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Racial and Athletic Identity of African American Football Players at Historically Black Colleges and Universities

and Predominantly White Institutions

Jesse A. Steinfeldt Indiana University-Bloomington

Courtney Reed Kentucky State University

M. Clint Steinfeldt Southern Oregon University

This study examined racial and athletic identity among African American foot- ball players at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and pre- dominantly White institutions (PWIs). Negotiating the dualism of racial and athletic identities can be problematic because both roles are subject to preju- dice and discrimination, particularly for student-athletes in revenue-producing sports like football. Results indicated that seniors at both institution types reported significantly lower levels of Public Regard and that lower levels of Public Regard predicted higher levels of college adjustment. Senior football players reported a greater acknowledgment that society does not value African Americans, and this acknowledgment predicted greater college adjustment. No differences between institution types in racial Centrality emerged, but football players at PWIs reported higher levels of Athletic Identity. By garnering a bet- ter understanding of the psychosocial needs of African American football play- ers, these results can inform college student personnel who can prioritize facilitating student-athlete academic and life skills with the same attention given to ensuring their athletic success.

Keywords: racial identity; athletic identity; African American student- athletes; football; college adjustment

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JOURNAL OF BLACK PSYCHOLOGY, Vol. 36 No. 1, February 2010 03-24 DOI: 10.1177/0095798409353894 © 2010 The Association of Black Psychologists

EDITORS’ NOTE: This article was accepted under the editorship of Shawn O. Utsey

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4 JOURNAL OF BLACK PSYCHOLOGY / FEBRUARY 2010

Contemporary research has investigated the experiences of African American college students. These studies have utilized variables such as perceived ethnic fit (Chavous, Rivas, Green, & Helaire, 2002), cultural heritage and identity (Cole & Jacob Arriola, 2007), and racial identity (Hudson Banks & Kohn-Woods, 2007; Killeya, 2001; Neville & Lily, 2000; Pillay, 2005) to describe the college experiences of African American stu- dents who attend predominantly White institutions (PWIs). Several studies have also examined the experiences of African American students at his- torically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in comparison with those at PWIs (Cokley, 1999; Cokley & Helm, 2001; Sellers, Chavous, & Cooke, 1998; Worrell, Vandiver, Schaefer, Cross, & Fhagen-Smith, 2006).

In spite of the increased attention to this necessary area of inquiry, com- paratively little attention has been devoted to the experience of African American student-athletes in this regard. Studies that have explored the college experience of African American student-athletes have traditionally focused on academic success and persistence measured by cognitive factors (Hyatt, 2003). This is problematic because measures of cognitive factors (e.g., ACT, SAT, and GPA) tend to correlate with persistence among White college students, but this relationship is not the same with non-White col- lege students (Sedlacek & Adams-Gaston, 1992). While psychosocial vari- ables other than traditional cognitive measures have been shown to be successful in predicting persistence among African American students, particularly student-athletes (Sedlacek & Adams-Gaston, 1992; Tracy & Sedlacek, 1987), prior research has not investigated culturally relevant psy- chosocial variables. Consequently, the current study intended to combine culturally appropriate psychosocial variables (i.e., racial identity) with a psychosocial variable relevant to this specific population (i.e., athletic iden- tity) in an effort to better understand the college adjustment of African American student-athletes, particularly football players, at PWIs and at HBCUs.

ExPERIENCES OF AFRICAN AmERICAN STUDENT-ATHLETES

Sport is an area for social and racial resistance, a contested racial terrain wherein African Americans define themselves and the relationship of their race within society at large (Hartmann, 2000). Carrington and mcDonald (2002, p. 12) suggest that a “culture of racism is deeply ingrained in sport.” Within this context, African American student-athletes face a great risk for poor college adjustment based on their membership in multiple at-risk groups (Killeya, 2001), by belonging to a racial/ethnic minority group, by being a student-athlete, and by participating in a revenue-producing sport

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(e.g., football and men’s basketball). This assertion may be explained by the fact that African American male student-athletes in revenue-producing sports endure unique encounters with discrimination in their college experi- ence (Astin, 1984; Hyatt, 2003; Simons, Bosworth, Fujita, & Jensen, 2007). Differential racial experiences among student-athletes is also supported by Lawrence (2005), who concluded from her qualitative study that race plays a role in the lives of African American student-athletes but not in the lives of their White teammates.

