Race and the NFL Draft: Views from the Auction Block

Qual Sociol (2009) 32:53–73
DOI 10.1007/s11133-008-9119-8

Race and the NFL Draft: Views from the Auction Block

Mikaela J. Dufur & Seth L. Feinberg

Published online: 9 December 2008
# Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2008

Abstract Previous research suggests that minorities are more likely to perceive racially-based
discrimination in a variety of settings than are whites, in large part because of the ways their
personal experiences with racism shape the lens they use to view the world. We examine a labor
market that is typically considered an exception to patterns of racism in employment, the
industry of professional football. We interview athletes who attempted to gain employment in
the National Football League, a labor market where access to valued positions is heavily
restricted by industry practices. Findings from field research and semi-structured interviews
indicate that minority workers experience symbolic discrimination during the hiring process.
Differential treatment of players reflects stereotypes about minority families and masculinity.
Although minority and white players describe much of the actual content of their labor market
experiences in similar fashion, their perceptions of these experiences differ sharply, with
minority athletes identifying far more negative repercussions.

Keywords Race . Hiring . Labor markets . Discrimination . Sports

Race scholars note two distinctive forms of discrimination endured by persons of color:
overt and symbolic. Bobo and Smith (1998) explain how the racial attitudes of dominant
whites have evolved from overt racism, illustrated by Jim Crow segregation, to more
symbolic or “laissez-faire” racism. In contemporary American culture, laissez-faire racism
stems from institutionalized disadvantages accrued because of prior overt discrimination
and results in the development of attitudes that blame African-Americans and other
minorities for their own failure to achieve equality in a post-Civil Rights era (Bobo and
Smith 1998). Thus, although discriminatory hiring practices, housing restrictions, unequal

M. J. Dufur (*)
Department of Sociology, 2008 JFSB, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA
e-mail: mikaela_dufur@byu.edu

S. L. Feinberg
Department of Sociology, Western Washington University, 516 High Street MS 9081, Bellingham, WA
98225-9081, USA
e-mail: seth.feinberg@wwu.edu

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access to the judicial system, and other forms of overt racism were supposed to become a
historical relic following the enactment of Civil Rights legislation in 1964, prejudicial
attitudes of racial inferiority and unconscious biases remain entrenched in the minds of
many white Americans, resulting in symbolic discrimination that perpetuates inequitable
access to resources, including desirable positions in the labor market (Bobo and Massagli
2001; Bobo and Suh 2000; Feagin 1991). Additionally, a considerable body of research
demonstrates that people from different racial and ethnic backgrounds may interpret cues
and situations through lenses that are shaped very differently because of the experiences
individuals have with prejudice and discrimination (cf. Fine and Turner 2001; Kinder and
Sanders 1996; Schuman et al. 1997). To investigate the overlapping contexts of overt and
symbolic discrimination, we interview elite workers vying for employment in an industry
where minority workers have enjoyed great success—professional football. We examine
how race plays a part both in the labor market experiences of top workers and how workers
from different ethnic backgrounds might have different interpretations of these labor market
practices.

Experiencing and interpreting social outcomes through the lens of race

While racial attitudes have become considerably more egalitarian since the Civil Rights era
(Schuman et al. 1997), studies of workplaces, schools, neighborhoods, and other public
spaces demonstrate that many whites, even those who favor equality, continue to employ
discriminatory attitudes and practices when they can rationalize them (see Dovidio and
Gaertner 2000). When whites internalize negative stereotypes about minorities, they may
unconsciously make erroneous judgments about individuals based on group stereotypes.
The impact of misguided stereotyping results in well-documented problems and stresses
when minorities come into contact with power structures inhabited by primarily white
decision-makers. Extant research suggests that such discrimination is found in venues such
as labor markets (Feagin and Imani 1994; Pager and Quillian 2005), classrooms (Andrews
1996; Downey and Pribesh 2004; Feagin et al. 1996), and consumer exchanges (Feagin
1991).
   In addition, the internalization of stereotypes and discrimination leads to whites’ and
minorities’ differential perceptions of racialized attitudes and experiences. For example,
black and white residents in different neighborhoods report very different perceptions about
how the police view and interact with citizens, with blacks reporting more negative
perceptions and experiences (Weitzer 2000). White and black workers report divergent
opinions on the degree to which race is a barrier to promotion in the workplace (Cose
1993). Black, white, and Chicano students describe significant differences in the racial
tension they observe on college campuses, as well as in their interpretations of what it
means for an institution of higher learning to be committed to diversity (Hurtado 1992). As
Kinder and Sanders (1996) observe, blacks see a society in which their white peers fear
minorities, while whites see a world where racism is rare and there are few obstacles to
success for those who work hard and make good choices (see also Schuman et al. 1997).
Minorities and whites, then, may bring very different “scripts” to bear in interpreting their
social experiences (cf. Fine and Turner 2001; Gilliam and Iyenger 2000). Ironically, one of
the perceptions African Americans and whites appear to share is that whites have negative
views about minorities (Sigelman and Tuch 1997).
   We suggest that minorities’ scripts differ from whites’ because they have been the targets
of more discriminatory acts of both overt and symbolic natures. In other words, minorities’

