[00:00:00] Welcome to Unsolicited Perspectives 🎙️🔥💥

[00:00:00] Bruce Anthony: On this episode, we're exploring the intersection of race, sports, and power through the lens of big time college football with Dr. Tracy Canada. We gonna get into it all. Let's get it.   

[00:00:23] Bruce Anthony: Welcome, first of all, welcome. This is Unsolicited Perspectives. I'm your host, Bruce Anthony. Here to lead the [00:00:30] conversation in important events and topics that are shaping today's society. Join the conversation to follow us wherever you get your audio podcast. Subscribe to our YouTube channel for our video podcast and YouTube exclusive content.

[00:00:41] Bruce Anthony: Rate review, like, comment, share, share with your friends, share with your family. Hell even share with your enemies.

[00:00:49] Scholar in the Spotlight: Meet Dr. Tracie Canada 🎓✨

[00:00:49] Bruce Anthony: On today's episode, I'll be talking with Dr. Tracy Canada. She's a cultural anthropology professor at Duke University, founder of Hearts Labs, and author of [00:01:00] Tackling Every Day Race and Nation in Big Time College Football.

[00:01:04] Bruce Anthony: We're gonna be talking about her life and her work, but that's enough of the intro. Let's get to the show.  

[00:01:17] Bruce Anthony: Our guest today is Dr. Tracy Canada, a black feminist anthropologist whose work is reshaping how we think about race, kinship, and care in one of America's most popular and problematic pastimes football. She's the [00:01:30] Andrew w Mellon Assistant Professor of cultural anthropology at Duke University. She leads hearts, labs.

[00:01:36] Bruce Anthony: If you were ever wondering what happens off the field, beyond the Saturday Night Lights. The multimillion dollar contracts. Her research offers profound insights. Dr. Canada's first book, tackling the Everyday Race and Nation in Big Time College Football takes us into the lives of black college athletes, peeling back the layers of power, profit, and survival, and a system that often leaves these young men carrying the weight of glory and [00:02:00] exploitation.

[00:02:01] Bruce Anthony: But before we get into her book, we're going to get to know the person behind this important work. What shaped her perspective? How did she come to see football, not just as a sport, but as a lens of understanding race and society? So without further ado, Dr. Tracy Canada.

[00:02:16] Roots & Routes: Dr. Canada’s Greensboro-to-Duke Journey 🌳🛣️

[00:02:16] Bruce Anthony: So, like I said, at the top, I'm here with Dr. Tracy Canada. She's a anthropologist at Duke University. We're not gonna hold that against her because we're Tar Hill fans over here.

[00:02:25] Dr, Tracie Canada: Oh, come on.

[00:02:27] Bruce Anthony: we're Tar Hill fans over here, but Dr. [00:02:30] Tracy. It is such a pleasure to have you on the show today because I feel like this topic is extremely important, especially with the NFL draft coming relatively soon.

[00:02:41] Bruce Anthony: Uh, depending on when this airs, it either is coming up next weekend or it happened last weekend. But before we get into your book and your work. I start every interview with a simple question. Let's go back to the beginning. So can you tell me a little bit about your journey? What was it like growing up in your hometown, your [00:03:00] family, and were there early moments in your life that pointed you towards being an anthropologist?

[00:03:06] Dr, Tracie Canada: Oh, I love that question actually. Um, first of all, thank you so much for having me. I won't hold it against you that you're a Tar Heel fan because I went to Duke undergrad actually. So I don't just teach there like I'm an alum and so I have like a deeply rooted. Interest in, um, duke. Also, I'm from North Carolina, so that's actually where my story starts.

[00:03:24] Dr, Tracie Canada: Right. Like I know, look, you're making a face. I don't

[00:03:28] Bruce Anthony: Well, the face I'm making is, [00:03:30] is I'm a turp at heart. I graduated from the University of Maryland, but we still hate Duke. Uh, but that's

[00:03:37] Dr, Tracie Canada: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, we're not too fond in Maryland either. Um, but that's okay. 'cause I already said we weren't gonna hold it against you. Um, so the fact that I'm from North Carolina actually plays a role in this whole story. Not so much about me being an anthropologist, but about what it is that I'm interested in, because growing up in North Carolina, I definitely knew about basketball, right?

[00:03:56] Dr, Tracie Canada: College basketball. Um, I'm also from Greensboro, [00:04:00] so the a CC, uh, used to be there. And so it. It, the a CC just in general plays like a really interesting role in like the memories that I have growing up, especially in high school of like the big TV being rolled out, um, in school so that we could watch the games, um, because it was that big of a deal, um, during the day, especially when they were playing in Greensboro.

[00:04:19] Dr, Tracie Canada: But then like when March Madness, uh, kicked off, um.

[00:04:23] Anthropology Unlocked: How Duke Changed Her Lens 🔍🏛️

[00:04:23] Dr, Tracie Canada: But like I said, I went to Duke undergrad and that's actually where my interest in anthropology started. Um, and it's [00:04:30] because I met a professor, his name is Lee Baker. He's still at Duke, so now we're colleagues. He used to be my professor, then he was my mentor.

[00:04:36] Dr, Tracie Canada: He's still my mentor, but now we're colleagues. Um, and he was the one that introduced me to anthropology. Um, he is a, he is also a black professor, and so he introduced me to. The discipline in a way that, um, was quite different than what I kind of thought it was. Actually don't even know if I knew what anthropology was.

[00:04:54] Dr, Tracie Canada: But the way that he taught it was really interesting because he is actually historian of the discipline. So to think about the ways [00:05:00] that anthropology has played a role in the way that we like popular conceptions of race and, um. And of people who are black or people of color and their experiences in the us, the way that anthropology has played a role in where we are in, in the contemporary moment, right?

[00:05:16] Dr, Tracie Canada: Like that's a lot of what his work is. And so the way that he taught and talked about these things was really interesting to me because I grew up in Greensboro, right? So. Because of the sit-ins, because of HBCUs that are there, because of the [00:05:30] deep seated history that is like the racialized history in Greensboro and hearing about that growing up, then it kind of all started to make sense once.

[00:05:37] Dr, Tracie Canada: I was at Duke and I was learning from this professor, um, who was making it make sense to me through anthropology. And then I met another professor, his name is Orrin starn, who was writing a book about Tiger Woods at the time that I was an undergrad. And so I had these two guys who were, one was talking about race, one was talking about sport, and I was like, there's something interesting here, right?

[00:05:56] Dr, Tracie Canada: Like there's a way that we could maybe link these two ideas, these two [00:06:00] themes. Um, and because I already had this interest in college sport generally, but specifically basketball ended up at Duke. I was like, they are sleeping outside to go to games. That is not for me. I don't wanna do this. So I did not go to mini basketball games while I was a student, but I had a lot of friends that were on the football team.

[00:06:15] Dr, Tracie Canada: And so I became interested in football because I wanted to see my friends play. And so the stuff that was happening in the classroom, right, while I'm trying to like figure out what apology is. And then I'm like learning this new sport because I never really watched football before. I was a basketball fan, putting these two things together, [00:06:30] really how I came to this.

[00:06:31] Dr, Tracie Canada: Um, but it was really the way that I was introduced to a discipline that, um, actually has like kind of deep seated colonial and, and racist histories, imperialist histories. But the way that Lee Baker taught it, um, gave me a different view of it. And so it was exciting to me.

