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Tackling the Everyday: Race and Nation in Big-Time College Football (Volume 19)
256 pages, Hardcover
Published February 25, 2025
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July 7, 2025
In this account, author Tracie Canada attempts to explore the parallels between college football and plantation slavery.
I want to preface this review by stating that my thoughts and opinions come from the perspective of a Black woman, a former student-athlete who played high school and college sports, and a veteran of the United States Armed Forces. My viewpoint may differ from Canada’s, who also identifies as a Black woman but approaches this subject as a non-athlete. Her perspective is rooted in academic observation, while mine comes from lived experience within both college sports and military institutions. Additionally, I brought in insights from my husband and brother—both of whom played high school football, with my brother continuing at an HBCU. As such, I have thoughts and critiques that diverge from the author’s arguments regarding the connection between college football and plantation slavery, which is the book’s central theme.
As a student-athlete, I competed in basketball, softball, and track both in high school and at a PWI (predominantly white institution). While I didn’t play football, I was friends with Black football players at my college. We came from academically rigorous backgrounds and attended a Division III school—where there were no athletic scholarships or major recruitment campaigns like those at Division I or II schools. Students came primarily for the education; athletics were a supplemental pursuit. These schools tend to emphasize academic fit over athletic recruitment. The Black athletes I knew graduated at high rates, and the primary focus for them—just like my brother at his HBCU—was academics. Football was part of their journey, not the destination.
Canada draws a direct line between college football and plantation slavery, arguing that both systems rely on the surveillance, control, and exploitation of Black labor to create wealth—primarily for white institutions. While I agree that college football profits immensely from unpaid labor and disproportionately from Black athletes, for me, that’s where the similarity ends.
Historically, football emerged as a space for white men to assert a sense of masculinity after profiting from generations of inherited wealth built on Black labor. These men, often lacking the grit or resourcefulness cultivated by Black communities through survival, created and dominated early football spaces—initially excluding Black men entirely. From limiting ownership opportunities to relegating Black players to specific positions, white men controlled the sport's business structure. This systemic gatekeeping is undeniable.
However, unlike plantation slavery, college football is not forced labor. Black players voluntarily participate. I think it's worth asking: Why is there an overwhelming representation of Black bodies in college football? Why do so many Black families steer their children toward football and basketball, but not toward sports like tennis, swimming, or golf? What role do access, exposure, and community priorities play in this trend? Why are STEM or intellectual pathways often underrepresented in low-income Black communities, while athletic dreams are widely nurtured? These are the deeper layers I wish the author had unpacked.
Canada discusses the loss of individuality in team sports—using examples like players being referred to by jersey numbers. But in my experience, being part of a team means choosing to sacrifice individualism for collective success. That’s not dehumanizing—it’s a shared value system. From youth leagues like Pop Warner to college ball, these ideas are instilled early. Team sports can teach accountability, discipline, trust, and purpose. While I can acknowledge the patriarchal, often racialized structure of the football industry, I also believe many athletes choose it for connection, growth, and opportunity.
The author also examines the surveillance and disciplining of Black athletes, comparing it to the control mechanisms of slavery. In my view, this misses key context. Watching film and reviewing game footage is not about punishment—it’s a performance tool. These recordings help players improve and elevate their performance. Surveillance in the form of tactical evaluation is a far cry from the kind used to oppress and terrorize enslaved people. There is a difference between correction and control, growth and domination.
When it comes to “corporeal concern” and care for athletes’ bodies, I agree there’s complexity. In competitive sports, "ball is life" is a real mindset. There’s pressure from coaches, teams, and even families. But again, football players have choices. They can leave the sport, transfer, or pursue recreational paths. That agency matters. And while schools and coaches may have vested interests in a player’s health because of the potential return on investment, players also gain tangible benefits: scholarships, NIL deals, national exposure, and even social mobility.
Canada doesn’t explore how parents and coaches can be complicit. Many parents put their children on the football path hoping it will be their ticket out of poverty. Some families groom children as “meal tickets,” ignoring the athlete’s own aspirations or well-being. Some coaches court parents with promises of protection and opportunity. Families may push kids through injuries, hide concussions, or delay school progression for a competitive edge. In this way, everyone plays a role—not just the institutions. This mutual investment and potential exploitation makes the plantation comparison even murkier.
