A Black feminist take on exploitation and care in America's favorite game.

Big-time college football promises prestige, drama, media attention, and money. Yet most athletes in this unpaid, amateur system encounter a different reality, facing dangerous injuries, few pro-career opportunities, a free but devalued college education, and future financial instability. In one of the first ethnographies about Black college football players, anthropologist Tracie Canada reveals the ways young athletes strategically resist the exploitative systems that structure their everyday lives.

Tackling the Everyday shows how college football particularly harms the young Black men who are overrepresented on gridirons across the country. Although coaches and universities constantly invoke the misleading "football family" narrative, this book describes how a brotherhood among Black players operates alongside their caring mothers, who support them on and off the field. With a Black feminist approach—one that highlights often-overlooked voices—Canada exposes how race, gender, kinship, and care shape the lives of the young athletes who shoulder America's favorite game.

About the Author

Tracie Canada is the Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Duke University. Her work has been featured in public venues and outlets such as the Museum of Modern Art, The Guardian, and Scientific American.

Reviews

"Both scholarly and intimate, Tracie Canada deftly takes us into the world of college football through the lived experiences of its players. Canada also homes in on how those experiences are affected by an often-cruel world. Tackling the Everyday is like no college football book I have read, precisely because it is about so much more than the game itself. Destined to be a classic."—Dave Zirin, sports editor at The Nation and author of The Kaepernick Effect

"Much has been written about college football, describing both its ongoing appeal to fans and its exploitation of players. Canada's book offers a brilliant Black feminist contribution to the literature on sports, race, and gender. She centers the everyday experiences of Black college football players, focusing on how they navigate the institutions and structures that organize their lives, from the football field to their classes. Canada uniquely focuses on the networks of care, friendship, love, and intimacy that they forge and rely on for support and sustenance. Tackling the Everyday is essential reading for any scholar—or fan—interested in race and sports."—Jennifer C. Nash, author of How We Write Now: Living with Black Feminist Theory

"This brilliant ethnography captures the lives of young men as they unfold on and off the gridiron, bringing valuable Black feminist theorization of Black masculinities to how players navigate everyday systems predicated on anti-Blackness. Powerful."—Lisa Uperesa, author of Gridiron Capital: How American Football Became a Samoan Game

"Canada's insightful and deeply researched book, Tackling the Everyday, is a reminder not just that players' experiences matter but that they are, in fact, central to understanding the entire system. This book will challenge you in the best way. A must-read if you care at all about college football and those whose bodies and labor make it possible."—Jessica Luther, author of Unsportsmanlike Conduct: College Football and the Politics of Rape