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Laboring for Love of the Game: Northwestern Football Players Spur a Union Movement

Kain Colter, Northwestern University quarterback.

Kain Colter, Northwestern University quarterback.

A group of football players at Northwestern University has filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to certify as a labor union. Their goal, according to spokesman and Northwestern quarterback, Kain Colter, is not to attempt to get college athletes paid. Instead, they seek to improve the conditions under which they play by gaining access to medical care paid for by their schools and guaranteed scholarships despite injury. College athletes, Colter explained in a press conference, provide a service to their schools, which at times gets in the way of their education. The players are supported in their endeavors by the U.S. Steelworkers Union. Pat Fitzgerald, Northwestern’s popular football coach, has tweeted support for his men as well.

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Even as Northwestern has continued to insist that football players are not employees, athletic director Jim Phillips said in a statement that:

We love and are proud of our students. Northwestern teaches them to be leaders and independent thinkers who will make a positive impact on their communities, the nation and the world. Today’s action demonstrates that they are doing so.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has responded to the petition by saying that football players are student-athletes and not employees, as per the definitions stipulated in the National Labor Relations Act. This is because student-athletes voluntarily participate in sports and the purpose of college is not work, but an education. As a result, the NCAA maintains, football players have no right to unionize. A 1953 legal case did classify athletes as employees of a university, forcing the University of Colorado to provide compensation for football injuries. In response, the NCAA invented the term “student-athlete” and forced universities to adopt it, perpetuating the idea that athletes could not be employees.

The response of the NCAA has eerie resonance with graduate student unionization drives wherein university administrators clung to the idea that graduate students were apprentices. As rhetorical scholar Thomas A. Discenna has shown, this definition classified graduate assistants primarily as students and not employees. Obviously, the Northwestern case hinges on the definition of “employee.” Rhetorical scholars remind us that definitions function as arguments, not mere reflections of an objective reality. And both sides in this case will shape definitions about what “employee” means. For instance, the NCAA insists that the fact that football players receive scholarships mean that they’re students, not employees—a contentious point.

Colter in a statement to ESPN shifts the locus of discussion from the definition of “employee” to making visible the labor of football players. Indeed, that sport is a type of labor is often overlooked. (Much as graduate assistant teaching and grading is often invisible to university administrators.) Discourse surrounding college athletics, and even athletics in general, perpetuates the idea that athletes should be motivated by “love of the game,” while demanding medical protections undermines the apparent authenticity of the desire to play for love of the game. College athletes, the saying goes, should be thankful for the opportunity to don school colors and play for their team.

Throughout his statements on the drive to unionize, Colter has made visible the impact of football on the body. An attempt, I contend, that helps listeners to see sport as a type of labor. A particularly dangerous type of labor with lasting effects—a rhetorical move that dovetails with recent discussions about concussions in football. Football is also a labor that takes a great amount of time and practice, as Colter makes clear. While football players may, and often do, love the game, they’re still performing work. This work is precarious as well, given high injury rates and short careers.
Likewise, by arguing that football players are already paid to play for their schools through scholarships Colter equates playing football with a common definition of labor, that one receives wages as a result of performing it. He argues as well that providing the service of performances in football games for their schools oftentimes requires players to miss class, actually getting in the way of the educational goals espoused by the NCAA. Scholarships are granted for athletic, not educational, abilities. One can’t, he argues, skip practice to go to class. Here, we see Colter undermining the “student-athlete” label given by the NCAA by showing “athlete” and “student” to be at odds.

I applaud the unionization drive of Northwestern athletes, and I hope it begins to reform a broken NCAA system. (However, it is important to note that even if successful, the impact of this case may be limited given different regulations for public and private schools.) While this may eventually spiral into a broader discussion about paying student athletes, I am immensely sympathetic to Colter’s claim that having “a seat at the table” would be a significant win against the “dictatorship” that is the NCAA. It is important to realize, however, that while the work football players perform is dangerous, all work exists in hierarchies of value often linked to other forms of privilege. Even as we applaud their efforts, we should remember the unionization drives of those facing other types of precarity like deportation who may not have access to the lawyers and press coverage that this high-profile case has received.

The next step is an NLRB hearing, which will determine whether football players are employees with the right to unionize. This hearing is set for February 18. Regardless of the verdict, there will likely be appeals. It will be months, if not years, before this high-stakes case is resolved.

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Struggling, Resilient: The National Congress of the American Indians Gives Washington Some Alternatives

The National Football League’s 2014 Super Bowl broadcast included many controversy-sparking commercials. The one commercial it didn’t . . .

