It’s 6 a.m. in the morning and Rhys, a member of the cross-country and track teams at a historically white Power 4 institution in the Midwest, arrives at the team bus to join his teammates before they head out for their latest meet. 

Eyeballs zero on in him. 

“They’re like, ‘Rhys, like you’re not supposed to wear sweats on the bus. We’re supposed to wear jeans or khakis or something.’ I was freaking shit because, dude, I don’t want the coaches to, like, come after me for something I totally didn’t know,” explained Rhys in a chapter of a new book released by Jonathan Howe, assistant professor in Temple University’s School of Sport, Tourism and Hospitality Management. 

This expectation was never outlined to Rhys, but he was held to it. And research from Howe has found that for Black male college athletes across the country, this is a common occurrence. It is one of the themes that the Temple professor explores in Playing the Game, Self-Presentation, and Black Male College Athletes. Rhys is one of several Black student-athletes to share their experiences in the book 

Recently published by Lexington Books, the book is a continuation of Howe’s ongoing scholarly work. His study, “Self-Presentation and Black Male College Athletes at Historically White Institutions,” published in 2023 in the Sociology of Sport Journal, was one of the first academic studies to examine how Black male college athletes self-present themselves at Division I historically white institutions. 

Temple Now caught up with Howe to learn more about the new book and his research.  

Temple Now: Tell us a little bit about the new book. 

Howe: The book is about humanizing Black male college athletes during a time in which they’re often just viewed as a commodity as opposed to humans, where their worth is oftentimes equated to their performance in their sport as opposed to viewing them as any other student that’s on campus. What I want to really unravel in this book is to say, hey, these Black male college athletes are very diverse and very unique, so there is not a a monolithic way of thinking about the Black male college athlete on campus. They may be in relationships, they may be in student organizations and they may be religious leaders, right? There’s so much more to the complexity of Black college athletes that I think through their voices, we’re able to humanize them and say, hey, it’s not all about the athletic performance. 

TN: I know you spoke with many athletes for the book. What are some of the voices that are represented? 

Howe: There were 16 total athletes that were involved in the study, and they came from a range of institutions across the country. All Division I schools, but they ranged in competition level. So, I had a number of athletes that were from Football Championship Subdivision institutions, and I had a number of athletes who were at Football Bowl Subdivision institutions. It was about a 50-50 split almost between those two types of institutions. There was also a diverse range of athletes in terms of the sport they played. I have football players, a couple of track athletes, a baseball player, a cheerleader, and also a swimmer and diver. Typically, even in research, we see a lot of the focus on football and men’s basketball specifically, but with this study and book, I really wanted to engage a diverse population of Black male college athletes. 

TN: What are some of the key takeaways form the book? 

Howe: One of the main takeaways is this idea that Black male college athletes are really undergoing a psychological development that I don’t think we truly recognize and appreciate. The book is focused on self-presentation, and how these young men are showing up in spaces that are predominantly white spaces. And so, how an athlete dresses is an intentional step that they make based off previous experiences. They’re building a schema or schemata which are essentially mental nodes based off previous experiences. So, if I had a negative experience walking in a class wearing my athletic gear because a fellow student made a comment or a professor treated me negatively, I’m likely not going to wear the same athletic apparel next time because I want to generate a more positive experience for myself. The thing is that not only are Black athletes navigating the athletic identity piece and stereotypes that may be associated with that, but there is also a racial element. They are situated in campuses where the Black population is often 4% or lower, and a large portion of that 4% are athletes. They’re in this racialized space but also dealing with the stereotypes of being an athlete, and that comes out in every facet. So, whether they decide to speak up in the classroom can be because of previous experiences that they’ve had. It’s not just because an athlete is disengaged. A lot of times there’s the narrative that athletes are not participating in class because they’re not interested or they’re not intelligent. What this book really uncovers is that there is a plethora of reasons why an athlete may not speak up in class, or why they may not come up to a professor after class. They very likely have had negative interactions that influence how they want to move about their lives.  

TN: Moving forward, how can the findings from your work be actionized to help create a better environment for Black college athletes? 

Howe: Too often, we rely on individuals that have a negative experience to try to fix the negative experience. What needs to happen is that college athletics administrators around the country need to start considering the important questions that they should be asking. That means athletic departments should be going to Black athletes and making sure they’re supporting them. It’s incumbent upon administrators to be able to be better stewards of stakeholders and better stewards of the environments in which stakeholders are engaging in your organization. Athletic departments and their staffs should be asking these questions of how can we be better for our Black college athletes? What are things we’re maybe not considering? Once they start to do that, they can move forward in a positive manner.