[00:06:46] Bruce Anthony: Okay. That's interesting. So in your work.

[00:06:50] Beyond the Field: Love, Family & Black Brotherhood ❤️

[00:06:50] Bruce Anthony: And we're gonna get to your book where you specifically talk about this, but in your work, you mentioned kinship and care. It, it's kind of like the central themes of your work [00:07:00] and your research. Were there moments growing up or relationships in your life outside of the professors, um, that emphasize the importance of these concepts to you?

[00:07:13] Dr, Tracie Canada: Yeah, so I am, I have developed into an anthropologist who use a sport to think about race, kinship care, violence. Injury labor, right? Like, these are the big themes that I think about, but kinship and care are like really important analytics in the way that I think about my work. And I don't [00:07:30] know if it came so much from growing up, right?

[00:07:31] Dr, Tracie Canada: Like I have, like I've got a solid family. I love my family. My family is still around, I still am in communication with everybody, right? Like we are a pretty big family. Um, and we're all, most of us are in North Carolina. So now that I get to come back home, like I do feel like I'm home being back at Duke now.

[00:07:48] Dr, Tracie Canada: Um. But I don't think that I was like very aware of that growing up, right? Like it was just something that was the norm for me. I wasn't super critical of it. I wasn't super reflective of it the way that I was interacting with my family or the people [00:08:00] around me. Um, the reasons that those actually became really helpful analytics for me, um, in the work that I do is because of actually specifically black feminists that are around me.

[00:08:10] Dr, Tracie Canada: Um, and this is a theoretical leaning. This does come from the academy, but it's the way of thinking about. Um, the importance of black women, the importance of like one's own experiences, centering the experiences of black people in the way that we think about work. Um, what does it mean to use your own positionality, right?

[00:08:27] Dr, Tracie Canada: So like, to think about what it means for me to be doing the work [00:08:30] that I'm doing, um, and then what happens when all of those things come together. For me, it means that you get to think about kinship, which is, uh, an idea of family, right? Like you get to think about family and get to think about.

[00:08:40] Dr, Tracie Canada: Relationships. You get to think about behaviors, you get to think about the ways that people care and love for one another. Um, and I just happened to do that through football, which is a sport that has these, like stereotypically like hyper masculine men, right? Like all these ideas about what that means to be like a young man at this point in time, right?

[00:08:59] Dr, Tracie Canada: But [00:09:00] I, because of the lens that I'm coming in with, um, and because of the people that are in like my, my circle of people, right? Um, the way that we care for one another, the way that we. Look out for one another. I was already getting that from the people that I'm around, and I was noticing that they are, these, the players are doing it too, even if they are men, right?

[00:09:19] Dr, Tracie Canada: Like that doesn't stop them from loving on each other, for, from caring for each other, from having these like really deep, intimate relationships with each other, um, and caring for each other in [00:09:30] ways that are sometimes unexpected, right? Like, but I was attuned to that because of how I'm surrounded by that in my life now.

[00:09:36] Bruce Anthony: Wow. So let's, let's take a Marvel Cinematic universe. Alternate universe and say that you didn't have a big family, or you weren't as close to your family, uh, as you are, because it seems like you're saying there are absolute parallels with your life. And the way that you have relationships to football players.

[00:09:58] Bruce Anthony: Not exactly the same, but there are [00:10:00] parallels in the closeness. In the kinship. Now say that you didn't have that do,

[00:10:04] Dr, Tracie Canada: Mm-hmm.

[00:10:05] Bruce Anthony: do you, how would that have changed your perspective? Because we're gonna be talking to people out here that aren't close with their family, don't understand kinship, don't understand that connection.

[00:10:16] Bruce Anthony: So how do you think. I know this is hypothetical. You have to think outside the box here 'cause you obviously didn't grow up not being close to your family. But if you hadn't,

[00:10:26] Dr, Tracie Canada: Yeah.

[00:10:27] Bruce Anthony: how could you interpret a lot of your [00:10:30] research and a lot of your work?

[00:10:31] Dr, Tracie Canada: Yeah, I think it would still be the same, right? Like it's not that I was attuned to it because it was something that was familiar to me in a particular way. So I could, I think the way that I think about it's that like I could pick up on it and be like, oh, like that looks familiar, right? But given. The, the knowledge that I have from reading books, from reading literature, from thinking about theories about this, right?

[00:10:50] Dr, Tracie Canada: Like, which is totally separate from then spending immersive time with people. That's what I do as an anthropologist and as an ethnographer, it means that I spend lots of time with the people that I work with, right? [00:11:00] For this work. I've been working on it for 10 years. I've been talking to black, uh, black college football players for at least 10 years, right?

[00:11:06] Dr, Tracie Canada: Um, and part of that too has been, uh, immersive time spent, right? Like spending an entire year. Um, with a football team, with members of several football teams, going to games, going to practice, eating meals, going to classes, right. Um, even if I was attuned to that stuff because of my own lived experiences, I.

[00:11:23] Dr, Tracie Canada: I still think it would've come out right? Like I still would've noticed it because when you spend that amount of time with people, certain patterns are [00:11:30] gonna become clear. Right? Um, I was interested in experiences of blackness, right? Like, what does it mean to be a young black man living in the world at this time?

[00:11:38] Dr, Tracie Canada: The immersive time was spent 2017, 18, right? So we also have to think contextually about what was going on then. This is during, um. This is like during, like right after Kaepernick's protest in the NFL, right? There was, um, a lot of conversation around, there was starting to be conversation around concussions and injuries in football.

[00:11:56] Dr, Tracie Canada: Um, primarily because Will Smith's concussion had just come out. [00:12:00] Um, this was right after Mizzou's football team was protesting against their president and they were successful with that, right? Like there was a lot of really interesting conversation. Um, not just. In popular culture, but specifically in football that was linking these experiences of race, right?

[00:12:14] Dr, Tracie Canada: Like, and thinking really critically about what it meant to be, um, a black man and a, a, a man of color at that time, but specifically one who was involved in the football space, right? So that's what I was interested in going in. Um. But they showed me, right? [00:12:30] Like the ways that they were navigating these systems that I was interested in, right?

[00:12:33] Dr, Tracie Canada: Like what does it mean to be a part of a team? What does it mean to be, um, at a university right now? What does it mean to not be paid for the things that you're doing on a field, but you know that your coach is making millions of dollars, right? Like, how do you, how do you, um, navigate like this pretty busy day that you have literally every day, right?

[00:12:51] Dr, Tracie Canada: Because you have to be a student and you have to be an athlete. Like how. How do you even do that? Those were the things that I was interested in, but what it showed to me, what they showed [00:13:00] me was that like they rely on each other a lot, right? Like they, they're not doing it alone. They're not doing it by themselves.

[00:13:04] Dr, Tracie Canada: They're not doing it alone on the team, and they're not doing it with alone within their families either, right? So I'm noticing how other I. Other black players on the team become important where they are, how they keep popping up. Their names keep popping up, they're always around each other, always talking to it.

[00:13:18] Dr, Tracie Canada: They're always joking around. We're like, that's one part. And then I'm constantly seeing too, how their moms keep coming into this, right? Like they're always on the phone with their moms. Their moms are always popping up at school, even though they're not in the same state. Sometimes their [00:13:30] moms are at every game, even if they're not playing right.