 

. . . also ended with such a pregnant pause. Late last year, Rhetorically Speaking ran a two-part post on the recent developments in the on-going controversy over the the NFL’s Washington franchise, its outspoken owner, and its heavily scrutinized team name. In 2013, ChangeTheMascot.org and its allies mounted a renewed campaign against the term “Redskins” by appealing to Congress, to the NFL, to team sponsors, and, via web links and airwaves, to public opinion.

On Super Bowl weekend, the National Congress of the American Indians contributed to the public debate by releasing “Proud To Be,” a two-minute viral video circulated online as “the #BigGame commercial the NFL would never air.” Shot and edited in a style reminiscent of advertising powerhouse Wieden+Kennedy—the firm behind Nike and such politically-charged and unabashedly nationalist Super Bowl spots as Chrysler’s “Halftime in America” and this year’s Coca Cola spot, “It’s Beautiful”—the video presented an artful, emotional, at times blunt and blistering critique of the Redskins name and mascot.

We might debate the truth behind particular claims forwarding the video, implying the NFL or Fox had rejected the commercial—after all, even 30-second Big Game spots run for several million dollars and it is unlikely that the NCAI could have funded such a statement or even intended the spot to air—but its online presence was massive, with over 1.5 million YouTube views in its first week online and an accompanying Super Bowl weekend Twitter campaign aimed at capitalizing on the nation’s attention to keep the ChangeTheMascot movement growing.

The “Proud to Be” spot adopts a simple yet affective premise and structure. A montage of images of Native individuals, past and present, plays against a simple list of tribal titles, names, social roles, and adjectives that might describe Native Americans, and a swelling musical soundtrack. “Proud,” the narrator begins, “Forgotten,” he counters, “Indian.” These are descriptors of a people, both as individuals and as communities. The words are mentioned in brief stanzas, grouped in reference to  specific tribes, then individual qualities, then historical figures, then family roles. “Sitting Bull, Hiawatha, and Jim Thorpe” are followed by “Mother, Father, Son, Daughter.” The list follows an almost cyclical structure, beginning against the image of a rising sun and working towards a sunset near the video’s end. The mid-way point, at one minute in, includes adjectives like “Underserved” and “Struggling,” with images of weather-beaten reservation lands, a child rummaging through rubbish, and an overweight, slumped figure against a military mural. The list suggests honesty and admission of blemishes. Not all words for the Indian are glowing, but they are included all the same, suggesting candor and truth. Then the list begins to cycle back on themes, listing even more tribal distinctions, more social roles, more famous figures. We see powwows and regalia over and over again, each distinguished with a different name. It is a strategy of copia, going on and on and cycling back on themes to stress the vast diversity of Native American peoples before climbing to an assertive final note: “Unyielding, Strong, Indomitable. Native Americans call themselves many things. The one thing they don’t . . .” and the increasingly rapid music and image montage cut to black. The pregnant pause gives way to a slow fade on the Redskins helmet logo and a football that stay on the screen in silence. The argument here is simple: despite all of the terms that the commercial has shared, it will not stoop to saying the derogatory word. The NFL and viewers nationwide should do the same.

There are many things we might deconstruct about the video. The inclusion of American flags, Native American soldiers and veterans, and blatant references to athleticism and football echo the shameless nationalism we’ve come to expect from Super Bowl ads over the past decade. The images of precocious children might strike some as pandering for sympathy. The pause at the end of the list functions enthymematically, inviting—or even subtly coercing—the viewer to fill in the blanks of the argument and thus take part in its construction.

For the ongoing discussion of the Redskins name controversy, however, we might consider how the “Proud to Be” spot echoes the strategy used by sportscaster Bob Costas in his October 13 comments. In my earlier post, I argued that Costas had introduced a new tactic in the debate by suggesting that neither those supporting nor those opposing Native American mascots at large were incorrect and rather bracketing the term “Redskins” in a tier of its own, separate from all other potentially offensive or controversial mascot names. Costas presented a list of other Indian mascot names to demonstrate how “Redskins,” as a term, differed—how it was particularly egregious and worthy of concerted reflection. “Proud to Be” utilizes the same strategy. It presents a copious list of other, acceptable alternatives, to demonstrate that just this one term is problematic.

It is unclear if this new strategy will change minds or mascots, but it has certainly spread and helped reinvigorate the anti-Redskins debate.

