Differences in the Recruitment of Black and White Football Players At a Big Eight University

Abstract

In the United States, collegiate and professional sports are avenues of social mobility for individuals from low-income households and are particularly important for blacks. But mobility of a few minority individuals does not erase the stereotypical image of their group held by the dominant group. When individual members of a minority group acquire positions in the dominant society from which they formerly had been excluded, they re main inferior and unequal in the minds of dominants. This paper compares procedures at Kansas State University for recruiting black football players with those for recruiting non- black players. Two themes are argued in this paper. First, minority individuals must be more qualified occupationally if they are to participate in a dominant setting. Second, in a dominant setting, members of minority groups are treated unequally regardless of how qualified they are.