 Welcome to the sports playbook where we discuss solutions to issues that impact sports. I'm your host, Angela Hazelett. Today's guest is Dr. Joseph Cooper, Professor of Sport Leadership and Administration at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Today we're going to discuss racism and sport, modern day issues in sport. Let's get to it. Welcome, Dr. Cooper. Thank you for joining us today on the sports playbook. Thank you, Angela. Happy to be here. I am very eager for our conversation today and to learn from you. And Dr. Cooper, I know there there was a time when African-American athletes were prohibited from competing with white athletes. Those African-American athletes who were first to successfully compete in integrated sports are notable, such as Jesse Owens in track and field and Jackie Robinson in baseball. Some might believe that now that sports are integrated, racism does not impact sport. Dr. Cooper, you're a scholar on the intersection of race, sport, education and culture. Do you believe racism still affects sports today? It's a great question, a very timely question. And the answer is yes. Racism, similar to how it affects aspects of our society beyond sports, it's still present in sport. I always ask the question around the three Rs, around representation, around resources, and around results. So if you look at sport across multiple sports, ownership, management, coaching, media, athletic training staff, it's really important to see who's represented across all aspects of the sport. It's easy to say, well, hey, on a football field, on a basketball court, or in select track and field events, we see more African-American athletes competing. But if you look at the sport apparatus overall, you begin to see where racism is more present. Even within select sports, you still see an under-representation of African-Americans in certain positions. So historically, African-Americans were underrepresented in the quarterback position in football, within the point guard and center positions in basketball prior to the 1970s, and in distance running within Olympic competition or within track and field events. And across multiple levels of sport, you still see evidence that there is not quite as much diversity as we would like to see across various levels. So racism is still present across multiple levels, and it's important that we identify it and address it through policy and practices. I think that's interesting that you bring up when we think about integration and representation, I think we by default think of the athletes and the representation of the athletes. But you mentioned something really important as far as those who are helping bring the sport to the fans and making that happen. And do you see this as an issue at mostly the professional level, collegiate level, or do you see this all the way down to the more of a grassroots level as well? I think it's on all levels. I think it's grassroots. I think it's in interscholastic sports. I think it's in private club sports, which oftentimes are based on social class. And we know within our country in the United States, social class is often a proxy for race and ethnicity. So when you think of sports like golf, like tennis, like hockey, even baseball in many communities to be able to compete and train at a high level is very costly. You have to have the disposable income to purchase equipment, to have access to coaching and facilities and travel expenses. So at the grassroots level, when we see the racial stratification, if you will, of sport participation levels, that's where it's most present. And that's also reflective of the racial segregation in many of our neighborhoods. So even though post 1960s where we had landmark civil rights amendments that were passed, in many cases, our neighborhoods and our schools also remained largely segregated. So even if you were to do a cursory overview of demographic representation across the United States, even in the most diverse states and metropolitan areas in the country, you still see racial segregation along neighborhood lines, which was connected to gentrification and redlining and other policies that displaced people. So that also translates to who has access to sport participation opportunities at the youth sports level. As I mentioned before as well, as you begin to get older in order to compete at elite levels in sport, you have to have access to high quality training in facilities, which once again is connected to economic resources. So that's how it plays out at the pre collegiate level. At the collegiate level, our major athletic institutions, in terms of athletic programs that are part of our power five conferences, not coincidentally are at historically white institutions that a majority of the students at the university are white, even if in the athletic department among select teams, you'll see a large number of African American student athletes on those teams. So if you were to compare that with a number of universities that are considered historically black colleges and universities, minority serving institutions, Native American and tribal colleges and universities, they do not have the same level of economic viability in their athletic programs via endorsement deals, television contracts, and other streams of revenue and income. So that's at the intercollegiate level, which reflects racism in college sports, because there is a lack of equity in terms of which athletic departments and universities benefit the most. In some of my work, I found that if you took the top three highest paid football coaches in college football, they earn more together than the top earning historically black college and university athletic department combined. If you took the top revenue generating athletic department, the University of Texas, their budget is more than the top five historically black college university athletic departments combined. So when you're talking about the gap, which in my work, I call it the college sport racial wealth gap, which really emphasizes the economic divide between the halves and the have not. It coincides with racial disparities in terms of representation and access. And then at the professional sport level, you can just look at, as I mentioned earlier, the representation of ownership of professional sport teams, the coaches, the general managers, those who were in key decision making positions across multiple sports are largely white men. So not only is it racism, but I would argue that there's still pervasive sexism within all levels of sport as well, whereby women and girls also are not afforded equal opportunities in terms of leadership. And then even at the youth intercollegiate, interscholastic and professional level, we still see disparities in terms of funding for women and girls sports compared to men and boys. So it's using the intersectional analysis, we would say that racism and sexism and classism intersect within sports to create the disparities that we see across all levels of sport. And using your example about the financial resources, it's hard to argue with the financial disparities, right? That's a pretty bright line of differences and discrepancies. And so you've