[00:13:32] Dr, Tracie Canada: So they were showing to me, and I think for me, that's how I think about what it means to do the work that I do. Right. Um. I could read all I want. I could think all I want, but what is happening in front of me is what I need to pay attention to because I need to trust. What people are telling me about their own lives, right?

[00:13:51] Dr, Tracie Canada: Like, I am not a football player. I was never a football player. I will never be a football player. And so no matter how much I read, that's not an experience that I'm gonna know, right? And so, [00:14:00] um, it's learning from the people that I'm working with. And so what are they telling me? They were showing me, telling me sometimes, explicitly, sometimes not so much, but they were telling me how important these relationships were to them.

[00:14:11] Dr, Tracie Canada: Making sure that they were able to get through their everyday lives given all of these like big systems that they were a part of.

[00:14:18] Bruce Anthony: Wow.

[00:14:19] Inside HEARTS Lab: Where Race, Health & Sport Collide 🔬🏟️

[00:14:19] Bruce Anthony: So you do a lot of work. You're also the founder of Hart's Lab. Can you explain to my audience what exactly that is

[00:14:28] Dr, Tracie Canada: Yeah. I would love to.

[00:14:29] Bruce Anthony: [00:14:30] how does. Everything that you do come together to form this cultural analyst that you've been doing.

[00:14:39] Dr, Tracie Canada: Yeah, so the Hearts Labs, it stands for Health, ethnography and Race through Sports, and it's a social science. I'm a social scientist, right? So it's a social science lab. Um, that's currently situated at Duke. Um, and it really, the way that I think about it is that it's an umbrella for all of the things that I'm already doing.

[00:14:55] Dr, Tracie Canada: Um, but now I get to bring in undergrads in like a very particular way. So, [00:15:00] right, like being a professor, that means that I, um, I teach, right? Like there are certain classes that I teach every year, um, that means that I am a member of several professional communities, right? Like not just memberships, but like I am.

[00:15:11] Dr, Tracie Canada: Part of groups of anthropologists. I'm part of groups of sports scholars, I'm part of groups of social scientists. I'm part of groups of black feminists, right? Like, so I'm part of all of these groups, um, and I do service for these groups. Um, I clearly have research that's going on because that's another really big part of what it means to be a professor, right?

[00:15:27] Dr, Tracie Canada: So I've got these projects that are going, I'm thinking [00:15:30] about all these, I'm writing this over here, here I'm talking to people like you or like, I'm doing all this stuff that all surrounds, or that's all, um, based on my research and. I'm mentoring too, right? Like I've got students that I'm working with, um, I'm trying to help them with networking.

[00:15:45] Dr, Tracie Canada: I'm trying to do my own networking. My own networking, right? To be in the communities that I need to be in. And so I have all of these like big ideas and so I needed to figure out, I would like to figure out a way to like put them all together and make it cohesive, right? For me, the lab was [00:16:00] that because there are models on college campuses everywhere of these labs, right?

[00:16:03] Dr, Tracie Canada: Like we usually think of, um. Of labs and the natural sciences. Um, but the, the way that I'm thinking about labs is that like, how can I bridge all of these things that I'm doing and incorporate undergraduate specifically in the research that I'm doing too, right. So it's not just. Me by myself thinking about all of these things.

[00:16:19] Dr, Tracie Canada: It's like, no, how can you, who's not an anthropology major? Um, how can you coming from a different discipline come in and look at the work that I'm doing and say like, well, why don't you ask that question instead? Right. [00:16:30] Like, what, what about this part? Because that's what I'm learning in my classes. That's what my own research is about.

[00:16:34] Dr, Tracie Canada: So how about you do that or having undergraduates, um, do interviews with me, right. Like on some of the projects that I'm working on, um, taking them to conferences so that they can meet other scholars that are around there. Their age in the academy, but also people that might be more senior so they can meet other people if they've got plans to go to grad school, if they wanna go to professional school, depending on what the job is that they wanna do, they can meet people that way.

[00:16:56] Dr, Tracie Canada: Right. Um, so incorporating undergrads in the work that I'm doing, [00:17:00] but to make sure that like we kind of even everything out, right? Like, it's not that I'm the professor and y'all are the undergrads and then we have some grad students. It's like, no, we are in a community here. We're all learning from each other.

[00:17:09] Dr, Tracie Canada: What can we all individually bring to this space so that we all in the same way that my work is, right? Like we all feel cared for. We're all good here. Um, we're all productive. We all feel successful, right? Um, how can we link up with people on other campuses that are doing similar work so that we're parts of these much like much larger communities, right?

[00:17:27] Dr, Tracie Canada: And you'll hear me say certain words over and over [00:17:30] again because the way that I like to think about it's that like my research reflects also the way that I try to like. Model for students how I am navigating through the academy, right? Um, I, I'm not doing this alone. I can't do this by myself at all, right?

[00:17:43] Dr, Tracie Canada: So like, we all need to like look out for each other. We all need to care for each other. We all need to be in community. We all need to strategize together. And so how can I do that in my own research? And then how can I model that for people that are coming up behind me who might be wanting to do this too.

[00:17:57] Dr, Tracie Canada: Right? How can I see, um, other more [00:18:00] senior people doing it and how they've mentored me to do it the same way, right? Um, because we're all trying to be out here making it right? Like we all wanna make it. Um, and so how can we do that in a way that's like. Productive for everybody, but also like, hopefully not super stressful.

[00:18:16] Dr, Tracie Canada: Um, hopefully not violent, like, and I use that word very seriously, right? Of like, to make sure that everybody is taken care of. Um, and so that's how, for me, that's what the lab is doing, right? Of like bringing these undergrads in, bringing grad students in, thinking [00:18:30] about research, thinking about events that we can have.

[00:18:32] Dr, Tracie Canada: With community partners thinking about how to bridge this gap between the academy and the public. Right. So research that I do, I don't think should stay in the academy. I don't think only people with PhDs should read what it is that I'm writing or what I'm thinking about. So how can we think about different ways to write?

[00:18:47] Dr, Tracie Canada: I. How can we think about different ways to talk to different audiences? How can we bring people into the space? Because what we're doing, and I think that this is true for most people in the academy, right? Like what we're doing is important and it, um, is kind of lost on [00:19:00] us if it only stays within the walls of universities.

[00:19:02] Dr, Tracie Canada: So how can we make sure that we bridge these gaps? And that's like really the serious work that the lab is trying to do.

[00:19:07] Bruce Anthony: I love that because what you're essentially saying is you're bringing in diverse voices to ask questions that maybe you wouldn't even think of or wouldn't even consider to think of asking. That gives you a better overall. All view. You get that, ladies and gentlemen, when you bring in diverse voices, you can, you can get a lot of accomplished stuff done. [00:19:30]

[00:19:35] Bruce Anthony: You brought up black feminists and you obviously are a black feminist, and you said you come from a family of black feminists, f black feminists.

[00:19:43] Black Feminist in the Huddle: Claiming Space in Football ✊🏾👩🏾‍🎓

[00:19:43] Bruce Anthony: How, how have, how has, how have you, if I can get it out, how have you as a black feminist been able to navigate in this dominated male space?