In addition to instances of discrimination, African American student- athletes face isolation, integration, and commitment as barriers to positive college adjustment (Hyatt, 2003). Isolation can paradoxically exist despite the high level of public visibility afforded to student-athletes through atten- tion to their athletic performance. The campus perception is that student- athletes are admitted under special circumstances, and as a result, both their student peers and faculty marginalize their academic potential (Hyatt, 2003). Research has indicated that faculty members hold prejudicial beliefs against student-athletes, particularly Black student-athletes in revenue- producing sports (Engstrom, Sedlacek, & mcEwen, 1995; Simons et al., 2007). Engstrom et al. (1995) studied the attitudes of 128 faculty members, 91% of whom were White, and discovered that faculty members hold prejudicial attitudes toward student-athletes in general. However, certain scenarios (e.g., a student-athlete driving an expensive sports car) in the study elicited responses that the authors attributed to faculty perceptions that African Americans in revenue-producing sports are disadvantaged student-athletes who are unable to afford luxury items unless they are attained illegally (Engstrom et al., 1995). In another study, African American student-athletes reported a much higher degree of negative per- ceptions from faculty than their teammates of different races. Twenty-nine percent of African American student-athletes in this sample reported they were suspected or accused of cheating in class, compared with only 6% of their White teammates (Simons et al., 2007).

While African American football players are a highly visible population on campus, they are not often perceived in a manner that socially integrates them into the campus community. This feeling of isolation and a lack of integration can be influenced by the racial climate of the campus. Racially homogenous isolation found on most college campuses can create social adaptation problems when African American students are required to assimilate into predominantly White environments (Cureton, 2003). Assimilation problems could negatively affect one’s self-concept (Brown, 2001) and force students of color to expend cognitive and affective energy in this process when their peers can allocate energy elsewhere.

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The cultural values of an institution influence the way that student behavior is evaluated, the directions in which educators attempt to move students, and the knowledge base that is utilized to assess and explain student development (mcEwan, Roper, Bryant, & Lange, 1999). HBCUs provide campus environments that are specifically designed to meet the needs of African American students with curricula that include a greater integration of Black history and culture. When compared with students at PWIs, African American students at HBCUs enjoy closer relationships with faculty and are more integrated into campus life through greater participation in campus organizations and activities (Webster, 2002). Thus, it is possible that students at PWIs and HBCUs may have different experiences and engagement with the campus environment, but little research has explored student-athlete experiences in these different institution types.

In addition to perceptions of discrimination and isolation that may have an institutional influence, African American student-athletes also face issues related to commitment as a major barrier to college adjustment (Hyatt, 2003). Commitment may be viewed within multiple and interactive domains, such as academic commitment (e.g., degree commitment and institutional commitment), athletic commitment, and other areas of com- mitment (e.g., social and philanthropic). A high level of institutional com- mitment, or attachment to the university and campus community, can enhance the student’s willingness to get involved in the social and academic aspects of the campus, thereby increasing degree commitment in the pro- cess (Hyatt, 2003). For student-athletes, aspects of academic commitment may be undermined by the influence of athletic commitment. The logistics of athletic commitment require college football players to often spend upward of 40 hours per week lifting weights, running, watching films, studying game plans, and doing an overwhelming variety of football- related activities outside of their academic responsibilities (Simons et al., 2007). These logistic constraints contribute to a commitment dilemma wherein the athlete portion of the student-athlete moniker supersedes the student aspect, particularly for football players who strongly identify with being an athlete.

ATHLETIC IDENTITY

Athletic identity is the degree to which a person identifies with the athlete role (Brewer, Van Raalte, & Linder, 1993). murphy, Petitpas, and Brewer (1996) view athletic identity as the combination of cognitive, affective, behavioral, and social aspects relating to the role of athlete. An overly salient

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athletic identity has been linked to negative outcomes such as academic disengagement (Adler & Adler, 1985; Lewis, 1993) and greater difficulty transitioning out of sport (Grove, Lavallee, & Gordon, 1997). Cornelius (1995) views athletic identity through the lens of a multidimensional self- concept theory. Within this framework, psychological identity as an athlete can be conceptualized as one domain of a multidimensional self-concept. Cornelius purports that including the athlete role into one’s self-concept has the potential to influence social relationships, the activities that one seeks, and the way that an individual processes his/her experiences. According to Adler and Adler (1991), this influence on social relationships may be recip- rocal wherein strongly athletically identified persons may influence their social networks and lead to the creation of athletic subcultures.

RACIAL IDENTITY

much like athletic identity, the development of racial identities is either nurtured or hindered in the athletic domain (Hartmann, 2000). Racial iden- tity, the sense of collective identity based on a perception of common racial heritage, is perhaps the most heavily investigated area among African Americans (Killeya-Jones, 2005). Because it is believed to influence African American students’ perceptions of the college environment, racial identity is important to understanding African American students’ vulner- ability to academic failure and psychological stressors (Hatter & Ottens, 1998). Shaped by cumulative social experiences, racial identity should be viewed as situationally emergent because it is enacted as a reaction to context-specific social interactions (Davis & Gandy, 1999).

The multidimensional model of racial identity (mmRI; Sellers, Rowley, Chavous, Shelton, & Smith, 1997) is a model of racial identity used to assess the content and meaning ascribed to African Americans’ racial iden- tity. The mmRI delineates multiple dimensions in an effort to provide a framework for examining greater complexity in the function and structure of racial identity in the lives of African Americans. This typological model integrates both universal and Afrocentric approaches and asserts that racial identity has properties that are both stable and situationally specific. The mmRI focuses on African Americans’ beliefs regarding the significance of race in how they define themselves, the qualitative meanings the individual ascribes to membership in their racial group, and how these beliefs influ- ence behavior (Sellers et al., 1997).