talked a little bit about representation, you talked a little bit about resources. I don't want to go back and revisit the representation piece and talk about the Rooney rule in NFL football. So in 2003, the Rooney rule was passed to promote having NFL teams in the hiring process, interview a person of color for head coaching position. So talk to me about representation with a rule like that. Has it had the intended impact? And is this the right direction for future organizations? Absolutely, great question. So did it have the intended impact? No. Is it in the going in the right direction? Yes. So I'll start with the latter response first and then we'll make our way to the first response. The reason that is going in a positive direction is that the Rooney rule shed light on the fact that the status quo in terms of hiring practices, grossly disadvantaged African Americans, Native Americans, Latino Americans, and Asian Americans, as well as a number of groups that identify as non-European Americans. So the rule mandated that during hiring cycles, NFL teams were required to include in their interview pool a candidate who was from, in their terms, an ethnic minority background. So at least in that implementation or the initial creation of the rule, the idea was it is unacceptable to have a full hiring cycle and to not have racial diversity in the pool. Now let's connect it with the latter, the first part of the question, which is has it been effective? No, because the reason why no is the answer is that it doesn't go far enough. When you say that you're just considering someone in the pool, what it's led to is an abuse of the spirit of the rule. A great example of that would be with Brian Flores, the former Miami Dolphins head coach who has filed a lawsuit against the NFL because he had applied for a job with, I believe, the New York Giants. And prior to him completing his interview, he received a text message from his former coach, Bill Belichick, or his former boss, Bill Belichick, saying congratulations, Brian. And he said, well, why are you congratulating me? I haven't done the interview yet. And Bill Belichick responded in the text, oh, my apologies, I meant to see it send this to Brian Debo, who was another one of Bill Belichick's mentees or protégés, who is a European white man who had already been offered the coaching job. Before the interview took place. Before Brian Flores was able to participate in the interview. So it highlighted that many of these teams are still engaging in what some would call forms of nepotism or the good old boy network in terms of hiring people based on relationships and not giving a fair chance to candidates who are not a part of that inner circle, if you will. So I think what could improve the Rooney rule is if there was one intentional pathway programs for coaches who are from racially marginalized crowds to be able to continue to develop the experience and expertise and skill sets to be able to be in a position. And instead of just requiring that the interview go forth, I have a bold proposal that says that there should be a certain percentage gap that should mirror the representation of the league. So if the league is 70% African American, there should be a policy in place that there are efforts to ensure that coaching opportunities are comparable to the representation of the players. Now, I know that seems controversial and it seems, well, hey, aren't you hiring simply based on race? And the answer is no, you're hiring based on the merit in the qualifications while taking race into account. Because currently, I'll give a good example. Cliff Kingsbury, who was the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals up until last year, had a losing record as a college football coach and was not only awarded a contract as the head coach for the Cardinals, but he ended up signing an extension even though he had a losing record and had not been successful in the playoffs. Whereas if you compare that to at the start of the 2021 NFL season, Mike Tomlin, who is the only NFL coach in NFL history to have 16 consecutive non-losing seasons, he was the only African American head coach at that time at the start of the season. Now subsequently, there were a couple of other, I think, Lubbie Smith got hired as the Houston Texas coach and Ron Rivera was later hired as the Washington Commanders coach. But the comparison of Cliff Kingsbury being a white male, having a losing record as a college coach, getting hired at the NFL level and getting an extension, comparing that to the fact that there at one point, there was only one African head coach in the NFL and that one coach had to accomplish a feat that no other NFL coach in NFL history had accomplished highlights the racism in the NFL among coaching, not to mention the fact that they were engaged in race norming, which is to summarize of insidious practice whereby the black players cognitive levels at the beginning of their careers were arbitrarily rated at lower levels than the white players. So upon retirement, when players were seeking to receive medical benefits and compensation for medical needs, because the disparity wasn't as high for the black players, they were less likely to receive financial compensation for their medical needs. And they just ended that practice, I believe in 2021. So that was a practice that had been going on for several decades within the NFL. Wow, those are some really good concrete examples. You mentioned three Rs. We've talked a little bit about representation and resources. What's the third R? The third R is results. And this one is really important. Oftentimes, people think of results in terms of profit margins, revenue generated corporate sponsorships. But when I talk about results, I'm talking about what role not only within the organization in terms of diversity represented across all levels, but what are the results particularly in terms of the sport organizations impact with local communities that are predominantly African American, predominantly Latino, or even broadly economically underserved communities. So when we talk about sport being either the great equalizer or sport being a space that helps address broader inequalities, we've got to begin to ask ourselves to what extent is sport contributing to addressing economic inequalities, to improving access to health care, to improving educational attainment and opportunities. So when we talk about results, I'm talking about social wellness indices such as healthcare disparities, economic mobility, educational attainment. These are the areas that I think are critical, even voter registration, access to exercising, your right to vote. These are results that I would like for sport organizations to measure themselves by to what extent are we contributing to improving these results and outcomes in these communities. Because if you look at many of these professional sport organizations, many of these large athletic departments, then many of them receive large tax subsidies and benefits from taxpayers to have their stadiums and their athletic events hosted in these spaces, but it doesn't benefit all taxpayers equally. In some cases, there's a lack of access to be a