Yes, systemic racism is still baked into the college football machine. Black athletes at PWIs often face unique, racialized pressures and scrutiny. I strongly believe that if a Black student isn’t informed about these realities before enrolling, that’s a serious failure of preparation. The expectation that Black athletes must be exceptional to simply stay in the game is still alive and well.
But football is also a business. A massive one. Boosters, universities, media companies, and families alike all extract value from these players. Canada is right to call attention to the inequities and power dynamics—but again, the difference is choice. Unlike slavery, athletes want to play. Families want them to play. And for many, the perceived benefits outweigh the risks.
For me, this book didn’t break new ground. It reiterates known problems without fully examining their roots. Why do Black communities continue to engage with a system we know is flawed? Why are certain sports systemically Black while others remain white? Why do we seek validation through PWIs instead of building up HBCUs? These are the questions that deserve more attention.
In the end, I appreciated the organization and the research put into this book. I commend Canada for shedding light on an important conversation. But from my lived experience, the arguments didn’t fully resonate. I see the systems. I’ve lived in them. And the story is far more complicated than the plantation metaphor can capture.
⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
Thank you to Coriolis and the author, Tracie Canada, for providing this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.
I want to preface this review by stating that my thoughts and opinions come from the perspective of a Black woman, a former student-athlete who played high school and college sports, and a veteran of the United States Armed Forces. My viewpoint may differ from Canada’s, who also identifies as a Black woman but approaches this subject as a non-athlete. Her perspective is rooted in academic observation, while mine comes from lived experience within both college sports and military institutions. Additionally, I brought in insights from my husband and brother—both of whom played high school football, with my brother continuing at an HBCU. As such, I have thoughts and critiques that diverge from the author’s arguments regarding the connection between college football and plantation slavery, which is the book’s central theme.
As a student-athlete, I competed in basketball, softball, and track both in high school and at a PWI (predominantly white institution). While I didn’t play football, I was friends with Black football players at my college. We came from academically rigorous backgrounds and attended a Division III school—where there were no athletic scholarships or major recruitment campaigns like those at Division I or II schools. Students came primarily for the education; athletics were a supplemental pursuit. These schools tend to emphasize academic fit over athletic recruitment. The Black athletes I knew graduated at high rates, and the primary focus for them—just like my brother at his HBCU—was academics. Football was part of their journey, not the destination.
Canada draws a direct line between college football and plantation slavery, arguing that both systems rely on the surveillance, control, and exploitation of Black labor to create wealth—primarily for white institutions. While I agree that college football profits immensely from unpaid labor and disproportionately from Black athletes, for me, that’s where the similarity ends.
Historically, football emerged as a space for white men to assert a sense of masculinity after profiting from generations of inherited wealth built on Black labor. These men, often lacking the grit or resourcefulness cultivated by Black communities through survival, created and dominated early football spaces—initially excluding Black men entirely. From limiting ownership opportunities to relegating Black players to specific positions, white men controlled the sport's business structure. This systemic gatekeeping is undeniable.
However, unlike plantation slavery, college football is not forced labor. Black players voluntarily participate. I think it's worth asking: Why is there an overwhelming representation of Black bodies in college football? Why do so many Black families steer their children toward football and basketball, but not toward sports like tennis, swimming, or golf? What role do access, exposure, and community priorities play in this trend? Why are STEM or intellectual pathways often underrepresented in low-income Black communities, while athletic dreams are widely nurtured? These are the deeper layers I wish the author had unpacked.
Canada discusses the loss of individuality in team sports—using examples like players being referred to by jersey numbers. But in my experience, being part of a team means choosing to sacrifice individualism for collective success. That’s not dehumanizing—it’s a shared value system. From youth leagues like Pop Warner to college ball, these ideas are instilled early. Team sports can teach accountability, discipline, trust, and purpose. While I can acknowledge the patriarchal, often racialized structure of the football industry, I also believe many athletes choose it for connection, growth, and opportunity.
The author also examines the surveillance and disciplining of Black athletes, comparing it to the control mechanisms of slavery. In my view, this misses key context. Watching film and reviewing game footage is not about punishment—it’s a performance tool. These recordings help players improve and elevate their performance. Surveillance in the form of tactical evaluation is a far cry from the kind used to oppress and terrorize enslaved people. There is a difference between correction and control, growth and domination.