The mmRI is measured by the multidimensional Inventory of Black Identity (mIBI; Sellers, Smith, & Shelton, 1998). The mIBI has three domains (i.e., Centrality, Regard, and Ideology) that produce seven scales.

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The first scale, Centrality, measures whether race is a core aspect of an individual’s self-concept. The Public Regard scale assesses one’s percep- tion of how other groups positively or negatively view African Americans. The Private Regard scale taps into the extent to which an individual person- ally regards his/her own racial group. The first of the four Ideology scales, Nationalist Ideology, measures the level to which an individual emphasizes the uniqueness of being African American and being in control of one’s destiny with minimal input from other groups. The Humanist Ideology scale assesses the degree to which an individual accentuates the common- alities among all humans independent of distinguishing characteristics such as race, gender, and class. The Humanist Ideology and the Nationalist Ideology theoretically exist on opposite ends of an ideological continuum. The Assimilationist Ideology scale measures the degree to which an indi- vidual highlights the mutuality between African Americans and the remain- der of the American society, thereby endorsing the strategy of working within established systems to promote change. The fourth and final Ideology scale that represents the seventh mIBI scale is the minority Ideology, which taps into the degree to which an individual describes the common denominators with which all minority groups are confronted, thus endorsing the position that all minorities (e.g., LGBT, women, and those with disability) should band together to bring about societal change.

CURRENT STUDY

Cornelius’s (1995) view of athletic identity within a multidimensional self-concept conceptualization is consistent with the tenets of the MMRI. According to the MMRI, an individual’s level of racial identity will be related to his/her social network, choice of friends and activities, and the way in which the individual reciprocally interacts with the environment, which is also consistent with how Adler and Adler (1991) conceptualize athletic identity. The mmRI makes the assumption that African Americans have a number of hierarchically ordered identities of which race is merely one, thus creating space for the intuitive inclusion of other identities, such as the athlete identity.

In spite of this potential theoretical link between sport and race, there is a dearth of studies that have examined racial identity and athletic identity in conjunction, with a particular absence of institution-type (i.e., HBCUs and PWIs) comparison studies that focus on student-athletes. The role of the athletic subculture should be considered an integral aspect of student-athlete development (melendez, 2006), and the racial climate needs to be examined because universities that attempt to affirm the racial identities of African

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American students increase the chances that these students will experience success in college and beyond (Bennett & xie, 2000). The current study aimed to first examine how racial and athletic identity affect college adjust- ment (i.e., Social Adjustment and Institutional Attachment) among African American student-athletes who play intercollegiate football, and second, compared the experiences of African American football players at PWIs with those who play in the unique cultural context created by HBCUs.

RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

To the first aim, we hypothesized that higher levels of Athletic Identity would predict lower levels of Institutional Attachment among African American football players. Student-athletes who emphasize their identity as an athlete at the expense of their student identity experience negative outcomes (Lewis, 1993). An elevated sense of athletic identity may under- mine their college adjustment by decreasing commitment to educational goals, as demonstrated by lower levels of Institutional Attachment. We also hypothesized that higher levels of Assimilationist Ideology would predict higher levels of Social Adjustment because African American students may use assimilation as a strategy to survive in a predominantly White environ- ment (Cokley, 1999). This phenomenon may be more pronounced in ath- letic endeavors, based on the structure of sport. Even though HBCUs are characterized by greater numbers of Black coaches and administrators, African American student-athletes are socialized from an early age in a system of sport that is coached and governed almost entirely by White males (Lapchick, 2008), potentially influencing an ideology that values working within mainstream structures.

To the second aim, we hypothesized that football players at HBCUs would report comparatively higher levels of racial Centrality and Nationalist Ideology. This hypothesis was generated due to HBCUs curricula that include a greater integration of Black culture and history than PWIs, high- lighting the importance and uniqueness of being Black (Bennett & xie, 2000). Conversely, we also hypothesized that football players at PWIs would report higher levels of Athletic Identity and Assimilationist Ideology, along with lower levels of Public Regard. In a campus environment where the alienation and isolation of African American football players is exacer- bated by perceptions that they are only on campus because of their athletic skills (Hyatt, 2003), these student-athletes may be more acutely aware of the low regard society has for African Americans, and they may feel forced to adopt assimilationist views that highlight their athletic prowess in order to fit in and survive (Cokley, 1999; Feagin, Vera, & Imani, 1996).

