

15:21

guaranteed, and the average NFL career

15:23

I think is at three years

15:25

right now. So most of them

15:27

are not even staying that long

15:29

to be able to benefit from

15:31

the potential of these giant contracts

15:33

that, like these giant contracts and

15:35

salaries that they... that's dangled in

15:37

front of them, right? And so

15:39

something needs to be fixed. Again,

15:41

I don't know all of the

15:43

ins and outs in this, but

15:45

something needs to happen so that

15:47

these guys are taking care of

15:50

no matter what, because they have

15:52

been through all of this to

15:54

get to that point, and then

15:56

you're going to say that two

15:58

years in, I'm going to get

16:00

injured, and I actually don't get

16:02

this big pot of money that

16:04

has been the incentive for me

16:06

to be here. There's all these

16:08

issues at the NFL level. And

16:10

then even once you're retired, that

16:12

all point back to anti-blackness within

16:14

the system, which is going to...

16:16

to directly impact black players that

16:18

are participating, which again is disproportionately

16:20

the labor force for this entire

16:22

sport at every level. We asked

16:24

the NFL to respond to allegations

16:26

about anti-blackness in the system, but

16:28

we didn't hear back by the

16:30

time we had to record this

16:32

episode. All right y'all, next Monday,

16:34

more for more conversation with Dominic

16:36

Foxworth. After Dominic left his pro

16:38

career he became the head of

16:40

the NFL players union and he

16:43

fought with the NFO over what

16:45

it owed his former players, former

16:47

players who pay the physical price

16:49

for this game that America loved

16:51

so much. I mean it was

16:53

incredibly difficult because what was uncovered

16:55

at that town was not just

16:57

a connection between CTE and like

16:59

dementia and Alzheimer's and there was

17:01

also the idea that they knew

17:03

that they knew. way before we

17:05

did and had actively hit it.

17:07

So clearly in many cases show

17:09

that they don't respect us as

17:11

anything more than pieces to a

17:13

machine that can be subbed in

17:15

and subbed out. You

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can follow us on Instagram at NPR

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episode you're listening to was produced by

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Xavier Lopez. It was edited by Dahlia

17:54

Martada, Courtney Stein, and Jasmine Romero. Our

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engineer was James Willets. I would be

17:59

remiss if the nonchalant of the rest...

18:01

of the Code Switch Massive, that's Christina

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