[00:19:53] Dr, Tracie Canada: Mm-hmm. So, I don't know if actually people in my family would claim to be black feminists. That might be a flag that I, a, a, like a [00:20:00] mark that I give them. But I don't know if they would claim to be that. I know that the people that are in my, like professional spaces, like my friends, the people that I communicate with mostly in my research, like we are a black feminist.

[00:20:09] Dr, Tracie Canada: Right? And we mean that very seriously. And the ways that I just noted right, of like. What it means to be a black woman in the space doing the work that we're doing, or like what it means to think of black women in the work that we're doing as well, right? Like, not just us as the researchers, but the people that we're working with.

[00:20:22] Dr, Tracie Canada: Um, what does it mean to take seriously these ideas of care, right? And love, um, and being genuine. [00:20:30] Um, what does it mean? To think of the ways that, that might impact men too, right? Like how, like I said, right, like the men that I'm working with, how are they caring for each other? Because they are, right? Like, and so how, how is that even happening?

[00:20:43] Dr, Tracie Canada: Um, I think that, um, not so much my, I wouldn't say that it's necessarily my black feminist. Orientation to this, but it is the fact that I'm a woman in these spaces, right? Um, and as you mentioned, like these are, these are spaces that are mostly, they're mostly men that are around, right? And so, um, [00:21:00] what is my positionality as a young black woman mean when I'm in these spaces, right?

[00:21:04] Dr, Tracie Canada: Like, how am I able to navigate these spaces or how am I not? Um, and a lot of that comes from the people that I'm working with too, right? Like when you have coaches that are saying. No, you can't be in the locker room when it's populated. Right. That makes sense. But that does mean that this is a, a sexed experience, right?

[00:21:20] Dr, Tracie Canada: Like this is sport, especially football is something that, um, is predominantly men, which means that it is limited to women in particular ways. Right? So I can't [00:21:30] be in certain spaces at certain times. There are certain things that they don't want me to hear. Um, I've written in other occasions about, um. As an example, right?

[00:21:38] Dr, Tracie Canada: Like you're in the weight room and certain music is playing, and then I walk in and then they'll change the music because they don't want me to hear it, right? Um, I didn't ask for that, and I actually didn't tell you to do it. I would prefer that you keep it going because that's, I'm not trying to interrupt the space.

[00:21:52] Dr, Tracie Canada: But when you change the music, just because a woman has walked in like that actually says a lot, right? Like, what does that mean? What does it mean where y'all can [00:22:00] see me now? Like, what does it mean when I wear my hair out if I'm on a football field that signals like that marks something particular because women that are in that space usually have their hair back because they're working, right?

[00:22:09] Dr, Tracie Canada: So if I walk in with my hair out, what does that mean? How is, how am I being marked in that space? Or how am I. Messing with that space, right? Like, how am I transgressing it by showing up clearly not in, um, not as like an equipment manager. Not as an athletic trainer, not as part of the medical staff. Like what does it mean when I show up in jeans at a [00:22:30] football game and I'm clearly not there to work, right?

[00:22:32] Dr, Tracie Canada: Um, how am I disrupting the space? And then how do people respond to me? That stuff is what I'm actually really interested in because it tells me a lot about the space, and that again, is like what I'm, what I do as an ethnographer, right? It's like think about the ways that people are interacting with their own social worlds.

[00:22:46] Dr, Tracie Canada: And some of it is, um, I very clearly disrupt that social, social, excuse me, that social world being who I am, right? Um. But then that gives me a lot, uh, to think about. It gives me a lot to write about. It gives me a lot to talk about with them [00:23:00] of like, well, why did you change my music? Like, I didn't ask you to.

[00:23:02] Dr, Tracie Canada: So like, what, what, why did you do that right then? So to me, all of that is data that then I can do something with and think about, um, given these ideas that I have, um, that I'm trying or giving these ideas that I'm trying to think through, um, that all relate back to football in some way.

[00:23:18] Bruce Anthony: What challenges have you faced specifically trying to tell stories about black athletes and mothers? Has there been any pushback?

[00:23:27] Dr, Tracie Canada: Yeah. No, there hasn't been [00:23:30] much pushback. I think the only thing that I usually get is like, you have a chapter about mothers in the book, right? Because I did write a book about all of this. That's the whole point. Um, there's one specific chapter that's about mothers. And so people ask, well, what about a chapter about fathers?

[00:23:42] Dr, Tracie Canada: Like, why isn't there one of them there? And I'm like, well, plenty of people write about football fathers all the time. Um, and part of the point that I'm trying to make is that black football mothers are completely invisible in this process, even though they're very central to the entire thing. Right.

[00:23:56] Dr, Tracie Canada: Like they, and this is another part of the black feminist orientation, right? Like there's a lot of [00:24:00] labor that they put into this to make sure that it works. But also the argument that I'm trying to make is that if black mothers are not on board, football doesn't exist because they're usually the ones that sign off on their sons being able to play.

[00:24:12] Dr, Tracie Canada: And I am not making invisible black fathers by not having a chapter about them. Because I also recognize and talk about how usually the only reason that players are playing is because of their dads or their uncles, or like other men in their family, right? Like that's how they get into the sport. I.

[00:24:27] Dr, Tracie Canada: There's that particular lineage because as we've already [00:24:30] discussed, this is a sport that's played by men, right? So it's usually passed down in a particular way. Or you have friends and they're the ones that show you like, Hey, come play with me. Right? Um, so it's not that men are at all men, fathers, uncles, grandpas, right?

[00:24:45] Dr, Tracie Canada: Like, it's not that they're at all invisible in this, and they're always around, right? Like, and they were always around for the players that I was working with too. What does it mean when we are consistently hearing about fathers, but we get like the spot on ESPN for Mother's Day to talk about moms. I'm like, that's it, [00:25:00] right?

[00:25:00] Dr, Tracie Canada: I wanna know what it means to have somebody, like I said before, to have somebody that shows up to every game you've ever played in, even if you've only played in 20% of them. What does it mean to have somebody that like shows up for you in that way? Right? What does it mean to have somebody who's gonna come.

[00:25:18] Dr, Tracie Canada: To your dorm and do your laundry and cook for you and ask you about everything else. Maybe at the very end to ask you about football because that's not the most important thing to her. Right? What does it mean when you've got [00:25:30] somebody who you're working with a researcher like me and she's like pumping me for questions about your, uh, about the player, right?

[00:25:36] Dr, Tracie Canada: Of like, why did he get this tattoo and do you know about this person? What's going like, 'cause she's wanting to make sure that you're okay, but you don't really talk to her like that sometimes. Right? What does it mean when you have a player who does walk across campus and talk to his mom every day at the same time?

[00:25:48] Dr, Tracie Canada: Right?

[00:25:49] Mama’s Playbook: The Unsung Power of Football Moms 👩🏾‍👦🏈

[00:25:49] Dr, Tracie Canada: Like, I have a scheduled meet, like meeting with my mother. Um. And I look forward to calling her during my day when I'm walking to class and she looks forward to me [00:26:00] calling. Right? Like, what does that mean? Like, and these women are around, like, they're super important. Um, they become really important in recruiting and they, they become very important like Walla players in school.

[00:26:10] Dr, Tracie Canada: But I think that there's just a. There's so much more that can be said about their experiences and how they are navigating this space and how they think about their sons and injury and violence and this sport itself. And like what it means to like, um, to be a good man, right? Like, what does it mean to be like a well-rounded young man at this [00:26:30] time?

