Stereotypes In Football

Boys play football and girls ice skate. Right ? Isn’t this how it goes when it comes to sports – there are boys’ sports and then the ones that girls participate in. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Even though we’ve come a long way since the days when girls stood on the sidelines cheering for the ‘big, strong boys’, gender stereotypes still persist. What can we do as a society to break down these biases that ring false? I chose to research on race, mostly stereotype in sports, but I will focus more on the NFL because of personal experience when I played football in school and continued to follow the sport closely. I chose this topic because the football world the NFL has set a standard for certain players that play certain position

As I recall at a young age when I became very interested in football my father did not teach to kick the ball. We would always practice on running and catching the ball. I realized this because the most popular guys on the team are the running backs, wide receiver, cornerbacks, and quarterbacks. These skill positions demands the skill to learn on how to throw and catch the football. A team is only consisted of one kicker compared to other positions where there is multiples guys playing the same positions.kickers spent less time on the field than any other position. There is currently one NFL team who has a black kicker who plays for the Oakland Raiders. I think this stereotype affected my mentality because I did not grow up seeing black kicker and my father never mentioned it as a position that I can be good at it. I believe that this mindset has played a bigger part on why stereotypes still exist in the NFL. The problem with stereotypes in sports is that they often lead to general stereotypes. If you say “white men can’t jump,” why not “Black men can’t read defenses”? And if Black men can’t read defenses, maybe they can’t read books either? Sports stereotypes have a real effect in the real world. Most employers are not concerned with employees’ natural athletic abilities, so stereotypes of African-Americans being athletically superior for the most part do not help Blacks in the real world. However, the stereotypes of whites being hard working, disciplined and smart are helpful to them in finding employment. Former NFL M.V.P. Steve McNair played for a small Black college because every major college recruited him to play defensive back rather than quarterback, his natural position. Many African-Americans are discouraged from playing quarterback and asked to play other positions in high school, college and