Qual Sociol (2009) 32:53–73                                                                              55

experiences with racism may have better sensitized them to correctly identify racialized
language and behaviors. For example, blacks may feel that the police view them differently
than whites because they are more likely to be pulled over for local stops but no more likely
than whites to be stopped at highway speeds when it is unlikely troopers can identify
drivers’ race (Warren et al. 2006). Minorities may feel differently about the effect of race on
access to good jobs because their paths to promotion really do differ from whites’ (Baldi
and McBrier 1997). Students of color might identify more racial strife on campuses because
they’ve personally experienced the kind of discrimination that leads to tension between
groups, better sensitizing them to existing conflicts (Hurtado 1992). Coupled with their
personal experiences, minorities’ lack of access to institutions and positions of power from
which to change these patterns socialize them to identify racist practices but to doubt
whether real change can be affected (Weitzer 2000). We define here overt racism as
institutionalized laws, policies and practices that block minority progress and symbolic
racism as individuals’ race-based practices resulting from internalized stereotypes and
prejudices that, while perhaps unintentional, may lead to discriminatory practices against
and reduced opportunities for people of color. Using this framework, we examine an arena
in which minorities have had a good deal of success, professional sports, for evidence both
that racial practices have shifted toward symbolic racism and that minority workers,
because of previous experiences with racism, are more likely to identify power struggles as
racist practices.
   Discussions of sport in the popular media often assume that athletic competition is one
prominent social arena largely free of racial bias and discrimination.1 Many athletes in the
most visible U.S. sports are African American or Latino (and to a lesser degree Asian and
Polynesian), and these athletes are beginning to move into playing positions previously
staffed only by white athletes (cf. Buffington 2005; Roderick 2002; Woodward 2004).
Some minority athletes in the public eye also enjoy lucrative contracts from teams and from
corporate sponsors whose products they endorse (Dufur 1997). From the outside looking in,
professional football appears to be a labor market where racial prejudice is superseded by
skills necessary for success on the playing field.
   However, just as employers may use stereotypes about race and ethnicity that hurt
minority workers’ chances of being hired (cf. Hughes and Dodge 1997; Pager and Quillian
2005) or neighbors might employ negative stereotypes about African Americans and crime
when considering living situations (cf. Farley et al. 1994; Quillian and Pager 2002), owners,
administrators, and coaches in sports organizations may cling to negative stereotypes about
athletes of color. In addition, minority athletes, via their exposure to racist stereotypes and
actions in sports and other settings, may interpret their hiring experiences differently than
their white peers do. We examine the draft mechanisms in the professional football labor
market both to identify discriminatory practices in the hiring process for potential
employees and to investigate how minority players’ perceptions of the hiring process
differ from those of their white colleagues.

1
  Cf. Price’s (1997) Sports Illustrated cover story entitled “Whatever Happened to the White Athlete?” or
Gay’s (2007) response in the San Francisco Chronicle to Donavan McNabb’s claim that black quarterbacks
face greater scrutiny for examples of the ways mainstream media dismiss the issue of minority status in
modern sport. In addition, several scholarly examinations of mass media treatments of sport have identified
racial signifiers and stereotypes in print and broadcast coverage of sporting events, as well as dismissive
attitudes towards concerns about such cavalier use of race in those settings (cf. Billings 2004; Eastman and
Billings 2001; Hardin et al. 2004; Hartmann 2007; Oates 2004; Rada 1996; Rada and Wulfemeyer 2005).

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Labor markets, race, and sport as contested terrain

A long history of social science research demonstrates that employment outcomes are
anything but a level playing field when it comes to race. Minority workers are more likely
to be relegated to secondary labor markets or firms in peripheral markets, to have their
human capital devalued by hiring agents, and to work in less pleasant conditions, with less
autonomy and for fewer rewards (cf. Tomaskovic-Devey 1994; Wilson 2001). While
minority workers endure discriminatory treatment during the hiring process, extant research
also illustrates that they perceive and respond to labor market dynamics differently than
their white counterparts (Romero 1992; Wilson 1996). Persons of color are particularly
likely to perceive negative racial cues in the hiring for lower-status positions or in severely
constrained labor markets (Hondagneu-Sotelo 2001; Romero 1992; Royster 2003).
Minority workers may experience more overt discrimination, but they may also be more
adept at recognizing racialized symbols and practices, becoming marginalized through their
experiences in an inequitable labor market.
   Similarly, a substantial scholastic literature outlines continuing racism in a variety of
sports settings (cf. Cunningham and Sagas 2005; Hartmann 2000a, b; King et al. 2002;
Rasmussen et al. 2005; Roderick 2002; Springwood 2004, 2006). For example, coaches
have demonstrated a tendency to place white athletes in central, decision-making positions
(such as quarterback) while placing minority athletes in peripheral positions where the
emphasis is on physical speed or strength (e.g., running back or cornerback), a tendency
sports scholars refer to as “stacking” (Leonard 1987; Lewis 1995; Phillips 1997; Roderick
2002; Smith and Leonard 1997; Stebbins 1993). In addition, although nearly 25% of
Division I assistant football coaches are African American, only seven of the 119 Division I
teams opened the 2007–2008 college football season with African Americans as head
coaches. These findings highlight the importance of examining the ways race plays a part in
organizing athletes and athletic opportunities.
   Even as minority athletes are productive on the field of play, white actors who have
traditionally held the institutional power to determine the meanings of race in sport, such as
coaches, advertisers, and broadcasters, continue to exert that power in ways that keep the
issues of race and racism salient. Such conflicts highlight the ways the perceptions of
minority and white participants in sports settings diverge specifically because of the
historical meanings and codes attached to race (cf. Hartmann 2007; Hawkins 2001; Rhoden
2006). For example, a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) rule introduced in
1995 penalizing football players for “excessive” celebration highlighted a cultural divide
between those with the power to make the rules—largely older white men who had coached
for many years—and the players who would have to adhere to the rule. Minority players,
particularly African Americans, objected to these rules as insensitive to cultural practices
and differences (Andrews 1996). African American players’ lack of access to any
mechanism to change the rules reveals how the concentration of off-the-field power in
white rulemakers’ hands allows for continued debate over the symbols, rules, and meaning
within sport (Hartmann 2000a, b, 2007). Similarly, the debate over the use of mascots
employing Native American stereotypes highlights the ways the meanings of race are being
debated in sport, as well as the ways power and access to institutions affect whose voices
are most influential in that debate (King et al. 2002; Springwood 2004).
   Social scientists also find evidence that racism exists within mass media presentation of
sporting competitions. For example, white male professional athletes tend to be assessed as
having high leadership skills, high mental acuity, and strong work ethics, all valuable assets
in other labor markets, including the coaching labor market. Minority professional athletes,