[00:26:30] Dr, Tracie Canada: Right? Do they, do these moms even think that football is part of that? Um, and sometimes they don't. Right? And so what does that mean? And who. Who's asking them those questions? Who's writing about them? Um, and so I think that's what I'm trying to do, right? And so it's not that I get pushback about writing them into the story.

[00:26:46] Dr, Tracie Canada: Because I think once you hear the argument, it makes total sense. Um, and also they're the ones that birth these sons, right? So like we, they don't exist without them either. So the, the argument makes sense of why they're there. I think the only thing sometimes [00:27:00] that people ask where the fathers are, and I'm like, well, you can read somebody else's work for that.

[00:27:03] Dr, Tracie Canada: There's plenty of work that's already been done on that, but how many other instances could you get to talk about black moms, um, in the football space in this way?

[00:27:10] Bruce Anthony: You don't the most of the time when you hear about black mothers and football players, it's the football player saying, I'm gonna buy my mama a house. Like you don't hear about everything that you're explaining is a part of the Black College football players experience. You don't

[00:27:26] Dr, Tracie Canada: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:27] Bruce Anthony: Uh.

[00:27:28] Book Break: Diving into Tackling the Everyday 📚🏆

[00:27:28] Bruce Anthony: But, but let's get to your [00:27:30] book.

[00:27:30] Bruce Anthony: Okay. Tackling the Everyday Race Nation in the big time, college football, what started it? Because you're doing all this research, you're gathering all this data. You, you have mentors who are professors, you have friends while you're an undergrad that are on the football teams, the reason why you're in football.

[00:27:47] Bruce Anthony: What was the moment as you're, as you're getting your doctorate, you know, and, and still at Duke University as you're getting your doctorate and you're saying, you know what? This is a story that needs to be told. [00:28:00] Was there a moment or was it just all, all of all of everything from undergrad to master's to your doctorate was just leading to this moment.

[00:28:09] Bruce Anthony: I.

[00:28:10] Dr, Tracie Canada: Yeah. So while I was an undergrad and I was at Duke at that time, right? Like, like I mentioned, um, this was one of the years that the basketball team won a national championship. So my first year at Duke. The basketball team won a national championship and this was before Duke football had like really taken off the way that it is now.

[00:28:24] Dr, Tracie Canada: Right. Um, because I will say that we have taken off but we weren't doing so hot before.[00:28:30]

[00:28:30] Bruce Anthony: Ladies, and if you listen to the audio, I just rolled my.

[00:28:33] Dr, Tracie Canada: I have to throw that in there. 'cause you know, like we're, we're, we're doing, we're doing pretty good right now. Um, but when I was a student, we, we weren't.

[00:28:41] Student vs. Athlete: The Double Life of NCAA Stars 🎓🏋️♂️⚖️

[00:28:41] Dr, Tracie Canada: Um, and so actually what was really interesting to me when I was an undergrad was the ways that people on campus treated basketball and football players differently, even though that is where, um, both of those teams were, uh, predominantly black men, right?

[00:28:54] Dr, Tracie Canada: And so there was something about people on campus being able to tell. What sport they played or to know what [00:29:00] sport they played just because of how much they were on TV and to then be able to interact with them differently. And so I was just like, as a, as an undergrad, just as someone walking around campus, I was fascinated by like what I was seeing.

[00:29:11] Dr, Tracie Canada: And maybe it wasn't exactly true 'cause I didn't talk to people about it, but I was just seeing how people interacted with these two, um, these two groups of athletes differently. Um, which then eventually sparked an interest in some of these ideas that I'm talking about so that I meet these professors.

[00:29:25] Dr, Tracie Canada: Um. I'm giving tours on campus, like through admissions, and so I'm [00:29:30] meeting people that way where like I'm talking to all of these people and I'm like, there might be something here, right? Like in this, like, what is this experience? At that point it was like, what is this experience of being a college, um, a college athlete, right?

[00:29:40] Dr, Tracie Canada: Like a, a, a black man on a college campus and a college athlete. All these people know you, right? Like you're on TV all the time. This was still like, social media hadn't taken off in the way that it is now, but like it was still a thing. And so it's like people feel like they can talk to you all the time and they have access to you.

[00:29:59] Dr, Tracie Canada: [00:30:00] Um, like I could go to the student store and like, buy your jersey, but you're not making any money off of that. Like that seems kind of weird, you know? Um. Like, because, um, just because of the nature of like being a college student, right? Like, you see people around at certain times, so it's like y'all are remarkably absent at certain times of the year, and then you just like pop up just because of how the playing season works, right?

[00:30:21] Dr, Tracie Canada: Um, you're in classes with people and so you see them sometimes come in on crutches or you see them like come in all like battered and bruised, like, what [00:30:30] happened to you over the week? Like, you just, like, it was a really interesting experience for me to, to just be around and to like start paying attention to those ideas, right?

[00:30:37] Dr, Tracie Canada: And so then when I went to grad school at the University of Virginia, that's what I went to school with was a project thinking about, um, uh, like all of these ideas through college football, but specifically college football because the college, um, the college sport system is unique to the us right? Like there's no other country in the world that unites higher education and amateur athletics, quote unquote amateur athletics, right?

[00:30:58] Dr, Tracie Canada: Um. [00:31:00] There's no other system in the, in the world that does that. And so college sports in the US are actually like quite a unique space to think about some of these ideas, right? Because of the ways that they are tied to education. Um, and again, because they are amateurs, I. Quote unquote, they're not paid, right?

[00:31:15] Dr, Tracie Canada: Like, so there has to be a way to distinguish them between professional sports and amateur, like college sports. And so I was just really interested in how all these dynamics came about. That was the project that I applied to grad school with. That's what I wrote my dissertation about after doing this immersive field work, right?

[00:31:28] Dr, Tracie Canada: Of like spending all of this [00:31:30] time with people. And that's, um, that's where you, uh, you kind of bust your ethnographic. Right. Like you spend all this time with people and you learn from them, and you're, you're trying to figure out like how they're theorizing their own worlds, right? It's not me coming in as somebody who's like an expert and I'm like, this is what's going on, right?

[00:31:46] Dr, Tracie Canada: Like, that's not the points for you to learn from the people about what they are thinking about what's going on with them. Um, and so then that dissertation eventually became the book, right? And so. The facts that I've been working on this for such a significant period of time. [00:32:00] Right.

[00:32:00] COVID Chaos: Football’s $Billion Pandemic Secrets 🦠🏟️💰

[00:32:00] Dr, Tracie Canada: And then also, if we have to think about, I was doing research in 1718, but then the pandemic hits and then we have that season, primarily that first season of, of college football play where football players were sometimes the only player or the only students on college campuses.

[00:32:15] Dr, Tracie Canada: Um, but they had to, had to quote unquote come back. To play for their teams, right? If we're thinking power five and power four, depending on how we think about it now, um, all these dynamics that I was thinking about were like, to me, very obviously on display during [00:32:30] that season. When you have empty stadiums, you've got cardboard cutouts in the stadiums, you've got fan noise being pumped in.

[00:32:36] Dr, Tracie Canada: You've got teams being tested for covid like every other day somehow. Like they have, somehow they have access to all of these tests to test like 150 people every other day, right? Um. They are being, uh, they, they are living in dorms or in residential spaces that are, they're attempting to seclude them in particular ways, right?

