Editor’s note: The Emerald interviewed current UO student athletes for this story, some of whom wished to remain anonymous. In cases where someone’s employment or student status could be impacted by telling their story, the Emerald allows the use of anonymous sources to avoid retaliation.
Additionally, Emerald style follows the National Association of Black Journalists’ recommendation to capitalize words describing race, including Black, Brown and White when referring to race.
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“It feels like you are a slave to the industry.”
An anonymous athlete told me this as we sat across from each other in the EMU. Modern comparisons to slavery are not often made; its weight is meant to expose the worst facets of contemporary society. But they said this casually, like it has become a benign part of their day-to-day life. Though we culturally distance ourselves from slavery, thinking that our history’s most heinous forms of oppression have passed, this interview suggested otherwise.
When we discuss slavery in a modern context, most people are averse to any comparisons. Nationally, Black athletes are vilified for doing so because they are paid tens of millions per year, despite putting their body on the line every day to make billions annually for White owners. This is the crux of the problem, and it’s why I talked to multiple UO student athletes — both current and former — about their experiences. We conflate race and wealth far too often.
See, White sports audiences erroneously believe that when people of color, especially Black people, reach a stable economic standpoint, the issue of race should disappear. In 2021, college athletes won the right to make money, specifically through the earned right to their name, image and likeness. The public believed that paying student athletes would eradicate the racial dimension of sports for them.
It doesn’t.
The athletes I’ve interviewed have dealt with race and oppression their entire lives. Evidence enough is the fact some athletes wished to be anonymous. They were aware that sharing their experiences with the university and the athletic department could have consequences. One athlete asked to go off the record at certain points so they could “be honest.”
Speaking has consequences because athletes are only valued as bodies. At its most obvious, one anonymous UO football player talked about the daily microaggressions he faces. Too many times to count, he’s been asked by strangers, unprompted, what sport he played, sending the message: you cannot simply be Black and in Eugene unless the reason is athletics.
But the problem is so much worse.
The emphasis on the body underscores the entire athletic department. The football player said he and other athletes have noticed a trend where the team looks to fill certain positions with certain player demographics. His position, he said, has always been considered a space for Black players with physicality. At UO, his position is 90% POC. On the other hand, positions for “brainy” individuals, like quarterback, are historically White.
And UO fought to keep it that way. The athlete told me how he and the team felt the fight for the quarterback job in 2020 was biased. Whether it be through a lack of snaps or other stunted opportunities, the Black quarterback options “were not given a fair shot,” he said. And we all know the mediocre experience that the Walmart-Herbert quarterback Tyler Shough provided us that season.
This is a microcosm of the racism that exists in college sports. But the problem is that athletes have not been able to talk about it. I spoke to two athletes, including Darya Kaboli-Nejad, a former softball player who graduated in 2019, about balancing racial activism with a sports career. Their stories were disheartening.
Put simply, UO did not want athletes to be activists. When professional athletes were kneeling to support the Black Lives Matter Movement, Kaboli-Nejad and her softball team were told not to. A current athlete, who played during the height of protests in 2020, said coaches “implicitly” said not to out of fear of retaliation against the players.
This is the athlete experience that was compared to slavery. Athletes have always lacked a voice because, to the team, only their bodies matter. UO’s Dr. Courtney Cox, a professor in the Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies department who focuses on identity and labor issues with respect to sport, talked to me about this in depth. She revealed how universities do not protect the athlete’s body or their mental health. Two college athletes, she said, died by suicide just last week. And on the flip side, universities have a practice of cutting athletes’ scholarships if they get injured outside of their sport.
But colleges have their clutches buried in athletes outside of the facility. During COVID-19, one UO athlete anonymously said their coaches prevented them from seeing anyone, including their family and loved ones. At the same time, the university cut funding for athletes to take summer classes, despite students’ need to stay on track for graduation because of sports schedules during the school year.
The university does not protect them; it controls them. “Your insurance is about you only as an athlete,” Cox said.
In this labor-through-body industry, money –– through NIL –– does not eradicate racism; it creates a new avenue of expression. Rather than just the university restricting athletes’ voices, brands now do it too. I spoke to Gloria Mutiri, a current player on the volleyball team who has signed multiple brand deals since NIL passed. It has come with a price: her voice. She said she has felt her “loss of identity” these past few years as she has had to adhere to the demands of new stakeholders.
Mutiri shared a disgusting interaction she had with a brand rep. The rep applauded her decision to put her deal money into savings because “Black people usually just take the money and spend it.” This blatant racism is a symptom of the separation between wealth and race. Historically, POC cannot escape the expression of racism even by earning money.
This bias is now institutionalized, Cox said. NIL has led to new administrative positions, often labeled as “director of player personnel” and more. These directors act as the middleman between brands and players. Cox told me how some directors abuse this position, telling athletes that “if they don’t conform,” like through avoiding activism, they “won’t get deals.” As athletes hoped to brand themselves through NIL, the schools are now branding them.
Financially as well, it is foolish to believe that the rising tide raises all ships. NIL is not an equitable opportunity, but instead a marketing scheme. Mutiri described how money goes to men first, beginning with the picture-perfect, White, football man. Next is the idealized White woman who fits Eurocentric body standards.
The list of the biggest NIL deals reflects this. Nine of the 10 biggest deals are football players, including Texas’ offensive linemen. The one woman who cracked the top 10 is Olivia Dunne, a White gymnast who is sponsored by an activewear brand to model for them.
NIL has not changed anything, but society acts like it’s changed everything. One current UO athlete said, during COVID-19, coaches told athletes they were “so privileged” to be playing, despite athletes having minimal health protections due to what the athlete described as “an awful response” to the pandemic. NIL has exacerbated this, as coaches have taken a “hands-off approach” with players who have brand deals, the athlete said. The entire athletic department, from the directors down to the coaches, seem to think that having money erases the emotional and physical toll that athletes undergo alone.
For Black athletes, this rhetoric is damaging. NIL has increased the systemic racism and microaggressions they face, but the university has abandoned the real solutions. Mutiri told me how she has advocated to administrators to hire more Black staff, to create a healthier environment for Black student athletes, but has been met with the sentiment that the university wants to, but Black professionals don’t want to come here.
“It is a common excuse,” Cox said. She explained the number of professionals of color nationwide is at the highest it’s ever been; there is just no administrative impetus to bring them here. This is where the fight needs to continue. Hiring more diverse staff, creating athlete unions and fighting against the “cartel” that is the NCAA is a start.
It would be a mistake to think money can end racism. A millionaire, Black NBA player was shot by the police. LeBron was told to “shut up and dribble” because he criticized the President’s racism. As long as one athlete thinks their experience is comparable to slavery, the fight is not over. If anything, Mutiri said NIL has proven the point: Nothing has changed about racism in sports.