Qual Sociol (2009) 32:53–73                                                                 57

by contrast, tend to be credited with inborn strength or speed, negating the possibility that
they may also succeed because of hard work and intelligence (Billings 2004; Childs 1999;
Eastman and Billings 2001; Hardin et al. 2004; Rada 1996; Rada and Wulfemeyer 2005;
Rasmussen et al. 2005; Woodward 2004). Some analyses suggest that racial stereotypes
reflected in the institution of sport are spread to other facets of society via advertising and
journalistic coverage of sporting events (Dufur 1997; Hartmann 2007; Messner and
Solomon 1993).
    The relationship between cultural norms assigning lesser value to people of color and the
increasing cultural importance of sport may lead to a reification of racial stereotypes
through greater exposure to them (Hartmann 2000a, b). Sport is not, in this formulation, a
major institution that allows greater opportunity for minorities, but is rather “contested
terrain” where the meanings of race and culture are argued and passed on via discriminatory
attitudes and practices (Birrell 1989; Cornell and Hartmann 1997; Hartmann 2000a, b). In
addition, black athletes’ perceptions of the nature of such symbolic discrimination are often
dismissed because of their position in sports and other power structures (Hartmann 2007;
Hawkins 2001; see also Weitzer 2000). Because a large portion of the training that develops
sport-related human capital takes place in educational settings (high schools and colleges),
we would expect that years of dealing with educational institutions with mixed (at best)
records on diversity and racial sensitivity would train minority athletes to be better able to
recognize such discriminatory symbols and practices.
    In this paper, we investigate the potential presence of racial discrimination as the hiring
is happening, before athletes are even selected by a team. We examine the possibility that
minority athletes will identify racial stereotyping and codes their white counterparts will
either not experience or not recognize. If such differences exist, we determine whether they
stem from institutionalized policies and regulations blocking minority advancement
(demonstrating overt racism) or from individual hiring agents’ internalization of racist
stereotypes and practices (demonstrating more symbolic racism). Given the historic use of
race in assessing minority athletes, there is sufficient theoretical support to expect that
minority athletes may experience the hiring process of the NFL as yet another form of racial
oppression.

Case study: The NFL amateur draft

Professional football creates an artificially restricted labor market because of the unusual
nature of competition between firms. Although sports teams seek to defeat each other on
the playing field, teams also band together in loose coalitions to ensure the availability and
quality of competition (Leifer 1990). To promote the continued health of the overall
product, drafts of collegiate athletes are specifically designed to prevent a few teams from
monopolizing talent and to ensure quality competition across the league. In the NFL, each
year the team with the worst performance record the previous season has the first selection
of the amateur player it most wants to hire. This team is then assigned the “rights” to this
player, meaning no other organization may negotiate with or try to hire this potential
employee unless the drafting team rescinds the rights to his labor.
   Drafts restrict access to NFL jobs and serve as a mechanism through which additional
power is invested in employers rather than players. Without the ability to make choices
about the jobs they take, potential NFL players lose their key bargaining chip: the ability to
sell their labor to another bidder. An additional restriction on worker power in the labor
market is the sheer volume of competition for a limited number of highly desirable jobs.

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More than 51,000 athletes play collegiate football each year, but only around 200 of those
players transition to professional football (Leonard 1996). We argue that under such
conditions, employers are likely to draw from stereotyped images of minorities, further
limiting employees’ opportunities (see Bobo and Massagli 2001; Bobo and Suh 2000;
Feagin 1991). Minority players may be more sensitive to and better able to identify racial
stereotypes in hiring. However, because of the disproportionate power held by firms and the
limited power of potential workers, players may choose to forgo opposition to these
practices, causing them to lose ground in the contest over the meaning of race in sports. In
the analysis that follows, we explore the experiences of potential workers within this
industry to assess whether (1) athletes of different races have different experiences during
the hiring process, (2) and if minority athletes are more likely to view these coercive hiring
practices through the prism of race.

Data and methods

Data for this research come from a multi-method approach combining observation of player
evaluations, field notes, and semi-structured interviews of former collegiate football players
who participated in the NFL’s annual screening service between 1994 and 2004. This
screening, known as the “combine,” brings together more than 300 young athletes to allow
all 32 teams an opportunity to personally evaluate potential employees. Because the costs of
flying players and staff to the combine are relatively low compared to the expense of paying
out a contract to an unproductive worker, the combine process allows firms to protect their
assets by assessing potential workers before selecting the rights to their labor. The 300 or so
players who are invited to attend these screenings each year represent workers with an
advanced level of skills that make employment a legitimate possibility.
    In addition, some players participate in “scouting days” (also referred to as “pro day”)
held at individual universities. These assessments involved NFL team representatives
evaluating multiple players from one school (and sometimes players from smaller colleges
and universities in the region) in a single setting at that university. We attended several
sessions of these “pro days” at multiple universities and interviewed players who were
assessed via both processes. We were able to gain admittance to these scouting days by
contacting players, coaches, and athletic department personnel at the schools concerning the
project; these contacts extended invitations and acted as informal sponsors. We approached
our observations by following along with the collegiate coaches who had granted us access,
sitting or standing with coaches during the assessments and discussing the players who
were “auditioning” that day. These assessments were sometimes held at elaborate indoor
training facilities; when assessments were held outdoors, there was considerable discussion
about how springtime weather concerns such as wind, rain, and cool temperatures might
hurt player performance, as well as how to create fair comparisons for performance data
gathered under different conditions. Assessments generally took place between 9:00 A.M.
and 5:00 P.M. In addition, we attended seven workouts where individual players performed
for scouts outside of the combine environment. We were able to take field notes publicly at
the sites of the player evaluations, both because the participants knew the purpose of our
visits and because many other observers, including scouts, NFL team representatives, and
media, were also taking notes. In fact, taking field notes in these situations helped us to
blend in rather than stand out.
    We also spent more than 100 hours of informal discussion with players, scouts, and
coaches at their work, in homes, and on campus. Several of these informal conversations