[00:32:54] Dr, Tracie Canada: Like to, to help against, um, if, if there is a covid outbreak to like help to protect some of the [00:33:00] people. There are these waivers that are being signed by athletes to say that they won't come back and. Get upset with their universities if they get sick, right? Like there are all these dynamics that are going on in 2020 that it's like, oh, this stuff that I was seeing about labor and exploitation and payment and who's like, where the money is flow.

[00:33:15] Dr, Tracie Canada: All of that was like very obviously on display during the pandemic as well. And so all of these dynamics came together to me in, in ways that really made sense for these ideas that I was thinking about. And then that's what all eventually developed into the book.[00:33:30]

[00:33:34] Redefining the Win: What “Success” Means for Athletes 🏅🔄

[00:33:34] Bruce Anthony: So many people see college football as a path to success, right? But your research uncovers, it's an exploitive proposition more so than an absolute path to success. What do you wish more people would understand about the experience specifically for black college athletes in this regard?

[00:33:55] Dr, Tracie Canada: Yeah, I think, I think the first thing that I'm thinking of is like, what does it mean to be successful, [00:34:00] right? Like, maybe we just need to have different ideas of what success means, because if success means. Um, you go pro. That mean like that's not success for most of them, right? 98%. The NCAA used to say that 98% of our athletes will go pro in something other than their sport, right?

[00:34:16] Dr, Tracie Canada: Which means that the majority of the people that are playing this sport are not gonna go pro. So that can't be the way that we think about success. Some people think of success in this space is like, um, if you were playing in college, then that means that whether you could have gotten [00:34:30] there on your own or not, right?

[00:34:31] Dr, Tracie Canada: You do go to college, right? Um. And so it's an opportunity for you to go to college, um, and you get to play this sport that I would hope that you at least have some interest in, right? Like maybe you don't love it still, but like at least you're still interested in the sport and you get to go to college at the same time.

[00:34:47] Dr, Tracie Canada: Um, and that's where I try to challenge sometimes what people are thinking about, like what it means to be an athlete. Um, in college at this moment because there are such a different experience for athletes on these [00:35:00] campuses than for students who do not play a sport. Right? And so what does it mean again?

[00:35:03] Dr, Tracie Canada: Like, these are all hypotheticals, but like very real, right? Like, what does it mean when during your playing season it's okay because the ncaa, your team, the university has said that you can miss classes on certain days because you're traveling. So then what does that mean when you need to be in class, but now you need to meet with your professor and figure out a way to make up the work.

[00:35:21] Dr, Tracie Canada: You're not in class to be around your classmates who are like doing the work while they're there. You instead have tutors or study hall that's spilling in for it. Right? Which is [00:35:30] usually not with your professor. Um, so that's one experience, right? Like what does it mean when now you very rarely get a break during the year, right?

[00:35:37] Dr, Tracie Canada: Like if your team is playing well and you play in a bowl game, then that means that you are on campus sometimes well into winter break when everyone else is already at home. Sometimes, depending on what holidays you celebrate, you might miss those holidays with your family. And then also it might be two, three weeks later that you get to finally go home because you've been playing into January.

[00:35:56] Dr, Tracie Canada: Right? But that also, one, not only does that limit your [00:36:00] time away from campus just during that time, but it also means it limits your time with your family. Right. Um, but let's say that

[00:36:06] Bruce Anthony: players don't have to worry about that.

[00:36:08] Dr, Tracie Canada: Well, I think that that is not true because we have definitely gone to bowl games in recent years,

[00:36:13] Bruce Anthony: Yeah, you're

[00:36:13] Dr, Tracie Canada: so you just need to check your stats on that because that is a very real thing for Duke football players.

[00:36:19] Dr, Tracie Canada: Um. But then even for other players, just in general, right? Like, um, camp happens during the summer, you are taking classes during the summer, so summers are not like just [00:36:30] this like months long period of a break, right? Um, they're still on campus, they're still in classes, they're still working out, they're still doing football stuff.

[00:36:38] Dr, Tracie Canada: Which also not only limits like the amount of rest that your body gets from such a strenuous, violent, dangerous activity, but also that's usually when internships happen. That's usually when networking with companies happens, right? Like, because you need a job once you graduate. Or most people would like a job once they graduate.

[00:36:52] Dr, Tracie Canada: Right. And so how is that developed in college? Usually in those experiences? And so you're limited in those experiences, let's say that there's a major that you [00:37:00] wanna, that you wanna, um, participate in, but the times that those classes meet interfere with football. Football is gonna come first, which usually just means that you can't major in that thing.

[00:37:09] Dr, Tracie Canada: So if you came into college wanting to be, as an example, an engineer, just because I know that that schedule is, um, those, those schedules, uh, interfere usually with football times, right? It's very hard to be an engineer, to be a football player because of when labs meet, when the classes meet, the amount of outside of class experience that you need.

[00:37:25] Dr, Tracie Canada: Which then means that, that you, you can't major in that, right? Because football has to take priority. [00:37:30] So all of these things added together do make for a completely different experience for a football player who goes to college than just a student who's there, right? Like I didn't play a sport in college.

[00:37:38] Dr, Tracie Canada: So I had, I can say for a fact, I had a completely different experience than the football players that graduated with me, right? Just because of the fact that they played football and what their experiences were in a classroom compared to mine. And so that is where I start to challenge like, what does it mean to be successful?

[00:37:52] Dr, Tracie Canada: They get a degree, but is it the same type of degree as other students on campuses get? Do they have the same opportunities? Are they partaking in the same type of activities? [00:38:00] Are they exposed to the same things? And usually that answer is no, which then does challenge this idea of like, well, you got a degree, like you got a degree and you got to play football.

[00:38:09] Dr, Tracie Canada: It's like, actually I got a different type of degree and I didn't get paid for paying for playing football even though somebody else did. And now my body's kind of run down, right? So. All of these dynamics together make for a particular experience that they're having that isn't usually mirrored in other students on campus.

[00:38:25] Off‑Field Obstacles: The Hidden Struggles of Black Athletes 🎒⚠️

[00:38:25] Bruce Anthony: How does that reality, right, of the idea of that high school [00:38:30] student going to play big time college football

[00:38:32] Dr, Tracie Canada: Mm-hmm.

[00:38:33] Bruce Anthony: and then getting on campus, how does that dream versus reality affect their day-to-day lives and their daily, their daily routines?

[00:38:42] Dr, Tracie Canada: Yeah, I think like one of the, one of the major ways is that they're like highly scheduled people, right? Like they are on like a very part, like you have to be at a certain place at a certain time. And you have to know where you're going. And it's like very organized because there's so much that has to happen in a day, especially if we're thinking about the season, right?

[00:38:59] Dr, Tracie Canada: [00:39:00] You've got practices, you've got study halls, you've got meals that you have to go to. You've got, uh, tape that you have to watch or film that you have to watch. You have physical therapy that you have to go to. And then every weekend, usually every weekend, you got a game that you gotta go to. Sometimes you have to travel to it, sometimes you don't.

[00:39:17] Dr, Tracie Canada: There's usually like designated time that is required for the game itself, right? Um, so that means that they're highly scheduled, right? There's a very particular way that they have to navigate just their [00:39:30] every day in order to pack in all the things that they have to do to make sure that everything is kind of accounted for, which also just means like they're tired and like their body's hurt.

