UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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UC Riverside UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Carcerality and College Athletics: State Methods of Enclosure Within and Through College Sport Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/52z8679n Author Grummert, Sara Publication Date 2021 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Carcerality and College Athletics: State Methods of Enclosure Within and Through College Sport A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Education by Sara E. Grummert June 2021 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Eddie Comeaux, Chairperson Dr. Uma Jayakumar Dr. Dylan Rodríguez Dr. Rican Vue Copyright by Sara E. Grummert 2021 The Dissertation of Sara E. Grummert is approved: Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Carcerality and College Athletics: State Methods of Enclosure Within and Through College Sport by Sara E. Grummert Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in Education University of California, Riverside, June 2021 Dr. Eddie Comeaux, Chairperson This dissertation qualitatively examined former (18) and current (2) college players’ experiences within their athletic department ecology—experiences with teammates, coaches and administrators, team doctors and health professionals, and experiences with various mechanisms of discipline, punishment, and surveillance. Using antiblackness and carcerality as an analytic, this study demonstrated how higher education’s administering of college athletics mirrors other antiblack state projects and structural conditions of antiblackness more broadly. Across Division I FBS, FCS, and Division I (no football) institutions and participants who competed in track and field, cross country, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s soccer, football, softball, and/or volleyball, every participant was subjected to carceral conditions and lived in relation to athletic department and coach despotism. However, antiblackness is constitutive of carcerality and as such the concentration and magnitude of harm was oriented around an antiblack logic that mediated participant experiences—with the most harm being concentrated on Black iv women. Nonblack, and especially white, participants were afforded more leeway to self- police or maintain the illusion thereof, whereas Black participants experienced heightened, more severe, and/or unique forms of containment, surveillance, and bodily and psychological harm. Findings from this study demonstrate how college sport is used to complement other state projects of enclosure. Sport, when operationalized this way, takes on the state’s carceral logic, necessarily making the organization of these leagues follow an antiblack algorithm of containment, control, surveillance, bodily harm, and punishment. Thus, higher education institutions can be understood as engaging in a carceral partnership with the state in their creation and normalization of the nonprofit “collegiate model of athletics.” v CONTENTS ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION .......................................................................... iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................. viii DEDICATION .................................................................................................................... x Chapter 1: Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1 Purpose ............................................................................................................................ 5 Chapter 2: Literature Review .............................................................................................. 8 Structuring Logics and Critiques .................................................................................... 8 Socialization Processes ................................................................................................. 12 Surveillance Mechanisms ............................................................................................. 13 Team Environments ...................................................................................................... 15 Sport and State Violence ............................................................................................... 18 Chapter 3: Theory & Methodology .................................................................................. 25 Antiblackness ................................................................................................................ 25 Carcerality and the Carceral Regime ............................................................................ 32 Methodology and Methods ........................................................................................... 37 Interview Protocol ..................................................................................................... 41 Participant Selection Criteria .................................................................................... 43 Recruitment ............................................................................................................... 44 Data Collection ......................................................................................................... 46 Data Analysis ............................................................................................................ 50 Trustworthiness and Dependability .......................................................................... 51 Limitations ................................................................................................................ 53 Chapter 4: Intake, Socialization, & Enclosure .................................................................. 55 Early Socialization and Isolation .................................................................................. 55 Intake Forms and Coerced "Consent" ........................................................................... 61 NCAA as Official Scapegoat ........................................................................................ 66 Privilege of Participation .......................................................................................... 67 Institutional Marking .................................................................................................... 72 Chapter 5: Surveillance, Discipline, & Punishment ......................................................... 76 Class Checks, Progress Reports, and Study Halls ........................................................ 77 Drug Testing ................................................................................................................. 82 vi Social Media & Disciplining Political Critique ............................................................ 85 Booster Shadow Control ............................................................................................... 87 Policing Political Demonstrations and Action .............................................................. 90 Punishment .................................................................................................................... 96 Chapter 6: Health and Bodily Autonomy ....................................................................... 100 Experiences with Athletic Trainers ............................................................................. 101 Long-term, Severe Health Problems Due to Departmental Negligence ..................... 105 Coach Neglect ............................................................................................................. 110 Coaches’ Influence Over Trainers and Doctors .......................................................... 114 Structural Barriers and Manipulations ........................................................................ 116 Chapter 7: Refusal and Renunciation ............................................................................. 124 Refusals ....................................................................................................................... 125 Disconnecting Mentally and Emotionally from Sport ................................................ 129 Quitting, Leaving, and/or Being Forced Out of College Sport ................................... 134 Renouncing College Sport .......................................................................................... 138 Chapter 8: Discussion and Conclusion ........................................................................... 143 Discussing Intake, Socialization, and Enclosure ........................................................ 144 Discussing Surveillance Discipline Punishment ......................................................... 149 Discussing Health and Bodily Autonomy................................................................... 154 Discussing Refusal and Renunciation ......................................................................... 155 Conclusion and Implications....................................................................................... 157 References ....................................................................................................................... 165 Appendix A ..................................................................................................................... 181 Appendix B 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