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This study intended to provide a description of African American student-athletes at both institution types. This study did not intend to pre- dict racial or athletic identities based solely on choice of institution type, because this cross-sectional design did not allow us to differentiate between self-selection processes prior to attending college and socialization pro- cesses that are enacted while students are attending their respective institu- tion. The hypotheses for this study were generated based on characteristics of each respective institution type and the authors’ expectations of how these racial and athletic identities may be expressed among football players at each institution type.

METHOD

PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURE

Participants in this study were 163 African American football players from five different colleges in the midwest and Southeast that compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I-FCS and II levels. There are no HBCUs that participate in intercollegiate football at the NCAA Division I-FCS level, so PWIs that also competed at Division I-FCS and II levels were chosen for this study. This decision represented an attempt to include student-athletes who may have been recruited to play and possibly receive an athletic scholarship from comparable athletically competitive institutions, both HBCUs and PWIs. Eighty-two players attended one of three HBCUs that participated in the study, and 81 players attended one of two PWIs that participated in the study. All five universities have the ability to provide athletic scholarships to their players, and there were no significant differences among institutions in percentage of players receiving scholarships. The majority (74%) of participants in this study received an athletic scholarship. The average age of the student-athlete in this study was 19.7 years (SD = 1.52), and 41% of the student-athletes were freshmen, 21% sophomores, 21% juniors, and 17% seniors. The sample had an average college GPA of 2.5 (SD = 0.45) and an average high school GPA of 2.8 (SD = 1.21).

After receiving institutional review board approval, the investigators contacted coaches and university administrators who agreed to extend vol- untary participation requests to their players. Instructions and consent forms were given to the players, who filled out survey packets during posi- tion meetings and other team functions outside of the classroom setting.

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The survey packet included mIBI (Sellers, Smith, et al., 1998), Athletic Identity measurement Scale (AImS; Brewer et al., 1993), Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire (SACQ; Baker & Siryk, 1989), and a demographic sheet that elicited information on age, scholarship status, year in school, high school and college GPA, and race(s) with which the student- athlete identified. The survey packet also included explicit instructions for players to either fill out or skip certain sections based on their self- identified race. In order to avoid alienating any players based on race, every player had the opportunity to fill out a survey. Players who did not self- identify their race as Black filled out different sections of the survey that were to be used in a related study.

mEASURES

Multidimensional Inventory of Black Identity. The mIBI (Sellers, Smith, et al., 1998) is a 56-item self-report instrument based on the mmRI (Sellers et al., 1997). The mIBI employs a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree. The mIBI measures the stable dimensions of racial identity along three scales: Centrality, Regard, and Ideology. Centrality has no separate subscales and constitutes the first of the seven mIBI scales, Regard contains two subscales (i.e., Public Regard and Private Regard), and Ideology comprises four subscales (i.e., Assimilationist, Humanist, Nationalist, and minority), thus producing a total of seven scales. Cokley and Helm (2001) reported a range of Cronbach’s alphas from .70 to .85 on all mIBI scales in a sample of stu- dents from both PWIs and HBCUs. In the current study, Cronbach’s alphas were found in the range of .68 to .76, which is consistent with prior research (Cokley & Helm, 2001; Sellers, Chavous et al., 1998). The mIBI was chosen based on the potential compatibility between Athletic Identity and the mIBI’s Centrality scale. These variables have the potential to be rele- vant indicators of the importance and salience of each respective aspect of identity that exists in this specific population. In a previous study, Jackson, Keiper, Brown, Brown, and manuel (2002) did not find a relationship between centrality and athletic identity, but they used a single item to rep- resent racial centrality. This study hopes to utilize the mIBI as a more comprehensive assessment of racial identity as it relates to athletic identity.

Athletic Identity Measurement Scale. The AImS (Brewer et al., 1993) is a 7-item self-report instrument that employs a 7-point Likert-type scale with possible responses ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly

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agree. Items such as “I consider myself an athlete” and “Sport is the most important part of my life” serve the AImS’ purpose of measuring the strength and exclusivity of identification with the athlete role. Cronbach’s alpha in this study was .76, comparable with the range of .80 to .93 found in a review of the literature on athletic identity (martin, Eklund, & mushett, 1997). Support for construct validity of the AImS is found in the statisti- cally significant differences in AImS scores across levels of athletic par- ticipation. As levels of competitive athletic activity increased, so too have AImS scores. Nonathletes attained a significantly lower mean AImS score when compared with the scores of NCAA Division I athletes (Brewer et al., 1993; Cornelius, 1995). Furthermore, Brewer et al. (1993) reported conver- gent validity by finding statistically significant correlations among the AImS and instruments assessing both competitiveness and importance of sport competence.

Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire. The Social Adjustment and Institutional Attachment scales from the SACQ (Baker & Siryk, 1989) were used to assess some of the specific experiences of African American student-athletes (Hyatt, 2003). The SACQ is a self-report instrument that employs a 9-point Likert-type scale with possible responses ranging from 1 = applies very closely to me to 9 = doesn’t apply to me at all. The Social Adjustment scale is designed to assess the student’s success in coping with the interpersonal-societal demands inherent in the college experience. The Institutional Attachment scale is designed to explore the student’s feelings about being in college in general (i.e., commitment to educational goals) as well as how he feels about the specific college he is attending. In their review of the literature, Dahmus and Bernardin (1992) concluded that the SACQ has shown good internal consistency in studies, with coefficient alphas ranging from .83 to .91 for the Social Adjustment subscale and from .85 to .91 for the Institutional Attachment subscale. In this study, Cronbach’s alphas were .76 for Social Adjustment and .77 for Institutional Attachment. Construct validity for the SACQ has been evidenced by the relationship between SACQ scales and independent real-life outcomes and behaviors. Baker and Siryk (1989) reported a statistically significant relationship (r = .47; p < .01) between the Social Adjustment subscale and amount of extra- curricular activity among college students. Statistically significant (p < .01) negative correlations ranging from -.27 to -.41 were also found between the Institutional Attachment subscale and attrition (Dahmus & Bernardin, 1992).

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RESULTS

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN IDENTITY VARIABLES AND COLLEGE ADJUSTmENT

Descriptive statistics for the major variables are presented in Table 1. The two outcome variables (i.e., Social Adjustment and Institutional Attachment) were significantly correlated with Athletic Identity and a num- ber of the racial identity variables. In order to assess the relationship between college adjustment and the athletic and racial identity variables, two hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted on the entire sample, one for Social Adjustment and one for Institutional Attachment. Institution type (i.e., PWIs and HBCUs) and year in school were entered in the first step of each equation, and the athletic and racial identity variables that were statistically significantly correlated with the outcome variables were entered into the second step of the hierarchical regression analyses. Because of the ratio of potential predictor variables relative to sample size, this method of selection of predictor variables was also influenced by efforts to conserve statistical power.

For Social Adjustment, neither of the demographic variables were sig- nificant predictors in the first step, and only Public Regard emerged as a significant predictor (b = -.61) in the second step. The athletic and racial

TABLE 1

Correlations, Means, and Standard Deviations for Predictor and Outcome Variables

Variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1. AImS 2. CENT .09 3. PriReg .33** .44** 4. PubReg .24** -.13 .13 5. ASS .43** .26** .53** .21** 6. NAT .22** .12 -.11 .14 .10 7. mIN .46** .08 .33** .26** .64** .31** 8. HUm .24** .24** .48** .13 .67** .01 .58** 9. SocAdj -.21** .03 -.02 -.31** -.20* -.14 -.23** -.05 10. InstAtt -.20* .11 .12 -.27** -.04 -.26** -.21* .14 .70** M 37.85 37.56 36.08 24.06 45.29 36.55 42.62 45.23 86.79 66.19 SD 7.31 5.99 5.72 4.86 7.81 8.28 7.43 7.71 12.29 13.31

NOTE: AImS = Athletic Identity; CENT = Centrality; PriReg = Private Regard; PubReg = Public Regard; ASS = Assimilationist; NAT = Nationalist; mIN = minority; HUm = Humanist; SocAdj = Social Adjustment; InstAtt = Institutional Attachment. *p < .05. **p < .01.

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identity variables, along with the demographic variables, accounted for 14% of the variance in Social Adjustment. For Institutional Attachment, year in school was a significant predictor (b = 2.53) in the first step. When the athletic and racial identity variables were added to the model, 20% of the variance in Institutional Attachment was explained. Year in school (b = 2.55), Public Regard (b = -.50), and Nationalist Ideology (b = -.35) emerged as statistically significant predictors of Institutional Attachment (see Table 2).

DIFFERENCES IN INSTITUTION TYPE

In order to determine the relationship between institution type and the racial and athletic identity variables, a multivariate analysis of variance (mANOVA) was conducted using the predictor variables of institution type (i.e., HBCUs and PWIs) and year in school (i.e., freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior). These categorical predictor variables were evaluated to determine their relationship to the continuous outcome variables of athletic identity and racial identity.

The results of the mANOVA indicate statistically significant multivariate effects. With Wilks’s lambda criteria, the overall main effect of institution type, F(8, 148) = 2.80, h2p = .13, p = .006; year in school, F(24, 430) = 1.95, h

2 p = .10,

p = .005; and the overall interaction effect between institution type and year in

TABLE 2

Results of Hierarchical Regression Models for Institutional Attachment and Social Adjustment

Model 1: Social Adjustment Model 2: Institutional Attachment

Step and Variable B SE B b B SE B b

Step 1 Institution type .18 2.11 .01 2.84 2.20 .11 Year 1.05 .92 .10 2.53** .96 .22 Step 2 Institution type -.23 2.17 -.01 1.99 2.21 .08 Year .50 .93 .05 2.55** .95 .22 Athletic Identity -.14 .16 -.08 -.22 .16 -.12 Public Regard -.61** .22 -.24 -.50* .22 -.19 Assimilationist -.13 .16 -.08 .29 .17 -.17 Nationalist -.14 .13 -.09 -.35* .14 -.21 minority -.11 .18 -.06 -.28 .19 -.15 R2 .14** .20*** DR2 .13 .15