[00:39:39] Dr, Tracie Canada: And especially as the, as the season goes on, right? Like if you talk to people as the season goes on, if they're winning or not, that does impact the way that they're thinking about the sport and like their mental health in that space as well, right? Of like. It's not fun to not win, but especially not to win.

[00:39:55] Dr, Tracie Canada: If you're on tv, if people are talking about you, right? Like the way that commentators will sometimes come into this. Again, the way that [00:40:00] social media comes into this, there's a person at the center of that, and it's not just a person, it's a young person, right? If we think about how old college students are.

[00:40:08] Dr, Tracie Canada: They're like 17 ish to like 22 ish, right? These are young people that are at the center of like all these like really big ideas. In a way that I like to think about it too is sometimes it like you just moved out of your family house, right? Like you got to college yesterday and now your face is all over campus.

[00:40:26] Dr, Tracie Canada: You are all over ESPN. Everybody is talking about all your business all [00:40:30] the time. People are DMing you on social media because you made a bad play and now you've gotta go to class. You've gotta eat something. Make sure that you're eating enough to keep this going. You've gotta remain hydrated. You gotta take care of your body or like, you gotta call your mom, you gotta call your friends.

[00:40:44] Dr, Tracie Canada: You gotta do your homework, right? Like all of these things are really, it's a lot that's going on and you just moved outta your house yesterday. So like what does that mean to that person that's at the center of it? The thing that I really want people who read the book or engage with my work or think critically about these [00:41:00] spaces, I always try to bring it back to who is this person that you were talking about, right?

[00:41:05] Dr, Tracie Canada: Who is at the center of this, and it's a young person who is just trying to make it, which is the same for every college student. It just so happens that this college student is usually on TV every Saturday during the fall. And so what does that mean for him specifically, I think is where we really need to make sure that we, um, where we land, because then that's how we center this on their experience, not on like these ideas that we have about [00:41:30] what's going on.

[00:41:31] Bruce Anthony: Yeah. I think oftentimes with these college athletes that are playing for these big time programs, people forget they're human beings. They're not commodities. They're human beings, and they are, and they're young, young men.

[00:41:44] Dr, Tracie Canada: Yeah.

[00:41:45] Rewriting the Rules: Reforming College Sports for Good ⚖️🏛️

[00:41:45] Bruce Anthony: Based on your findings, what needs to change in college athletics to better protect and support black athletes.

[00:41:54] Dr, Tracie Canada: I think that these, um, like, like something that has happened since I did research, right, is like NIL became a thing [00:42:00] in 2021. NIL was not a thing when I was doing research. So that's definitely a step in the right direction, right? But the way that I like to think about NIL, which is name, image, likeness, those rights that were given back to college athletes.

[00:42:10] Dr, Tracie Canada: Um, over the summer in 2021 is to say that they are getting back rights that everybody on a college campus already had. Right. So we are just like getting them where everybody else already was. So it's not the end all be all. It's just a good step in the right direction. Right. Um, so NIL good these conversations, um, around labor unions, [00:42:30] I think Good.

[00:42:30] Dr, Tracie Canada: Um, especially because one of the conversations that I like that often comes out of that is, um, explicitly athletes are talking about the need for insurance once they graduate because. You might take care of my body while I'm in, like while I'm a student here because you need my body to perform to be successful, for the team to be successful.

[00:42:46] Dr, Tracie Canada: But the second I graduate, like I have to figure out how to care for myself, like physically care for my body on my own, right? So. Maybe there needs to be some conversation about insurance. Keep, uh, uh, prolonged insurance. Right? [00:43:00] There needs to be, I think, conversations around, um, this, this challenge of like what it means to be a, an athlete and a student, um, of making sure that they get the degree that they're promised, right?

[00:43:13] Dr, Tracie Canada: So, um, something that has come up recently for, for me in another interview is like, maybe actually. They get to stay in school for longer, right? Like you play for however long it is. And if you don't go to the league, which most of them will not, then you just stay in school for longer and they guarantee that you actually get that degree that they recruited you on and [00:43:30] promised you when you were, when you signed up for this.

[00:43:32] Dr, Tracie Canada: Right? So then you do have similar opportunities to everybody else on campus to have those internships, to network with other students, to meet with other, just to be in community, to partake in some other activity that's football, right? To then have a different type of potential career trajectory. Um. I think these lawsuits and these settlements that are happening within NCAA right now are also really interesting steps because it's about revenue sharing, right?

[00:43:55] Dr, Tracie Canada: Which now is about paying athletes, right? You are making billions of dollars as a whole. [00:44:00] They're making billions of dollars for these universities. So some of that needs to be redirected, right? And so like these are all conversations in the right direction to say there are particular people who are harmed by this, and it is the football players that are at the center of it.

[00:44:12] Dr, Tracie Canada: And so how do we better care for them? How do we better protect them? How do we better set them up for a future once they graduate? These are all solid steps. And then there's plenty of other things too, but these are solid steps to get us there.

[00:44:23] Bruce Anthony: I love that. Ladies and gentlemen, that is Dr. Tracy Canada. [00:44:30] All of her information will be in the description section. Go check out her book. Of her information will be on the website. Dr. Tracy, thank you so much for coming on the show and, and opening not just my eyes, but I know my audience eyes is something that they didn't even know, didn't even know existed, didn't know anything about, and how important it is for young people that are going through this.

[00:44:56] Dr, Tracie Canada: Yeah. Thank you so much for the opportunity to talk. I really

[00:44:59] Bruce Anthony: was my [00:45:00] pleasure. It was absolutely my pleasure.

[00:45:01] Bruce Anthony: Once again, I want to thank Dr. Tracy Canada for coming on and talking to us about something I feel like is very, very important and I'm gonna get into. Detail of why I think it's very, very important. But once again, her book, go get it. It's on Amazon. Go click the links. It's tackling the everyday race and nation in big time college football.

[00:45:22] Bruce Anthony: It's a must read because this is very, very interesting and I'm gonna tell you why I believe this is interesting.

[00:45:28] Bruce’s Story: Hoops, Hustle & Campus Brotherhood 🏀📚🤝

[00:45:28] Bruce Anthony: So when I was in [00:45:30] college at the University of Maryland, a great school better than Duke, Dr. Tracy, when I was at the University of Maryland. The very first day, um, in the cafeteria dining hall and, uh.

[00:45:42] Bruce Anthony: See two guys sitting down, I say, Hey guys, you mind if I sit down and join you? And they're like, yeah, sure. Because I, you know, new to school, I don't know anybody. They look like they're young like me. And, and I'm fairly tall. Well, fairly tall. I'm tall. I'm six four, so it's nothing to me to see [00:46:00] guys that are 6 2, 6 3, 6 4.

[00:46:02] Bruce Anthony: So we're just talking. And just getting to know each other. And come to find out there are two new freshmen on the basketball team, the basketball team that would eventually, four years later, win a national championship, go to two final fours and win a national championship. Their go, their names were Steve Blake and Drew Nicholas.