spectator at some of these events, because the cost of an NFL or NBA game ticket, including parking, including food, if you wanted to take a family, oftentimes it's just not affordable for many families in the United States. So what I would like to see is the results focusing on addressing social inequalities around poverty, around healthcare, around economic opportunities, around education, addressing the prison industrial complex and reducing the incarceration rates for vulnerable populations, increasing support for individuals with unique and adaptive abilities who oftentimes suffer from ableism and a lack of access to reasonable accommodations for their needs. The result goes beyond sport itself. It's really about enhancing quality of life on variable metrics. Absolutely. Centered on human rights and wellness for the public good. Let's talk a little bit about activism in sport. Give us some examples of how athletes have used sport as a platform for activism purposes. Absolutely. A great example would be Venus Williams in 2007. She successfully lobbied the Wimbledon tennis tournament to have equal prize money for men and women. So Billie Jean King had been fighting that fight for decades before Venus stepped on the scene. But Venus was a scathing op-ed in a London media outlet, basically saying that women were still being treated as second class citizens with the Wimbledon tennis tournament. So due to her activism through the media and using her platform, she successfully lobbied Wimbledon to have equal prize money. And poetically, she won the Wimbledon tennis tournament the first year in 2007 that equal prize money was awarded to women and men. Let's sticking with the theme of women's activism in sport. During the summer of 2020, you had a number of athletes with the WNBA who leveraged their platform to not only increase voter access to the polls for the presidential election in 2020, but also to shed light on the ongoing police brutality happening in African American communities. So that's another example. Obviously, the one that many people are familiar with is Colin Kaepernick in 2016, taking a knee and even decades earlier in 1968 with the famous Olympic protest by Tommy Smith and John Carlos raising their fifth in the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. So suffice it to say, athletes across all backgrounds have used their platform through sport to champion for change in sport and outside of sport, particularly around combating racism, sexism, classism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism in other ways in which or ideas and systems and beliefs that have caused undue harm select groups of people. So Dr. Cooper, the political activism when a person is an athlete is active, trying to access equal resources within their sport has probably been a little more understood at large. But as far as athletes using their sport and their platform to talk about issues outside of their sport, as you mentioned with Colin Kaepernick, there's been some dissent from individuals who feel that athletes should not use their political platform to talk about issues that are outside of the sport realm. And what is your response to that? The reason for that reality is that there's been a message conveyed in our society that sports and politics don't mix. We like to view sports as separate from every other aspect of our lives. Many people watch sports as a form of escapism. So for entertainment, for leisure, they want to have fun and enjoy it. But the reality is sport is a part of our society. And the people who participate in sport are human beings who are a part of communities and groups that are affected by real life circumstances, including wars, including prison, industrial conflicts, including economic downturns, including healthcare disparities. So the reason why people don't want athletes to talk about sports is that they would like to believe that that's a space where talking about those issues is off limits. I have a different position. I believe sport is the ideal place to highlight that because sport is a unique space where you bring people together for a common cause and you can use that space to have productive conversations and dialogue about ways in which our society can be better. A great example of that is if you look at our professional sports that have a number of athletes from diverse backgrounds, well, if it had not been for Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in 1947, you would not see modern-day sport in the way that you do today. And if you enjoy sport in that way, if you enjoy watching certain athletes compete, Patrick Mahomes, if you enjoy Allison Felix, Serena Williams, Cocoa Golf, and all of these individuals, that would not have been possible if sport and politics did not intersect. And so if you enjoy that, that means that there was a positive benefit that you experienced as a result of politics and sports interacting to advance racial justice, to advance gender equity, to advance other areas in our society, then we as a collective society could continue to look at sport as a space to advance those same causes during our lifetime. And for those who are trying to be allies and support those who are impacted politically, socially, economically, what would you say, what does an ally look like? How do they effectively, I think we could look at examples of where people may have crossed from allies to more of a savior or trying to rescue. But how do we effectively say that define that someone could be an effective ally? I think an ally is someone who stands in solidarity and support with not only activists, individuals, but activist groups and groups that are advocating for positive social change in our society. So if you want to be an ally, the first step is within your sphere of influence within your family, within your friend circle, within your immediate relationships, working to convey messages to help those in your inner circle be open minded to change. The next step that I would argue is important is financially supporting even a small amount to organizations that are doing that work. That would be an example of what I would call economic activism. And then also you can use social media, you can join organizations, you can share resources and links. There's a number of ways in which you can use your agency to advocate for positive change as an ally. Those are really great concrete examples. And we've talked a lot today about how racism in sport is still intertwined. What final takeaways or message would you have for our viewers? I would say be authentic, acknowledge that even though racism still exists, it does not have to exist. It was created by humans, is reproduced by humans, and it can be dismantled by humans. It just takes correct courageous committed individuals to work together to champion for that change. Thank you Dr. Cooper for your insight into racism and sport, modern day issues in sport. I appreciate your time today. Thank you Angela. And thank you to our viewers for joining us today on the sports playbook. Our next episode, the guest will be Brian Fox, who will discuss name, image, and likeness or NIL and the collective. We will see you then.