The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) uses amateurism as a narrative to control college athletes, which affects how scholars conduct research with these athletes. This article speaks to issues that arise among qualitative researchers at different institutions when universities control access to athletes under the guise of the ‘amateurism’ narrative. Drawing on Bourdieu, we provide insight into the habitus of athletics departments through vignettes from each of the authors to highlight issues of access to the collegiate athlete population. We simultaneously speak against amateurism as a controlling narrative and argue that there is a need for more immersive research among college athletes to better understand athlete lived experiences within these institutions. From our different disciplinary perspectives, we offer three solutions to this issue that involve the integration of qualitative researchers and practitioners to inform programming that directly impacts the athletes on college campuses across the country.

Drawing on years of ethnographic research, this article highlights the importance of Black women's mothering, care work, and labor as their sons find success in American football. By centering Black mothers, the divide between the bureaucratic care offered by football programs and the motherly care offered by football moms is apparent. The former focuses on the player and all that he contributes to the program, and is clearly concerned with the capitalist value of his athletic labor. The latter focuses on the man, someone who takes the field, lives a life beyond it, and must navigate white supremacist and anti-Black spaces. Football, my findings suggest, requires and mobilizes both forms of care.

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