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

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school, F(24, 430) = 1.80, h2p = .01, p = .012; were statistically significant. Follow-up univariate analyses revealed a significant institutional-type dif- ference on Athletic Identity, F(1, 155) = 5.12, h2p = .03, p = .025; and Nationalist Ideology F(1, 155) = 7.66, h2p = .05, p = .006. Follow-up uni- variate analyses revealed significant year in school differences on Centrality F(3, 155) = 5.03, h2p = .09, p = .002; and Public Regard F(3, 155) = 3.51, h2p = .06, p =.017. Finally, follow-up univariate analyses revealed a signifi- cant difference in the interaction term of year in school by institution type on Centrality F(3, 155) = 4.02, h2p = .07, p ≤ .009.

Football players at HBCUs reported lower levels of Athletic Identity (M = 36.28; SD = 6.74) than players at PWIs (M = 39.17; SD = 7.66), lower levels of Private Regard (M = 35.19; SD = 6.26) than players at PWIs (M = 37.37; SD = 4.96), and higher levels of Nationalist Ideology (M = 38.02; SD = 7.47) than those at PWIs (M = 33.69; SD = 8.61). Junior football play- ers at both institution types reported lower levels of Centrality (M = 35.47; SD = 5.64) than their freshman (M = 37.91; SD = 5.95), sophomore (M = 39.09; SD = 5.38), and senior (M = 37.32; SD = 6.84) teammates. Senior football players at both institution types reported lower levels of Public Regard (M = 21.39; SD= 5.47) than their freshman (M = 24.77; SD = 4.95), sophomore (M = 24.23; SD = 4.38), and junior (M = 24.76; SD = 3.79) teammates. Figure 1 shows the nature of the significant interaction of year in school by institution type.

DISCUSSION

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN IDENTITY VARIABLES AND COLLEGE ADJUSTmENT

Preliminary analyses did not yield differences on either of the college adjustment variables based on institution type. Comparatively, football players at PWIs were reporting that they were adjusting to college as well as their peers at HBCUs. However, according to norms of the SACQ, the African American football players in this study were in the 35th percentile in both Social Adjustment and Institutional Attachment (Baker & Siyrk, 1989). Thus, although institution type did not contribute any significant differences, neither group of student-athletes is adjusting particularly well to college, based on SACQ norms.

Our hypothesis that higher levels of Athletic Identity would contribute to lower levels of Institutional Attachment was not supported, nor was our hypothesis that higher levels of Assimilationist Ideology would predict higher levels of Social Adjustment. Year in school emerged as the strongest

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predictor of Institutional Attachment, indicating that the longer a player was at his school, the more attached to this particular institution and to being in college in general he became. The finding that athletic identity did not contribute to lower levels of Institutional Attachment was interesting, given the duality of what the Institutional Attachment variable purports to assess (i.e., commitment to educational goals and attachment to particular institution). Because a salient athletic identity did not have a negative impact on Institutional Attachment, this finding may indicate that intercol- legiate athletic participation may create a strong sense of school pride or attachment to the particular institution that may serve to offset the poten- tially negative effect that a salient athletic identity might otherwise have on the commitment to educational goals portion (i.e., being in college in gen- eral) of Institutional Attachment.

Among the racial identity variables, only Nationalist Ideology and Public Regard emerged as significant predictors. Lower levels of Public Regard predicted higher levels of both Social Adjustment and Institutional Attachment. For African American football players, the ability to acknowl- edge that society does not value Black people appears to contribute to better adjustment to college. The implications of this finding will be discussed in greater detail later in this section. Higher levels of Nationalist Ideology also predicted lower levels of Institutional Attachment. Players who highly endorsed the uniqueness of being Black and advancing their community without the help of White people reported less attachment to being in col- lege and at their particular institution. This finding may indicate the percep- tion among football players that their present environment does not support

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Figure 1: Centrality Differences Between Institution Types by Year

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this ideological belief system. Cokley (1999) reported that African American students, particularly at PWIs, may not want to be perceived as “militant” for fear of repercussions from campus administration. For football players, this dynamic may involve the perceptions of coaches and athletic adminis- trators who may intentionally minimalize and downplay racial intergroup differences and diversity among players so as not to interfere with their perceptions of team cohesion and winning (Jackson et al., 2002). This potential institutional ideological incompatibility might be intuitive for student-athletes at PWIs, so further data analyses were conducted to assess if there were institutional-type differences in Nationalist Ideology and other racial and athletic identity variables.