Qual Sociol (2009) 32:53–73                                                                  59

took place during workouts and physical therapy sessions with players; in addition, we
were also invited to family picnics and draft parties. On occasion, we provided meals for
respondents in our homes, and one of the authors met with informants in a private room of
a nightclub. Detailed field notes derived from more intimate situations, such as family
gatherings, were typically generated immediately upon leaving those gatherings. Formal
interviews took place in an equally diverse number of settings and were recorded and
transcribed. The majority of the data collection efforts were concentrated in the Midwest,
Southwest, and Rocky Mountain regions.
    Our initial contacts stemmed from teaching and tutoring student-athletes, many of whom
were either missing class or dropping out entirely in order to prepare for these assessments.
To maintain the propriety of our student–instructor relationships and to help ensure
anonymity of our respondents, we did not gather data from these student-athletes while
working with them in a supervisory role. Instead, these initial contacts provided us with
access to players with whom we did not have a previous relationship. We continued to
utilize a snowball sampling procedure that gained us access to additional players and sites
that were increasingly distant from our initial contacts.
    A further benefit to the snowball sampling procedure was the ability of the primary
contacts to vouch for us. Although our interview protocol asked potentially sensitive
questions about money, work, and families, and although the interviewers were often of a
different sex and/or ethnic background than the informants, we found that the players we
interviewed trusted our primary contacts’ positive reports about us and were quickly
forthcoming about their observations of the combine experience. In fact, we were somewhat
surprised to find that we were frequently invited to settings that suggested more intimacy
than we might have expected shortly after making initial contact with new informants. We
believe it was our familiarity with the experiences faced by these individuals (which
continued to grow throughout the field research), along with our earlier contacts vouching
for our credibility, that accounts for our access and the forthright responses to our inquiries.
We applied double-blind coding to any materials (tapes, notes) generated in the interviews
or observations to further ensure the anonymity of our informants. The interviews and
settings described here do not include information provided by the student-athletes who
were our initial contacts, and institutional review boards at both of our universities
approved our strategies for assuring anonymity.
    We conducted 57 interviews with 43 players who went through the NFL’s evaluation
processes. Some individuals were interviewed both prior to and after their participation in
the combine process. Among the sample of players, five had successful careers (more than
4 years of employment) and were retired at the time of the interview, 11 were currently
employed in the league at the time of the interview, 17 were not employed but actively
seeking an employment contract, and ten had retired from football without ever being
employed in the NFL or after having been employed for less than 1 year. Respondents’ ages
at the time of the interview ranged from 21 to 34 years of age, with a mean of 25.8 and a
median age of 24. We ended the search for additional informants when repeated responses
made it apparent that it was unlikely overlooked points of interest would be unearthed
(Taylor 1991).
    Our athlete sample consists of 22 African Americans, 14 white respondents, and seven
other persons of color, including those from mixed-ethnic (two) and Polynesian (five)
backgrounds. One of the contributions of this research is expanding the discussion of the
contested meaning of race in sports beyond comparisons between black and white athletes.
Previous research in the sport literature has suggested that Latino and Native American
athletic participants (players, coaches, and spectators alike) identify racialized stereotypes

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and behaviors (cf. King et al. 2002; Springwood 2004, 2006). We extend these inquiries to
include Polynesian athletes, a fast-growing group in collegiate and professional football
(Roderick 2002). The fact that both interviewers are white created the possibility that
respondents from different ethnic backgrounds would find it more difficult to confide in us.
As mentioned above, the use of the snowball sampling technique seemed to help overcome
this possibility; informants were open about sharing their observations, perhaps because we
had been referred to them by friends and colleagues. We also made an effort to make
multiple contacts with informants before interviewing them and to hold the interviews in
locations chosen by informants for their comfort. In addition, early components of the
interview involved addressing the issue of racial mismatch between interviewers and
players directly, including discussion of the fact that our informants are often embedded in
institutions headed by officials who do not share their ethnic background.
    Player interviews were based on a protocol of 24 open-ended questions about worker
training, combine experiences, draft day, and subsequent efforts to obtain employment
in the NFL. Interviews ranged from 45 min to 2 hours and were tape-recorded. While
findings linking differences in minority and white players’ descriptions of events to
actual differences in treatment based on race should be interpreted with caution, after
potentially racialized hiring practices emerged in early interviews we specifically probed
white respondents for similar experiences concerning legal backgrounds and families.
We discuss below when players’ actual experiences apparently diverge along racial
lines.
    Our analytic approach is similar to Glaser’s (2002) and Strauss’ (1995) grounded theory
approach in that we code data from our interviews and observations into related groupings,
looking for potential “analytic categories.” We applied line-by-line coding (Glaser 1978)
that yielded groupings indicating perceptual difference on employer inquiries about
deviance and family (Marshall and Rossman 1999). All quotes utilized below are reported
verbatim; proper names are pseudonyms assigned by the researchers.

