Background: A popular line of media discourse has sought to provide explanations for college football's lack of diversity in the coaching ranks. A related effort has recently sought to explain why black coaches are faced with institutional barriers to success in athletic fields. While research on race and the sociology of sport has frequently focused on racial characteristics and expectations of players for on-field penalization, this literature neglected to examine racialized leadership positions such as coaching. Further, the vast majority of this line of literature that has examined racial leadership has explored the effects of race on hiring and promotion decisions off the field rather than on-field dynamics. Objective: This article fills this gap by exploring the relationship between the race of college football coaches and the level of onfield penalization their teams incur. Are teams coached by black coaches more heavily penalized than those coaches by non-black coaches? Methods: Using data from a merged unique data set and a twostep approach comprising two statistical procedures, we explore this question empirically. We first examine the mean levels of penalties at the game level using a comparison of means, followed by a panel analysis of penalties at the yearly-school level. Results: In our comparison of means across all games played between white and black coaches in the 2019/2020 college football season, we find that black coaches are more heavily penalized than white coaches in terms of both penalties per game as well as penalty yardage. Findings of our longitudinal analysis covering all Division 1 college football teams from the college football playoff era (2014/2015 season until the 2019/2020 season) reveal that teams coached by black coaches receive more penalties per game than do teams coached by non-black coaches.

In this article I argue that athlete activist's personal and professional positionality influence their activism. Researchers document the powerful impact that athlete activists wield in effecting social change – especially during the civil rights movement. However, the extant literature does not consider the important points of sameness or difference that activists’ personal and professional positionality afford them. Athlete activists are not homogenous. Using content analysis, this article examines how Naomi Osaka's leverages her positionality to generate points of sameness and difference with multiple groups. The findings demonstrate that athletes’ personal racial identities greatly influence their decision to become an activist and the issues they speak to. Further, their professional positionality is embedded in a history of former activists, current activists, and the racial structure of their sport. I conclude that Osaka is greatly influenced by the points of sameness and difference afforded to her by her multiple personal and professional identities.

Recent research suggests positive associations between shared recreational activities and father–child relationships for young children. We extend these ideas to adolescents and to recreational activities in which the father’s participation might be limited to audience membership. We use the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to evaluate whether an association exists between adolescent sports participation and paternal relationships, focusing on the adolescent’s perspective, and whether these associations differ for boys and girls. Findings show positive associations between sports participation and closer relationships between fathers and adolescents. Sports participation was more important for boys’ relationships with fathers than girls’. We discuss our findings in terms of contemporary shifts in gendered norms and conclude that gender may remain salient in how sport participation can promote father–child relationships.