Of course, while Costas spoke to a broad television audience, the NCAI may be “preaching to the choir.” Their description of the video as “the #BigGame commercial the NFL would never air” suggests awareness that regardless of the video’s editing and music and art, the people in charge of the final decision have made up their minds and are unwilling to hear further arguments. And so the campaign, like so many these days, has moved to Twitter and Facebook and hyperlinks. Perhaps the NCAI is simply rallying a base. Perhaps they are following the maxim, attributed to Gandhi, that in fighting any status quo, “first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” By suggesting that the NFL is shutting them out, the NCAI seems to realize they are, at the least, no longer being ignored. They are, in their own words, then, both “struggling” and “resilient.”

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Team Jack: What It Means to Be a Husker

Across year-end top ten lists from YouTube, USA Today, the Huffington Post, and others, Jack Hoffman has been making steady appearances. On April 6, 2013, Jack Hoffman, a seven-year old with brain cancer, donned a red #22 jersey to make a 69-yard touchdown during the Spring Game scrimmage for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Husker football team.

Since the Spring Game, the touchdown has garnered more than 8 million views on YouTube. It has been named the best moment by USA Today and the Big Ten and earned Jack an ESPY. While the touchdown itself allowed Jack to live his dream of playing with the Huskers, Jack and his family have also been using the opportunity to increase awareness of pediatric brain cancer and raise money for medical research. So far, The Team Jack Foundation has raised $1 million for cancer research through donations, the sale of Team Jack t-shirts and bracelets, and galas and bowling fundraisers.

More important than making the top ten year end lists, Jack’s touchdown is significant because it has been fully integrated into the values, traditions, and meaning of what it means to be a Husker fan. Jack’s touchdown, and the Husker football team’s welcoming of Jack, has become a way to define what it means to be a Husker, identify Husker values, and prioritize those values.

After the Spring Game, fans pointed to Jack to define what it means to be a Husker and to share pride in that identity.

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Throughout these tweets, fans share their pride in the Nebraska football program and allude to something special being shown with Jack’s touchdown. Jeff Koterba articulates what these fans leave unspoken: that Jack’s touchdown showed Husker values at work.

Jeff Koterba cartoon for April 9, 2013 "Jack Hoffman Huskers"

Jeff Koterba cartoon for April 9, 2013 “Jack Hoffman Huskers”

In Koterba’s cartoon, Husker football players are no longer students, athletes, or celebrities, but rather are representatives of the values upheld by Husker Nation. The editorial states, “It’s easy in today’s high-stakes world of big-time college athletics to overlook things like sportsmanship, generosity and inspiration. All suited up Saturday in Memorial Stadium.” Indeed, the cartoon shows what happens when Huskers values are enacted through the Husker football players on the field and the Husker fans in the crowd roaring as Jack crossed into the end zone.

Husker fans like Sean Carey and Tyler Quick assert that these values are more important than any winning streak. For Huskers, sportsmanship, generosity, inspiration, hope, heart, and soul are prioritized over winning.

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Andrew Dillon goes so far as to say that Jack Hoffman may be the greatest running back of all time. By doing so, he contributes to prioritizing the values Jack embodies over winning football games.

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Andrew shifts the criteria for best running back from touchdown statistics to the values Jack embodies. Jack’s single touchdown may be more important than Mike Rozier’s 29 touchdowns and 2,148 rushing yards.

Husker fans have fully embraced Jack’s touchdown. For Huskers, it is a point of pride, shows what it means to be a Husker, and demonstrates that values like sportsmanship, hope, and inspiration are more important than winning. Of course, these values have long been a part of the Husker fan community. Tom Osborne, the Husker’s head football coach from 1973-1997, famously embraced a coaching philosophy that emphasized more than winning: a game well played. But after Tom Osborne stepped aside as head football coach, Husker Nation underwent a minor identity crisis.

Frank Solich was hired in 1998 and found moderate success, but after a 7-7 season in 2002 and firing many of the assistant coaches afterwards, only one third of Nebraskans polled thought his team “represented real Nebraska football” (Aden, pg. 57). When Bill Callahan took over in 2004, he introduced big changes that yielded minimal success: he gutted Nebraska’s walk-on program and introduced a west-coast offense. Callahan was eventually fired in 2007 (Aden, pg. 58). These Solich and Callahan years shook the foundations of Husker Nation. Nebraska’s current coach, Bo Pelini, has been unable to repair all the damage—indeed, such a task may take years.

This makes Jack Hoffman’s touchdown even more important for the Husker fan community. His touchdown provided an opportunity for fans, players, and coaches to recommit themselves to particular values and reconnect those values to Husker fandom. When Jack made that touchdown, Huskers were reminded of what it takes to be a Husker and why that’s so special.