The combine experience

Once applicants arrive at the combine, the league puts potential employees through an
extensive 72-hour sorting process, consisting of numerous evaluative assessments such as
speed, strength, and agility drills; interviews with team personnel; psychological and
personality screenings; drug and IQ tests; and a thorough medical examination. Players of
all races find the evaluation process at the draft invasive, offensive, and, sometimes,
physically painful (see Dufur and Feinberg 2007). Specific to our research question, results
from our analysis of players’ responses point to substantial differences in (1) the ways white
and minority athletes are treated by hiring agents based on racial stereotyping, particularly
during the interview process and (2) minority respondents’ perceptions of this experience as
inherently racist even in the absence of overt discrimination.

Drill and grill: Race and the interview process

There were two primary circumstances in which players report being treated differently by
hiring agents based on race, both of which have to do with interviews. These interviews
range from one-on-one encounters between the player and a coach or scout to situations
where the player is facing a panel of as many as five representatives from a team.
Respondents discussed inquiries about family relationships and potential criminal behavior

Qual Sociol (2009) 32:53–73                                                                61

in ways that suggest hiring agents are utilizing traditional negative stereotypes about
African American families and deviance (Farley et al. 1994; Feagin 1991; Feagin and Sikes
2001; Hughes and Dodge 1997). In addition, Polynesian players were questioned about
family relationships in ways that suggested hiring agents were concerned about whether
traditional family values associated with Tongans and Samoans might affect players’
performance (Grainger 2006; Lempert and Monsma 1994; Yum and Wang 1983). White
respondents did not report similar questioning on family relationships or potential criminal
behavior, even when prompted by researchers, suggesting that ethnicity plays an important
role in shaping both these parts of the hiring process and players’ interpretation of that
process.

Crime and deviance

Many of the minority players we spoke with had been subjected to more thorough
investigations of potential deviant behavior in their families and backgrounds than their
white peers reported. Several minority workers described conversations in which their
girlfriends (current and former) were asked if the player had ever hit them. They were also
quizzed in detail about relatives who may have been jailed or involved with drug problems.
None of the white players we interviewed reported the same experience. Two white players
assumed that their backgrounds had been checked, but they were not asked about details of
criminal or delinquent behavior in their interviews. The following quote was typical of
white players’ attitudes toward such background checks:
  Oh, I’m sure they go back and check everything—Coach Smith told me about one guy
  they went back and asked his third-grade teacher about him. I don’t care—you have to
  know what a guy’s like before you’re stuck with him that long. If you don’t have
  anything to hide, why would you care?
    The fact that only minority players described interviews that delved into criminal matters
suggests that hiring agents may be operating on racial stereotypes that suggest that African
American men are dangerous or more prone to deviance (cf. Anderson 1990). Just as police
officers’ internalization of stereotypes concerning dangerousness and criminal inclinations
leads to greater suspicion and surveillance of African American citizens (cf. Alpert et al.
2005; Kennedy 1997), employers in the NFL appear to be using similar racialized
reasoning to more heavily scrutinize African American athletes. In turn, these players
become more attuned to the ways assumptions about race are being used to assess their
fitness for the job. Employers’ interview questions about criminal or deviant activities did
not seem to be related to actual past behavior: at least one white respondent who reported
not having been asked about such behavior had a minor offense on his record, while
multiple minority respondents who did report detailed questioning on deviant activities had
no record of criminal or delinquent behavior. Because similar assumptions were not made
for white respondents in our sample, it appears that the interview process reflects the
symbolic discrimination that young black men endure and must negotiate on a daily basis in
a racist society (cf. Feagin 1991). While the minority players in our sample were
presumably not blocked from desirable positions because of their race, as would have been
the case under overt discrimination, they must still deal with potential employers’
imposition of negative stereotypes and symbols that might affect their labor market
experiences.
    Many minority athletes in our sample reported discomfort at what they felt were
intrusions into the lives of family members, girlfriends (current and former), teachers,

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coaches, and hometown friends who been interviewed. Team officials then used
information from these sources to structure interviews that differed in significant ways
for minority and white players. As such, it was primarily minority players who reported
being uncomfortable with the way information was gathered, a difference that likely
reflects both actual divergence in hiring agents’ behaviors and divergence in players’
interpretations of those behaviors. An African American player who was currently
employed in the league described the lengths to which these background checks often
went:
     Respondent: They talked to my college coaches, they called my high school coaches,
     they even called my old Pee-Wee coaches.
     Interviewer: How did you know they’d asked them?
     Respondent: My Pee-Wee coach called me! “What you been doin’, why these guys
     callin’ me?” [laughs]
Other African American players described being asked about details of their financial
arrangements:
     They even came to my apartment complex just to see if I paid my rent on time. You
     know, see what kind of lifestyle I was living. Came and asked our property manager.
One minority athlete was even asked if he kills pets. None of the white players we
interviewed reported similar inquiries, even after we added additional prompts to the
interview schedule following early interviews revealing the above patterns.
   Minority players also reported being asked about family members’ criminal records. One
African American player who went undrafted but signed a free agent contract described
these kinds of questions:
     So then [team official] says they want to know what’s up with my Uncle Brian—he
     was in some drug stuff, just using, but he’s doing some time. They wanted to know all
     kinds of stuff—how much did we talk, when he was getting out and if I was going to
     see him then and all. And I was just sayin’, “Damn! You know more about it than I do,
     you tell me!” [laughs]
The ways potential employers investigated players’ involvement (or lack thereof) in
criminal behavior reflects widely held stereotypes about African American’ dangerousness
(Kennedy 1997). Assumptions about the odds of people from different racial and ethnic
groups taking part in criminal behaviors has led to actual differences in the ways minorities
are monitored and treated by the criminal justice system (cf. Alpert et al. 2005; Warren et al.
2006). As a result, minority perceptions about that system have grown to diverge
considerably from white opinion about the same institutions, especially as minorities have
found the path to change and restitution often blocked (cf. Weitzer 2000). We find similar
patterns among a group of young men who hold considerable stores of human capital that
make them highly desirable applicants for an industry that allegedly bases hiring and
promotion on easily measured criteria of productivity.