[00:46:19] Bruce Anthony: Uh, I'm gonna name Drop 'em. Yes. And we were friendly, not friends. We were friendly throughout our entire time at College Park and even after College Park, I would run into Steve Blake 'cause [00:46:30] uh, he played for the Wizards. Um. And I would run into 'em in streets, just catch up for a little bit. But I remember going to them, um, during one of the times where I would see them either on campus or the rare times that I would see them out, you know, partying like, man, I don't hardly ever see you guys.

[00:46:48] Bruce Anthony: And they were like, yeah, man. 'cause we got, I. Stuff we all, our classes are early in the morning and we got stuff that we gotta do. We got, our schedule is tight. I was like, y'all don't really have no fun. And this was the [00:47:00] primary reason why I decided not to try and play college basketball, is that I didn't love basketball as much as they did, not willing to give up my freedom.

[00:47:10] Bruce Anthony: And I also think that it is extremely, extremely difficult. College is not easy. Okay. College isn't easy, like the actual work is not easy. Some people find it easy, I guess, because you got an easy major, but it's a lot of work. There's stress involved with it. And when you're in it, you think that there's nothing more [00:47:30] stressful until you become an adult and you realize real life is more stressful.

[00:47:33] Bruce Anthony: But being in college is real, uh, ish life. Okay? And so going to college is not easy. Going to college and not having a job. It's not easy going to college and having a job, even if it's a part-time job, it's not easy. Going to college and having a full-time job is not easy, and that's what college athletics is.

[00:47:53] Bruce Anthony: It's a full-time job. Now, the reason why I felt that it was important to have this conversation is [00:48:00] because what often doesn't get talked about when black people go to major universities, and we're talking about big time college football. We're talking about major universities that the black populations tend to be in the single digits percentile of the student population.

[00:48:17] Bruce Anthony: Right. I think when I went to the University of Maryland, it was like five or 6% black. I. We knew each other. We all knew each other. No matter what year, you were one degree away from knowing a person. Most people knew [00:48:30] each other by name. If, if you hung out in the black community or at a black student union, like everybody knew each other.

[00:48:35] Bruce Anthony: It was a small, tight-knit community. It is important in life to find people that are not like you to talk to 'em. To befriend them, to get to know them, because it's important in life to understand other people's path that you can't identify with because your path isn't the same. That's the reason why I have [00:49:00] a very diverse friend group, because I wanna know what it's like to be you.

[00:49:04] Bruce Anthony: I can't be you. I'm not going to be you. We don't wear the same shoes. We didn't walk the same path. I don't know what it's like to be you. I want you to tell me what your life is like. I want you to tell me what your struggle is like. Because your struggle is not the same as my struggle because we're different people.

[00:49:19] Bruce Anthony: We're from different backgrounds, and so what doesn't often get talked about is how much black people live in white spaces and [00:49:30] having to maneuver and adapt to that. That's the reason why specifically I had Dr. Tracy Canada come on and talk about her book because we're talking about black athletes in big time college football.

[00:49:42] Bruce Anthony: Not only are they coming. With their names already plastered all over the place because they were most of the time highly recruited. Okay? But they're coming in to white spaces when, I'm not saying all of them, but a lot of them are not coming from white spaces, they're coming [00:50:00] from black spaces. So the only way that I can make you understand this is if you're a female.

[00:50:06] Bruce Anthony: If you're a female out there listening and watching this, and you enter in a male dominated space. You feel a little mm, uneasy if you're a particular race and you enter in a space where you're the minority in that race, and it's happened to everybody. There's been white people out there that, that go to restaurants and there's a black restaurant.

[00:50:25] Bruce Anthony: You're like, I didn't know all these black people's going to be here. And maybe you feel a little uneasy because [00:50:30] you're, it's a different. Surrounding is a different arena that you've ever been in before. There's a little discomfort. Not saying that there's anything wrong with that, but there's discomfort in non comfort.

[00:50:44] Bruce Anthony: Do you understand what I mean? There's discomfort in not knowing and and being ignorant to certain situations. So when we bring it up, not only are we talking about college football athletes and how important it is to recognize that they're not [00:51:00] cattle. They're not commodities. These are people, they're barely adults, right?

[00:51:06] Bruce Anthony: They're barely adults and they're being talked about and being exploited and yeah, they're getting a little bit of money. Now, some with these NIL deals. But there's still more I had until Dr. Tracy brought it up. I did not even think about health insurance after the fact. These injuries that they have doesn't stop as soon as they graduate.

[00:51:27] Bruce Anthony: Sometimes. These are lifetime injuries and yeah, [00:51:30] they should be taken care of. Why? Because the business of college football is making billions of dollars on the backs of young men and on the backs of a lot of black men.

[00:51:44] Final Whistle: Key Takeaways & Farewell 🎙️🏁

[00:51:44] Bruce Anthony: The reason why we had these conversations, the reason why we have these type of shows, the reason why we discuss these type of topic topics is to bring you into a world that you either didn't know about or were unfamiliar with, ignorant to.

[00:51:57] Bruce Anthony: And there's nothing wrong with being ignorant to [00:52:00] something. That doesn't mean that there's, that's necessarily a bad thing, but when we bring it to your attention, if you remain ignorant, if you want to be willfully ignorant, I can't, you know, as I say it all the time, I can't do nothing for you if you don't want to learn.

[00:52:13] Bruce Anthony: But wow. You know, I can't wait. I can't wait to finish this book because just with Dr. Tracy bringing up some things that I would not have ever thought about and I [00:52:30] thought before this interview that I had covered everything as far as my research and even still. Dr. Tracy is bringing up stuff that, uh, I just never thought about, and you can't possibly think about things that you don't know until it's brought to your attention.

[00:52:47] Bruce Anthony: So I thank her for that. And you should too, because the more you know, the more wo, well-rounded of a person you can become. [00:53:00] And isn't that always the goal for all of us? It should be. Thank you Dr. Tracy. Check out her book, check out her work 'cause it's important. I want to thank you for listening. I want to thank you for watching, and until next time, as always, I'll holler.

[00:53:20] Bruce Anthony: Woo. That was a hell of a show. Thank you for rocking with us here on Unsolicited Perspectives with Bruce Anthony. Now, before you go, don't forget to follow, [00:53:30] subscribe, like, comment, and share our podcast. Wherever you're listening or watching it to it, pass it along to your friends. If you enjoy it, that means the people that you rock, we'll enjoy it also.

[00:53:40] Bruce Anthony: So share the wealth, share the knowledge, share the noise. For all those people that say, well, I don't have a YouTube. If you have a Gmail account, you have a YouTube. Subscribe to our YouTube channel where you can actually watch our video podcast and YouTube exclusive content. But the real party is on our Patreon page after Hours Uncensored and talking [00:54:00] straight ish after Hours.

[00:54:01] Bruce Anthony: Uncensored is another show with my sister, and once again, the key word there is uncensored. Those are exclusively on our Patreon page. Jump onto our website@unsolicitedperspective.com for all things us. That's where you can get all of our audio video, our blogs. And even buy our merch. And if you really feel generous and want to help us out, you can donate on our donations page.

[00:54:23] Bruce Anthony: Donations go strictly to improving our software and hardware so we can keep giving you guys good content [00:54:30] that you can clearly listen to and that you can clearly see. So any donation would be appreciative. Most importantly, I wanna say thank you, thank you, thank you for listening and watching and supporting us, and I'll catch you next time.

[00:54:44] Bruce Anthony: Audi 5,000 Peace.