When it comes to “corporeal concern” and care for athletes’ bodies, I agree there’s complexity. In competitive sports, "ball is life" is a real mindset. There’s pressure from coaches, teams, and even families. But again, football players have choices. They can leave the sport, transfer, or pursue recreational paths. That agency matters. And while schools and coaches may have vested interests in a player’s health because of the potential return on investment, players also gain tangible benefits: scholarships, NIL deals, national exposure, and even social mobility.
Canada doesn’t explore how parents and coaches can be complicit. Many parents put their children on the football path hoping it will be their ticket out of poverty. Some families groom children as “meal tickets,” ignoring the athlete’s own aspirations or well-being. Some coaches court parents with promises of protection and opportunity. Families may push kids through injuries, hide concussions, or delay school progression for a competitive edge. In this way, everyone plays a role—not just the institutions. This mutual investment and potential exploitation makes the plantation comparison even murkier.
Yes, systemic racism is still baked into the college football machine. Black athletes at PWIs often face unique, racialized pressures and scrutiny. I strongly believe that if a Black student isn’t informed about these realities before enrolling, that’s a serious failure of preparation. The expectation that Black athletes must be exceptional to simply stay in the game is still alive and well.
But football is also a business. A massive one. Boosters, universities, media companies, and families alike all extract value from these players. Canada is right to call attention to the inequities and power dynamics—but again, the difference is choice. Unlike slavery, athletes want to play. Families want them to play. And for many, the perceived benefits outweigh the risks.
For me, this book didn’t break new ground. It reiterates known problems without fully examining their roots. Why do Black communities continue to engage with a system we know is flawed? Why are certain sports systemically Black while others remain white? Why do we seek validation through PWIs instead of building up HBCUs? These are the questions that deserve more attention.
In the end, I appreciated the organization and the research put into this book. I commend Canada for shedding light on an important conversation. But from my lived experience, the arguments didn’t fully resonate. I see the systems. I’ve lived in them. And the story is far more complicated than the plantation metaphor can capture.
⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
Thank you to Coriolis and the author, Tracie Canada, for providing this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.
May 13, 2025
Dr. Tracie Canada’s Tackling the Everyday: Race and Nation in Big-Time College Football explores the experience and treatment of Black College Football players through a Black Feminist lens, arguing that the flashy, beautiful facade of college football hides the reality of a system that continues our nation’s legacy of exploiting Black bodies for profit. Canada outlines how everything, from the formation of the team, to the classes athletes are allowed to take, to the treatment of bodily injury on the field reflects the ugly truth that athletes are treated as disposable. These athletes, many of whom are young Black men, are lured in with the promise of wealth and free education, paraded around, and trained to become the perfect ideal, only to be discarded once they are no longer useful.
One of the book’s main themes is kinship and care, or lack thereof. Canada introduces a new framework of kindred care vs. corporeal concern. Corporeal concern describes the concern of coaches and administrators towards players. It’s all about stats: whether players can recover from an injury fast enough to get back on the field, or if they’re eating the right stuff to stay in peak physical condition. This concern is distinctly not a type of care, because it treats the players as commodities rather than people. Canada would argue that this corporeal concern or coaches and administrators mirrors that of enslavers held for the people they viewed as property.
Kindred care, in the context of football, is the care that exists between teammates or between athletes and their families. Teammates get to know each other through games and practices, and for some of the athlete’s Canada spoke to, they are the only thing that makes football even remotely enjoyable. Family members, specifically mothers being Canada’s focus, want to be supportive of their sons’ careers. But what does being supportive mean when you watch your son get injured over and over and are forced to accept that that’s just part of the game? Canada discusses how, within the system of football, even true care is complicated by the system because these relationships are reliant on that very system.
I found this framework of kindred care and corporeal concern to be really insightful and helpful in my study of Anthropology and ethnography. I read this book for class and was surprised that I could find a book about football so interesting. The idea of separating care and concern was something that I found super helpful in other areas of study as well. My entire class kept bringing it up during discussions and it felt very widely applicable to other ethnographic works we were reading as a class.