Family relationships and responsibilities

Several minority respondents described being asked about relatives’ actions as though the
players bore some responsibility for those relatives or the caretaking of extended family
members. This was also true when asking about older relatives’ behavior, even though the

Qual Sociol (2009) 32:53–73                                                                   63

respondents themselves were quite young at the time they were going through the
assessment process. These questions about minority workers’ families often centered on the
issue of whether close relationships might provide distractions for a player; white players’
did not report a similar focus. One Polynesian player’s description of questions about his
family was echoed by several other Polynesians:
  The line coach for [team] asked me if I grew up in the islands, how big my school
  was, how many brothers and sisters I had and all, wanting to know if they were over
  here and if they lived with me or had their own places or what. If they’re coming to
  [city] with me or how many of them and all.
Similarly, an African American worker describes a slightly more explicit exchange about
family members and their impact on productivity:
  [Team official] started talking about how it would be good if I just came to [city] and
  got set up myself, that they’d help me find a place and get settled in. He was talking
  about how I should maybe be starting small, so I don’t get people coming to stay and
  having to take care of everybody and all, because a lot of guys, they end up having to
  take care of all their families and all their guys who come to check them out, and that’s
  all they spend doing all the time. I know what he’s saying, but my mom’ll take care of
  me. She’s coming wherever I go too.
   Additionally, minority respondents reported that multiple questions during their
interviews with team officials focused on potential obligations they might face to multiple
generations of family. Almost all of the African American players we interviewed reported
being asked about any children they had, although fewer than a third actually had children
when they were going through the draft. A few white players reported being asked about
children, but only after discussing their spouses, a difference that seems to suggest that
hiring agents were operating under stereotypes of African American men as uncommitted
fathers. One African American player who was drafted in a late round and played for 1 year
in the NFL described such a conversation:
  They was asking me things like, you know, about my family, how was I raised, were
  my parents married…. Do you have any kids, things like that. Because they are going
  to find out.
   These descriptions are in sharp contrast to a white player’s experience with team
officials asking about his wife:
  They were really good about telling us about how we could get the right schools; they
  said if we came they’d get someone to show us around, help us find a place. They kept
  asking if Julie would want to come out more often and they’d set her up with
  [coaches’ wives] to help her out and get us a place.
   After observing this pattern in early stages of our data collection, we probed more
specifically in subsequent interviews with white players for evidence of this kind of
investigation of families and backgrounds; however, the pattern of greater scrutiny for
minority players persisted. Most of our white respondents (including those who were
unmarried and childless, the large majority), reported no questioning about their family
connections at all, even when we prompted them specifically about such topics. Although
minority players almost always described discussions about their family members, the
above exchange about wives looking for houses and discussion about one player’s father, a
former NFL player, were the only times white players in our sample reported more than a

64                                                                             Qual Sociol (2009) 32:53–73

cursory mention of their families. These reports likely reflect both actual differences in
employers’ actions and differences in perception across players based on minority players’
greater exposure to stereotypical statements and practices about their lives (cf. Lempert and
Monsma 1994; Wilson 1996).
   In contrast to questions about criminal behavior, which have a counterpart in hiring
practices for other jobs such as background checks or asking about prior convictions, these
questions about family obligations at best edge toward being illegal under federal
employment law. As was true when faced with other uncomfortable assessment practices,
however, none of the players we spoke to or observed left the interview or objected to the
questions, and none reported seeing or hearing of any player who took those steps. When
asked why they acquiesced to such questioning, white players tended to focus on potential
remuneration making the unpleasantness worthwhile, while minority players described
feeling as though leaving would not improve the situation and might, in fact, incur
considerable costs in the form of not being drafted (Dufur and Feinberg 2007). This
difference may reflect the tendency observed elsewhere of minorities to learn through
experience that lack of access to institutional power leads in most cases to being unable to
force those institutions to change and to accusations of “overplaying” the race card to the
complainant’s detriment (Weitzer 2000).2
   Even in an industry where minority workers sometimes appear to be favored for highly
desirable jobs (Price 1997), employers may still fall prey to symbolic discrimination,
relying on deeply embedded stereotypes about minority groups during the interview
process. These findings suggest that in the contested terrain of sport, white decision-makers
are still imposing on athletes definitions of what being African American or Polynesian
means, and athletes in those groups are readily able to interpret the messages being sent. A
respondent who was drafted and went on to a successful NFL career provided a description
of assumptions about minority players’ general attitudes that was typical of a large majority
of our minority respondents’ comments:
     When I got to the combine, the underlying thread of racism was there. In one instance
     a scout calling around to people discussing my background kept asking if I had that
     “inner-city” attitude. That is the type of ignorance that continues to contribute to racial
     disharmony in the NFL. I guess I expected that when I left college, where I was asked
     continually if I was an athlete just because I was black, things would change. They
     have changed, but not much.

Perceptions of race: Views from the auction block

Interestingly, minority respondents were much more likely to identify both racial and power
themes in their experiences at the combine, even when they were describing experiences
similar to white athletes’ in action. White players were much more likely to perceive
business imperatives as necessary evils, making employers’ coercive practices an

2
  While questions about family structure or examination of juvenile criminal records could potentially violate
laws, such violations can be difficult to prove. The offices responsible for enforcing such laws are often
overwhelmed, and the burden of proof lies with the worker whose rights were violated, including the fact that
the complaints required to initiate investigation must be made by workers (Reskin 1998). Players who are
unwilling to leave interviews or object to lines of questioning are even more unlikely to file Title IIV
complaints about improper or illegal interviewing practices; in addition, because of their lack of previous
labor market experience, these young workers may not be aware of such legal protections.