DIFFERENCES IN INSTITUTION TYPE

Supporting our hypothesis, football players at PWIs reported significantly higher levels of Athletic Identity, which indicates that they see their role of athlete as more important to them than do players at HBCUs. Endorsing a strong athletic identity, particularly in a predominantly White environment, may indicate an internalization of the perception that being an athlete is highly valuable for African Americans. Although African American males are underrepresented in most traditional venues of upward socioeconomic mobil- ity, they are significantly overrepresented in sports like football (Sellers, Chavous, & Brown, 2002). Additionally, because negative perceptions of football players (e.g., only on campus to play football) paradoxically exist alongside the accolades and fame that these high-profile student-athletes receive for their athletic exploits, a highly salient athletic identity may indi- cate that African American football players at PWIs are subscribing to and/or internalizing the societal perception of the “archetypal African American male football or basketball player” (Simons et al., 2007, p. 267).

Consistent with our hypothesis, African American football players at HBCUs reported significantly higher levels of Nationalist Ideology than their peers at PWIs, indicating that football players at HBCUs more strongly support the uniqueness of being Black. Lower levels of a Nationalist Ideology were predictive of higher levels of college adjustment for all play- ers in the sample, but this may represent a differential experiential dynamic for football players at HBCUs and PWIs. As this study was intended to be a cross-sectional descriptive endeavor, future research needs to focus on whether student-athletes at HBCUs feel a stronger sense of freedom to explore racial ideologies that do not conform with mainstream White society or if student-athletes at PWIs feel constrained to explore these aspects of their identity while they are immersed in a mainstream White environment.

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While the findings did not support our hypothesis that football players at HBCUs would report higher levels of Centrality than players at PWIs, the interaction between institution type and year in school does show a significant difference in Centrality. Figure 1 demonstrates the differences between institution type across year in school concerning the importance that football players place on being Black. Players at both institution types have similar first and second year views on the salience of race in their lives. However, juniors at PWIs reported significantly lower scores on Centrality, indicating the lesser importance they place on race. In spite of this drop among juniors at PWIs, scores reported on Centrality by seniors are comparable at both institution types. In his comparison of college stu- dents at HBCUs and PWIs, Cokley (1999) did not report significant differ- ences between institution types on Centrality. When compared with the levels of Centrality among students in that study, the student-athletes in this study reported lower levels of racial Centrality, indicating that football players may place less importance on being Black than their student peers do. This finding has implications for future research into reasons African American football players, when compared with their student peers, may not see race as an integral part of their self-concept.

Beyond these institution type differences, the results indicate significant differences in Public Regard based on year in school. African American senior football players at both HBCUs and PWIs report significantly lower levels of Public Regard when compared with their younger teammates. This finding indicates their acknowledgment of how poorly society values African Americans, perhaps especially African American athletes who have exhausted their utility to society (i.e., athletic eligibility). Given the sig- nificant differences based on year in school, this finding may represent a cumulative effect of experiences throughout their college career that sup- ports contentions of scholars who illuminate the racial climate of intercol- legiate sport. Hawkins (1999) compared African American college student-athletes with oscillating migrant workers based on their shared experiences with institutional powerlessness, required relocation to capital- ize on skills, double consciousness, and a system of labor exploitation wherein the employer bears a nominal cost of labor production when com- pared with the massive profits reaped from the labor. Hawkins’s compari- son stands in stark contrast to the popular belief that sports are a means of social mobility for young Black males.

Similarly, Edwards (1984) coined the term treadmill to oblivion to describe the deliberate and systematic exploitation of the college athlete, a process that begins in elementary school and continues throughout high school and beyond. Over two decades later, Rhoden (2006) described the

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same dynamic, instead using a conveyor belt metaphor. Both analyses indi- cate that from an early age African American student-athletes face low expectations outside of sport, with only minimum academic requirements that ensure athletic eligibility but do not promote graduation or other forms of academic success. Thus, the dumb Black jock is not born but rather he is systematically created and cultivated from an early age (Edwards, 1984). The lower levels of Public Regard among seniors in this study may indicate that African American football players are becoming acutely aware of this dynamic as they prepare to face a world without organized sports, perhaps for the first time in their lives.

The Public Regard findings, both in institutional-type differences and its prediction of lower levels of Institutional Attachment and Social Adjustment, may be best understood in terms of protective factors. One factor that pre- dicts persistence in African American student-athletes is the ability to rec- ognize and deal with racism (Sedlacek, 1987; Sedlacek & Adams-Gaston, 1992). Thus, being aware that society devalues African Americans, particu- larly once the fame of college athletics ends, may prepare these football players for potential racist situations that could negatively impact their self- concept. This finding has implications for college student personnel (e.g., counselors, academic advisors, athletic administrators, and coaches) who work with African American student-athletes. Because these players are indicating their awareness and acknowledgment of society’s negative views of African Americans, it is important for college student personnel to facilitate dialogues about racial experiences with players. This is especially important because advisors and coaches may avoid these dialogues—and worse yet, minimalize these experiences—in an effort to promote team chemistry and success (Jackson et al., 2002). However, creating such a dialogue with players may allow them to be proactive in how they can deal with these types of situations before being confronted by them. Doing so has the potential to enhance these student-athletes’ overall adjustment to college and their success in life beyond college.

