Two Generations of Black Duke Football Players
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MY BROTHER’S KEEPER: Two Generations of Black Duke Football Players A senior thesis presented by Michelle Lynne Staggers in partial fulfillment of the requirements for GRADUATION WITH DISTINCTION in The department of CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY Duke University Durham, North Carolina May 2019 SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE: Dr. Laurie McIntosh — Supervisor Dr. Zoila Airall— 1st Committee Member Anna Dowell, PhD candidate— 2nd Committee Member Abstract The NCAA is a multi-billion dollar industry built on the athletic labor of African American males at predominantly white institutions. This thesis explores Black collective identity through the 1st cohort of African American football players and contemporary football players at Duke University. Utilizing interviews and archival material for the historical aspect, in conjunction with participant-observation for the present time, I look to understand the importance of kin-like bonds for Black male athletes, regardless of the era, in navigating a largely white hegemonic space. I integrate numerous theories such as Marx’s commodity fetishism, identity foreclosure, and fictive kinship to give a thorough analysis of ways in which Black Duke football players face exploitation and prejudice inside of the athletic and academic sphere on campus. My research argues that brotherhood among Black football players held more significance forty-two years ago than it does today. As modern capitalism has restructured the experiences of Black male athletes at big-time sports universities, more attention must be directed to developing and supporting modern Black athletes. 2 Table of Contents ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................................................. 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.......................................................................................................................................... 4 LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................................................... 5 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................................................... 6 HISTORICAL CONTEXT.............................................................................................................................................. 8 RESEARCH QUESTION .............................................................................................................................................10 METHODOLOGY ....................................................................................................................................................11 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .....................................................................................................................................17 LITERATURE REVIEW ..............................................................................................................................................21 CHAPTER 1 : WHITE VALUE, WHITE GAZE............................................................................................................29 EARLY RECRUITING STRUGGLES.................................................................................................................................31 THE ROLE OF THE BLACK COACH ...............................................................................................................................32 EXPLOITING BLACK LABOR .......................................................................................................................................36 NO DAYS OFF ......................................................................................................................................................40 THE PRESSURE TO PLAY ..........................................................................................................................................42 NO “BLACK DUMB JOCKS” AT DUKE ..........................................................................................................................44 CHAPTER 2 : BLACK STRENGTH, BLACK SOLIDARITY..............................................................................................50 BREEDING GROUNDS .............................................................................................................................................52 BEFORE DUKE ......................................................................................................................................................56 BLACK DUKE ........................................................................................................................................................58 BLACK PROFESSORS SPEAKING TRUTH ........................................................................................................................64 BLACK SERVICE WORKER SUPPORT ............................................................................................................................68 LOSING A FATHER FIGURE .......................................................................................................................................70 CHAPTER 3 : BROTHERLY LOVE .............................................................................................................................73 MY TRUE BROTHERS ..............................................................................................................................................76 THE END OF ONE BROTHERHOOD .............................................................................................................................79 THE GOLDEN BROTHER...........................................................................................................................................83 POWERFUL ENCOURAGERS ......................................................................................................................................86 CONCLUSION: FOR THE NEXT GENERATION..........................................................................................................92 REFERENCES .........................................................................................................................................................97 3 Acknowledgements The completion of this thesis is a testament of God’s goodness. Looking back, I know He placed specific people in my life at the right time to bring this project together. So first, I want to thank God and my family for supporting me in my academic endeavors. Thank you Dr. Airall for being my mentor. You were the first person to believe in me. Thank you for your kindness, love, and constant encouragement throughout the year. I truly looked forward to our weekly meetings to hear your feedback, and mostly sit and listen to your stories. You are a source of inspiration. Thank you for caring about the future of Black athletes as much as I do. Thank you Anna Dowell for leading this year’s troupe of thesis writers and your commitment to helping us shape our best piece of anthropological work. I am grateful for your laborious editing of my drafts, and teaching me how to be a better writer. Thank you for making me a young scholar. Thank you Dr. McIntosh for taking on the responsibility of being my primary advisor. You are a well- respected professor by all Black women at this University, and I appreciated you devoting time and energy into my project. Thank you Dr. Smith for seeing the potential of this work. In our first meeting, I came to your office, head spinning with a whirlwind of ideas, and you were able to pull out my research question. I look up to you as a former collegiate scholar-athlete, and hope to become an inspiring educator too. I know I speak for all of the Black athletes at Duke when I say that we appreciate your dedication to teaching about subjects we relate to, and the passion you have to see us succeed. Thank you Can Evren and Tracie Canada for being my graduate mentors. Can, I finished this work on time because of your dedication to meeting with me weekly, and rigorously tearing through my ethnography and literature. Tracie, you are the reason I took on this project. Watching you so gracefully approach your research towards African American football players inspired me to also take ownership of my experience as a Black female collegiate athlete. Thank you Michael Bennett for granting me the opportunity to write about your brothers, and thank you Super Seven members for trusting me with your story. Your names deserved to be etched into Duke’s history forever. You are all the epitome of honor, excellence, and bravery. Thank you Jen Fry, United Black Athletes, Black football players, Duke Athletics, and Black Student- Athlete Summit— I have written this thesis to honor those who advocate for bettering the experiences of Black athletes at the university level. Though sometimes we as student-athletes do not feel we have much power, it is organizations/programs like yours that give us the strategy and resources we need to see real change. Because of your work, this year Duke Athletics has committed to diversity/inclusion outreach programming. Thank you Amy Mcdonald and Linda Daniels, for opening up the Duke Library archives to me and helping me navigate the literature on sports and race in America. Thank you Erick, Jair, Margaret, and Ellie for being my thesis cohort, for peer-reviewing my work, and for all