Monday, January 29, 2001
Prof follows ‘narrow path’ of athletics
The New Plantation by UGA assistant professor of physical education and sports studies Billy J. Hawkins is a critical analysis of the relationship between Division I intercollegiate athletic programs at predominately white National Collegiate Athletic Association institutions and black male athletes.
Hawkins writes that because of the commercial interest of NCAA Division I athletics, too many black males have neglected academics in pursuit of becoming professional athletes—even though only 1.1 percent of football players and 1 percent of basketball players become professional athletes.
“There remains a pervasive system of channeling young black males down the narrow path of athletics,” Hawkins says. “For many, this channeling leads them into relationships with predominantly white NCAA Division I institutions.”
Hawkins’s analysis uses the internal colonial model that is mainly concerned with “the structural inequality between racial groups and the dynamics of social institutions and practices that maintain racial differentials in access to social values and participation in society.”
The question guiding Hawkins’s inquiry is whether the athletic departments of white NCAA Division I institutions operate like colonizers that prey on the athletic prowess of young, black males and eventually lure them from black communities and exploit their athletic talents.”
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