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by | January 9, 2014 · 11:39 pm

Offense and Defense: Bob Costas Weighs in on the Washington Redskins Name Controversy (Part II)

Bob Costas weighs in on the Redskins naming controversy. Image originally from NBC.

Bob Costas weighs in on the Redskins naming controversy. Image originally from NBC.

This is a continuation of last week’s post.

In his prepared remarks, Costas begins by clearing the air of potential accusations and affirming what Redskins fans themselves have stated time and again: that there is “no reason to believe” that Snyder, Redskins players, or their fans harbor any “animus toward Native Americans or [wish] to disrespect them.” He also acknowledges that, despite the Cowboys vs. Indians overtone to the evening’s game, the Redskins name controversy is not simply a matter of race, as “even a majority of Native Americans” are not offended by the name. These opening remarks seek to acknowledge that the people defending the name “Redskins” are not wrong before attempting to demonstrate that the name itself is.

Then, Costas presents his case. He explains that “there’s still a distinction to be made” and proceeds to present a list of other sport teams with Native American nicknames and mascots as a grounds for comparison—a kind of litmus test for when Native American-inspired team names are respectful (or, at least, innocuous) and when they occasionally cross the line. In his first tier he includes “names like ‘Braves,’ ‘Chiefs,’ ‘Warriors,’ and the like” as nicknames that “honor, rather than demean,” asserting they are “pretty much the same as ‘Vikings,’ ‘Patriots,’ or even ‘Cowboys,’” and notes that objections to them “strike many of us as political correctness run amok.” These nicknames get a free pass from Costas, though opponents of Indian mascots and team names have protested against them for years. Next, Costas lists a second tier of teams, with names that are “potentially more problematic,” but “can still be okay provided the symbols are appropriately respectful.” This leads him, implicitly, to a third tier, in mention of the Cleveland Indians, a team with a tier-two nickname that has “sometimes run into trouble” with its caricatured and hyperbolic Chief Wahoo logo. Fourth, Costas distinguishes a tier of teams, like the Stanford Indians, Dartmouth Indians, and Miami of Ohio Redskins, that acknowledged the potential for offense and changed their names, calling particular attention to Miami of Ohio. Washington is listed last and, at this point, Costas distinguishes it in its own tier, at the bottom of the list of increasingly problematic offenders. He asks viewers to “think for a moment about the term ‘Redskins,’ and how it truly differs from all the others. Ask yourself what the equivalent would be, if directed toward African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, or members of any other ethnic group” before using this reflection and distinction to assert “When considered that way, ‘Redskins’ can’t possibly honor a heritage, or noble character trait, nor can it possibly be considered a neutral term. It’s an insult, a slur, no matter how benign the present-day intent.”

It is an original and potentially persuasive tactic. Through this series of distinctions, Costas breaks out of the stalemated, repetitive cycle of debate over Native American mascots as a whole and instead singles out the Redskins as a particular case. He is striving, here, it seems, for mutually satisfying compromise in a debate that rarely sees it. His description of team names in the first and second tier echoes perennial defense of Indian mascots, while his indictment of the lower tiers aligns more with the Indian mascot objectors’ familiar words and stance. With distinction between types of team names, Costas is seeking to affirm the arguments of both sides but also make room for compromise.

Yet we might also question the efficacy of such tactics. By excusing some teams with Indian-inspired nicknames of any offense, his words let some potential racism and insult off the hook. By equivocating and distinguishing between names and mascots, he is, in some ways, conceding parts of the “Change the Mascot” fight. Advocates of abolishing all potentially offensive nicknames might accuse Costas of throwing opponents of names like “Chiefs” or “Blackhawks” under the bus in his effort to critique the Redskins. Distinctions like these, while seeking to forward the anti-mascot cause on some fronts, stifle future efforts on others. The images, for instance, that appear on screen when Costas excuses the Braves, Chiefs, and Indians as less offensive incorporate tomahawks, arrowheads, and men saluting one another while concealing raised axes behind their backs. Costas does not call attention to the negative history surrounding such images when he uses them as he excuses the top tier teams. And, of course, any distinction between kinds of Indians or tiers of quality among Native American peoples or symbols hearkens uncomfortable associations with blood quantum laws and brown paper bag tests.