Qual Sociol (2009) 32:53–73                                                                   65

acceptable, if unpleasant, part of working in the NFL. Although minority players also
expressed an understanding for the team’s point of view, white players were much more
casual about labeling hiring procedures as necessary. Compare the explanations given by
two players; the first is a white athlete who has spent 2 years unsuccessfully trying to obtain
employment in this industry:
  Yeah, it was a pain, but it’s not that different than what anybody goes through trying to
  get a job. My brother just had to get drug tested for his new job. You gotta stay in
  business. [laughs] Besides, I’m gonna get paid more than he does.
The second is an African American player in the same labor market position:
  It’s prostitution, basically; the only thing is there’s no sex. You know, buy you for as
  cheap as they can and use you to do as much as they can get you to do until they don’t
  need you anymore, and then they drop you like used goods and you’re never thought
  of again. You’re just another number. Just another piece of the puzzle they can use for
  their history books.
These comments reflect the general pattern of the racial differences observed: although the
players in the examples above described most of the actual content of their days at the
combine similarly, their perceptions and interpretations of that content differed sharply. In
general, white players described the medical and psychological examinations as less
intrusive than did African-American, mixed-race, and Polynesian players. One white
veteran recalled his combine experience as more of a “nuisance” than an intrusion and said:
“I don’t think it’s as bad as everyone says.” By contrast, all but one of the African
American respondents referred to the combine as a “slave trade,” while none of the white
athletes made the same comparison.
   It is little wonder that African American players view the process as akin to a slave
market. At one point during the combine, potential employees are stripped down to nothing
but their underwear, and team officials videotape players from head to toe so there is visual
data on their bodies. By far the most degrading experience is something that respondents
called “walking the plank.” Again wearing only a pair of underwear, players are
individually paraded in front of several hundred coaches, owners, journalists, scouts and
general managers while each player’s height, weight, wing-span, body fat proportion, and
other measurements are broadcast over a loudspeaker. Both players and scouts estimate that
90% of all the employers in the room are older white men, while 80–90% of the potential
employees are young African Americans (cf. also Hawkins 2001 on the impact of such
distributions on college athletics). When asked how he felt about this process, one African
American player who has successfully completed 3 years in the NFL stated:
  I was nervous and scared. Not to be racist or nothing, but you’re standing around
  naked in a room full of white men. What is that? What the hell does that have to do
  with playing football?
    White respondents, who filtered their perceptions of the combine through a very
different set of experiences, did not associate this setting with any other type of human
trafficking, despite the obvious physical comparisons. No participants from any ethnic
background argued that “walking the plank” was a positive experience, but the only players
in our sample who provided substantial negative commentary on the practice were minority
athletes. It is of particular interest that the African-American quoted above was so
conscious of race that he prefaced his comments by saying, “not to be racist or nothing.”
Such qualifications may reflect the experiences of minorities who have found few rewards

66                                                                  Qual Sociol (2009) 32:53–73

for challenging racialized practices in other institutions—if challenging racism reaps little
more than accusations of oversensitivity, minorities learn to avoid traditional paths to
reconciliation or to frame complaints in ways that try to remove race from the equation
(Feagin and Sikes 2001; Weitzer 2000). As Oates (2004, 2007) points out, however,
practices like “walking the plank” emphasize a power structure in which a mostly white
ownership structure profits from selling the opportunity for a largely white audience to
examine and judge minorities’ bodies. Our findings reflect this power structure, with
minority respondents identifying these circumstances as having racial overtones, while
white respondents may relate more fully with the distribution of opportunity and reward
and with those making decisions about that distribution.
   In addition, while players of all races described the combine process as monotonous and
uncomfortable, minority athletes further commented that the assembly-line method of
evaluation made the experience feel as if they were products and less than human. Several
African American players said they were referred to as “young bucks” and “work horses,”
and noted that coaches and general managers were constantly coming up to them to touch
and evaluate their bodies in passing at the hotel. Players used terms like “poke” and “prod”
to describe their medical evaluations, and said the exclusively white medical staff did not
even ask permission prior to inserting fingers into their mouths to examine their teeth.
Although white players described the content of their experience in comparable terms, these
players did not assign the same negative symbolism to these actions as did minority players.
While the minority athletes did not always experience overt discrimination, it becomes
obvious why African American players would be more sensitive to a scenario where
potential buyers are assessing an athlete’s size and fitness. Oriard (1998) notes that the
business of professional football in general treats individual players as cogs in a larger
machine, undifferentiated parts that can be disposed of if they break or if better models
come along. Rhoden (2006), however, notes that such an assembly-line approach echoes
the slave trade and plantation work in earlier eras, linking sport to powerful symbols of
racial discrimination and exploitation. These results concur, suggesting that long-standing
symbols concerning African-American bodies and masculinity (Dufur 1997) may still be
shaping young workers’ experiences today, injecting symbolic racism even into settings
where African-American success is expected.

Getting back in the game: Player responses to symbolic racism

If athletes are engaged in contesting the terrain of sport and taking control of defining what
race means in sport, we might expect them to display resistance to symbolic racism in the
interview process. However, the restrictions of the NFL labor market make interview
situations onerous for potential employees, discouraging players from objecting to or
refusing to answer potentially offensive questions and requests. In addition, NCAA
restrictions on employment translate to very few opportunities for players to work in the
general labor market prior to trying to acquire a job in the NFL; thus, most have little
experience in interview and application situations. Young workers of color who are
unfamiliar with interviews and favored workplace behaviors in white corporate environ-
ments may be especially vulnerable to symbolic discrimination during the interview
process. What they may have learned from previous experiences with white-dominated
institutions, however, is the futility of objecting to such treatment, instead choosing to
manage expectations and behaviors by minimizing the importance of the experience (Cose
1993; Feagin and Sikes 2001).