I was able to apply kindred care and corporeal concern outside of the context of football and think about it somewhere that I’m more comfortable: in theatrical spaces. In a lot of ways, football is as much of a performance as any musical or play, and I think the dynamics carry over a little bit. Directors can often unintentionally slip into that mindset of corporeal concern and forget about true care. If actors get hurt, or lose their voice, or have to miss important rehearsals for an emergency, it’s hard to remember that they are more than just a part in the show. Injuries become catastrophic not because a person is in pain, but because it has the potential to ruin the show. For my own work in theater and film as I study directing, I want to make sure that I don’t slip into the mindset of caring more about the show than the people bringing it to life.
Canada’s ethnographic research is presented in a way that is accessible to anyone, not just those who are experts in football or anthropology. Any technical terminology was thoroughly explained, and there was never an assumption that the audience should know about a certain aspect of the game. It does a really good job of towing the line of thoroughly explaining context and reasoning while respecting the reader’s intelligence and not talking down to them. And as an undergraduate student taking an intro-level course, the book didn’t feel too dense or difficult to understand, which is really important. I personally am of the belief that books, specifically academic texts, should only ever be as heavy or confusing as is absolutely necessary. Many academic texts I’ve read are bogged down by overly technical language and references that do nothing to increase understanding. I really appreciated how accessible this text was to read.
This is a book I would absolutely recommend to almost anyone. I mentioned earlier that I was surprised that I enjoyed a book about football as much as I did, and it’s true. Not only that but it entirely shifted my perspective or introduced an argument that I had never even considered before. I think that’s exactly why it’s an important argument to make, and I believe that the book deserves much more attention than it’s getting.
One of the book’s main themes is kinship and care, or lack thereof. Canada introduces a new framework of kindred care vs. corporeal concern. Corporeal concern describes the concern of coaches and administrators towards players. It’s all about stats: whether players can recover from an injury fast enough to get back on the field, or if they’re eating the right stuff to stay in peak physical condition. This concern is distinctly not a type of care, because it treats the players as commodities rather than people. Canada would argue that this corporeal concern or coaches and administrators mirrors that of enslavers held for the people they viewed as property.
Kindred care, in the context of football, is the care that exists between teammates or between athletes and their families. Teammates get to know each other through games and practices, and for some of the athlete’s Canada spoke to, they are the only thing that makes football even remotely enjoyable. Family members, specifically mothers being Canada’s focus, want to be supportive of their sons’ careers. But what does being supportive mean when you watch your son get injured over and over and are forced to accept that that’s just part of the game? Canada discusses how, within the system of football, even true care is complicated by the system because these relationships are reliant on that very system.
I found this framework of kindred care and corporeal concern to be really insightful and helpful in my study of Anthropology and ethnography. I read this book for class and was surprised that I could find a book about football so interesting. The idea of separating care and concern was something that I found super helpful in other areas of study as well. My entire class kept bringing it up during discussions and it felt very widely applicable to other ethnographic works we were reading as a class.
I was able to apply kindred care and corporeal concern outside of the context of football and think about it somewhere that I’m more comfortable: in theatrical spaces. In a lot of ways, football is as much of a performance as any musical or play, and I think the dynamics carry over a little bit. Directors can often unintentionally slip into that mindset of corporeal concern and forget about true care. If actors get hurt, or lose their voice, or have to miss important rehearsals for an emergency, it’s hard to remember that they are more than just a part in the show. Injuries become catastrophic not because a person is in pain, but because it has the potential to ruin the show. For my own work in theater and film as I study directing, I want to make sure that I don’t slip into the mindset of caring more about the show than the people bringing it to life.
Canada’s ethnographic research is presented in a way that is accessible to anyone, not just those who are experts in football or anthropology. Any technical terminology was thoroughly explained, and there was never an assumption that the audience should know about a certain aspect of the game. It does a really good job of towing the line of thoroughly explaining context and reasoning while respecting the reader’s intelligence and not talking down to them. And as an undergraduate student taking an intro-level course, the book didn’t feel too dense or difficult to understand, which is really important. I personally am of the belief that books, specifically academic texts, should only ever be as heavy or confusing as is absolutely necessary. Many academic texts I’ve read are bogged down by overly technical language and references that do nothing to increase understanding. I really appreciated how accessible this text was to read.
This is a book I would absolutely recommend to almost anyone. I mentioned earlier that I was surprised that I enjoyed a book about football as much as I did, and it’s true. Not only that but it entirely shifted my perspective or introduced an argument that I had never even considered before. I think that’s exactly why it’s an important argument to make, and I believe that the book deserves much more attention than it’s getting.
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