LImITATIONS OF THE STUDY

Although the results of this study have implications for better under- standing the psychosocial needs of African American football players, there are limitations that need to be acknowledged. The first limitation of the current study involves the design. Although the cross-sectional design of this study provided a description of the experience of a particular group of African American student-athletes, this study did not represent an attempt to predict choice of institution type (i.e., HBCUs and PWIs) based on racial

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identity or athletic identity. Self-selection variables influence college choice, and these processes interact with the socialization of students while in college to make this prediction something that exists outside the scope of the current study. Additionally, as this was not a longitudinal study, the finding concerning the significant interaction between year in school and institution type (Figure 1) must be analyzed accordingly.

The second limitation involves the chosen sample. Research on African American student-athletes is sparse and may not reflect the within-group variation among African Americans or among African American student- athletes in particular. As a result, some of the previous assertions in the literature (i.e., that African American student-athletes in revenue producing sports represent multiple at-risk categories; Killeya, 2001) need to be evaluated by examining the unique experiences of specific groups of student-athletes. Although it was an appropriate decision for this particular study, the decision not to include African Americans who play college bas- ketball, another revenue-producing sport, is a limitation to this study. Given the cultural relevance of basketball to African Americans, notably that bas- ketball is “culturally marked as Black” (Appiah, 2000, p. 607), an examina- tion of the role of racial and athletic identity in the college adjustment of African American basketball players may be a separate but interesting area of inquiry. An additional limitation involves the age of the football players in this study. Because freshmen constituted 41% of the sample, this was a relatively young group. These student-athletes have had limited socializa- tion time at their respective institutions, and this dynamic could affect the results. Accordingly, readers should interpret the results and generalizabil- ity of this study with relative caution.

FUTURE RESEARCH

This study attempted to describe the experiences of African American football players so that future research may be dedicated to investigating both the strengths and the needs of this group of college students. The sig- nificant correlational relationship between athletic identity and the four racial identity ideology variables is one area that warrants further investiga- tion. For football players at HBCUs, all four ideologies were significantly related to athletic identity, but for their peers at PWIs, only the Assimilationist and minority ideologies were significantly related to athletic identity. Because the minority Ideology endorses the position that all marginalized groups should coalesce together to effectuate change (Sellers et al., 1997), this finding might indicate that student-athletes see themselves collectively as a marginalized group in the eyes of faculty, administration, and fellow

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students, both at PWIs and HBCUs. Future research needs to investigate the unique ways that student-athletes view themselves within their environ- ment, both in the campus community and within the athletic subculture.

Future studies would benefit from employing different methodologies to investigate the experience of African American student-athletes. For exam- ple, a longitudinal design could better explore variables that influence a student’s choice of institution type, as it interacts with the opportunity to play college football, and how this interaction contributes to levels of racial and athletic identity development over time. Additionally, while it is diffi- cult to adequately compare a unidimensional construct (i.e., athletic iden- tity) to a multidimensional construct (i.e., racial identity), it was interesting that Centrality and Athletic Identity were not significantly related in this study. This finding is consistent with Jackson et al. (2002), who found no relationship between athletic identity and their single-item representation of racial centrality. Given the relationship between sports and race, it is intuitive to imagine that these constructs may represent related, if not com- peting, aspects of identity. Settles, Sellers, and Damas (2002) discuss the impact of role salience in identifying how a student-athlete negotiates the student and the athlete roles. Along these lines, future research should be dedicated to better understanding role salience and how it relates to negoti- ating the duality of being a Black man and being a student-athlete to see why this seemingly intuitive connection was not supported by the data in this study.

CONCLUSION

Even though African American student-athletes encounter many of the same difficulties faced by their African American student peers on campus, their situation is exacerbated not only by their visible status as student- athletes but also by the increased demands of intercollegiate athletic par- ticipation (Anshel, 1990; Simons et al., 2007) and by discriminatory views held among students and faculty (Engstrom et al., 1995; Hyatt, 2003; Simons et al., 2007). Student-athletes in general must successfully negoti- ate multiple roles and identities that exist within the student, athlete, and social domains. For African American student-athletes, negotiating the dualism of racial and athletic identities is difficult because both roles are inherently linked, and both are subject to prejudices and discrimination. The results of this study indicated that African American football players may report differential levels of athletic identity, different racial ideologies, and different perceptions of how society views African Americans. The results also indicate that these differences may result in different college

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adjustment experiences. A more comprehensive understanding of the phe- nomenological experience of these student-athletes is necessary in order to better meet the psychosocial needs of African American male football play- ers. The results of this study can inform support programs and counseling interventions that can validate their importance on campus. This under- standing can help facilitate their academic and lifelong success with the same attention given to ensuring their athletic success on the gridiron.

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