Qual Sociol (2009) 32:53–73                                                                     67

   All of the respondents remained in their interviews, regardless of interviewer actions.
When asked how they might like to respond, or how they felt, some minority athletes
reported feelings of anger, while others said they did not know how to feel. All minority
respondents, however, reported a feeling of resignation, or that they had no choice but to
absorb this treatment. It is of note that while the white respondents mentioned negative
reactions to the interview procedures, they tended to be much more aggressive in asserting
the idea that they would “get the last laugh” by signing large contracts. The following
quotes are typical of the differences between minority and white respondents. The first
player is an African American who played in the league for fewer than 2 years:
  It was scary, man…you’re in there with these people you’ve met once, maybe not
  even that, half-naked, and they’re all of a sudden asking if you’ve smoked hash, how
  much you drink. I didn’t even know what to say.
The second is a white player who did not sign an NFL contract:
  Yeah, it sucks, but what are you gonna do? It would be the same with any job. My
  brother just interviewed with [Fortune 500 company], and he had to take a drug test.
  You know it’s coming. And they’ll be paying me for that drug test for a long, long
  time. [laughs]
As noted above, individuals were able to rationalize challenges to their dignity by analyzing
the combine from an employer’s perspective and recognizing their own agency in choosing
to attend. This finding is consistent with literature on the survival skills that African
Americans employ when dealing with discrimination (Dufur and Feinberg 2007; Feagin
and Sikes 2001). Resigned acceptance of discriminatory actions and the establishment of
defensive orientations are two coping strategies for dealing with discrimination, and
individual responses to the combine process reflect the ways minority athletes utilized these
options.
    Some minority athletes reported seeking outlets that allowed them to participate in the
combine process while still exerting their individuality. In this way, they were mirroring
strategies young African American men use in other settings to assert control over
situations in which both overt and symbolic racism denies them control (Majors and Billson
1992). One example of trying to regain some control over bodies and image presentation
was in the use of the clothing provided at the combine, which was used to label players as
“RB1” (the first running back alphabetically), RB2, etc.:
  I didn’t feel like a slave, because I never really wore my shirt [standard issued shirt]. I
  always wore my [University] warm ups just to, you know, to represent my school and
  myself, to let them know that I wasn’t just a piece of meat. Everything I did I wore my
  [University] stuff. Just because I didn’t want to feel like I was a piece of meat. I
  wanted to feel like a human being and walk around and talk to people face-to-face and
  not let them acknowledge me like a piece of meat. Scouts were asking me why
  weren’t you wearing your shirt. And I said I’m not XX XX [position and number], I’m
  [real name]!
   Previous scholars (Majors and Billson 1992; Osborne 1999) have described how young
African-American men may employ strategies of emotionlessness, fearlessness, and
aloofness, or the “cool pose,” to counteract “inner pain incurred by damaged pride and
fragile social competence that comes from being part of a subjugated group” (Osborne
1999, p. 559). The respondents in this study were careful and strategic in applying cool
pose-related behaviors—the respondent quoted above and others who described similar

68                                                                   Qual Sociol (2009) 32:53–73

refusal to comply with small details of the combine experience were regarded as top draft
picks and therefore might have had more power in the labor transaction. However, even
though they could better contest the racial aspects of the draft experience because the skills
they had to offer made it unlikely teams would skip over them for resisting, infrequent
utilization of these behaviors and stances seem to be the extent of athletes’ contesting of the
terrain that is the NFL labor market. The perceived costs of potentially dropping in the draft
(and informal salary structure) were simply too high for most responses to racial
stereotyping.

Discussion

Results from our inquiry suggest that the potentially discriminatory practices minority
athletes experience during the hiring process have moved more toward symbolic
discrimination, or acts stemming from individual hiring agents’ internalization of racial
stereotypes. In addition, we found evidence that minority players more often identified race
as a component of industry practices. While minority athletes were subject to greater
scrutiny concerning their backgrounds and families, minority and white players describe
much of the actual content of their experiences at the combine in very similar manners. Yet
their perceptions of these experiences differ sharply. Workers of color reported awareness of
symbolic “codes” concerning race and power throughout the experience. Minority players
seem more often to identify coercion and to link it to examples of past discrimination, while
white players more often justified the coercion by relating to management.
   We find that a confluence of factors accounts for minority respondents’ collective
identification of symbolic racism in the NFL labor market. First, the draft restrictions create
such an imbalance of market power that individual workers of all races have almost no
other options but to capitulate to degrading and invasive treatment. Second, the
overwhelming majority of athletes attempting to gain employment are non-white,
approximately 20–22 years of age, and unfamiliar with business culture due to NCAA
restrictions on amateur athletes. In contrast, older white men make up most of the primary
decision-makers in terms of hiring, and most of these individuals have years of experience
in the league and/or large sums of personal wealth from their affiliation with the NFL.
Factor in a well-documented literature on the many forms of racism in both sports and
broader labor markets, and it is almost to be expected that race would be a factor in hiring
decisions.
   A caveat to these findings is our limited information on the rationale and motivation of
the hiring agents. While it is obvious that a business owner wants to pay as little as possible
for quality production, we recognize that other factors motivate hiring choices. A weakness
of the data is the lack of interviews with decision makers/hiring agents (NFL coaches,
general managers, presidents and owners). Our data include transcripts from three
interviews with college coaches and two with talent scouts who work for professional
teams, but these informants do not necessarily reflect the employers who wield ultimate
decision-making power in the hiring process of the NFL. Should future researchers be able
to gain access to such informants, such work could shed important light on both the ways
cultural norms of the NFL and of sport in general are shaped by race and on the ways
employers view applicants from a variety of racial backgrounds.
   It is of note that several minority players reported feeling more “relaxed” or
“comfortable” when being interviewed by an assistant coach who was African American,
yet the overwhelming structure of the assembly line and the market imbalance resulted in a