October 13 was not the first time Costas has dabbled in political or social commentary during a sportscast (see 8, for instance) and it is unlikely to be the last, but he seems to rankle viewers each time it happens. While seeking compromise, it’s likely that Costas pleased neither the most adamant anti-mascot campaigners nor the staunchest pro-mascot defenders. Then again, perhaps that was not his intention. Perhaps, in ending with the assertion that “’Redskins’ can’t possibly honor a heritage,” he intended his remarks as an open rebuttal and challenge to Dan Snyder’s letter. Perhaps he sought only to prompt discussion with the hope that progress made now would lead to other progress in the future, chipping away at offensive sporting nicknames bit-by-bit over time.

Whatever the intent, the situation remains unchanged. At the end of October, Goodell met separately with Snyder and with Oneida Nation representatives. The stalemate persisted. The Redskins name remains, as does the controversy. And while we have an interesting new perspective in the ongoing discussion, the defenses are familiar and offense, as Costas phrased it, continues be taken.

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Offense and Defense: Bob Costas Weighs in on the Washington Redskins Name Controversy (Part I)

Bob Costas weighs in on the Redskins naming controversy. Image originally from NBC.

Bob Costas weighs in on the Redskins naming controversy. Image originally from NBC.

This is part of a two-post series on Bob Costas’ commentary on the Redskins naming debate.

It’s been an eventful year in the decades-old controversy surrounding the National Football League’s Washington Redskins franchise and its allegedly offensive team name. In 2012, the Kansas City Star publicly reiterated its policy of not printing the “Redskins” name in its articles and a bevy of other publications, including the Washington City Paper, San Francisco Chronicle, and Richmond Free Press soon followed suit. In March, U.S. House Representatives introduced a bill to void any trademark registrations disparaging Native American peoples and, in May, ten members of Congress sent a letter to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, Redskins team owner Dan Snyder, and FedEx, the team’s primary sponsor, requesting that the team’s name be immediately changed (1). Snyder responded with a series of statements swearing the name would never change under his watch and polls conducted in May suggested that 4 in 5 Americans agreed that a change in name should not take place (2;3). Meanwhile, the Oneida Indian Nation expanded its “Change the Mascot” campaign through demonstration and advertisement across the nation and, in October, President Obama was called upon to comment in an Associated Press interview, stating that if he were the owner of a franchise with a name that was “offending a sizable group of people,” he would “think about changing” it (4). On October 9, Snyder published an open letter to fans in The Washington Post, again defending the team’s name as not offensive to Native Americans but, rather, a tribute to those people and the franchise’s own proud heritage (5).

These arguments are, by now, familiar ones across the United States. Protests against and arguments defending the use of Native American names, terms, and images as sporting mascots gained momentum in the 1970s and 80s and have since led to name changes at the high school, college, and professional level, while also inspiring, in some places (including Wisconsin, for instance) recent legal efforts to protect Indian mascots in spite of community or Native American complaint (6). Critics of team names like “Redskins,” “Indians,” and “Braves” assert that these terms rob indigenous peoples—already mistreated grossly by American history and heirs to a weighted, unequal social position—of their own cultural words and symbols, their own ability to define themselves, while reducing sometimes sacred elements of their culture to frivolous, commercialized, and insulting caricatures in the dominant culture’s control. Defenders of the team names and mascots often contend that the names are not meant to offend but rather to honor Native peoples, that many polled Native Americans are not offended, that the sporting symbols ultimately preserve Indian heritage for Indians and non-Indians alike, and that, in the modern day, such symbols are as much a source of traditional pride for decades-old sports teams as they are for Native Americans themselves.

While names have been changed and logos have been altered, these two camps in the debate have done little to achieve consensus. In many cases—including that of the Washington Redskins—the groups have reached a kind of stalemate, both staking their claims to the names and traditions as a matter of personal passion, heritage, and identity, as Snyder does in his letter when he reiterates, “Our past isn’t just where we came from—it’s who we are” (7). These kinds of appeals are difficult if not impossible to refute, as both sides are entitled to claim their own tradition and heritage for themselves. Both proponents and opponents of the names rally around claims to pride and tradition with self-determined certainty. When team names are changed, resentments still linger. When team names remain, often the best outcome is a vocal vow to respect each other’s opinions but agree to disagree.

For this reason, sportscaster Bob Costas’ October 13 comments on the controversy are particularly interesting. Costas, speaking during halftime of a game between Washington and Dallas (a potent ground for commentary, with the implicit Cowboys vs. Indians overtones) during NBC’s highly-rated Sunday Night Football broadcast, took two minutes and twenty seconds to address the controversy before a national audience not by taking up the old, tradition- and identity-based arguments championed time and again in the Indian mascot debate but by seeking compromise and distinguishing between some team names as harmless and others, like Redskins, as offensive. His novel approach invites a close analysis.

 

See Part II for continuation . . .

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