Are NFL Positions Segregated?
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Danny Woodhead and Wes Welker
Have you noticed that NFL linemen tend to be very large, while NBA centers are invariably very tall? And marathon runners are usually slender, while jockeys stand short? The only shock about those observations would be if someone failed to notice. You can’t watch football or basketball without picking up on the participants’ physical profiles. There’s nothing subtle about 7-footers or 380-pounders, and we’re totally comfortable pointing out their size because there’s a direct correlation to their job requirements.
However, discussions become much thornier when we highlight a distinction that has nothing to do with the task at hand and yet stands out just as much or more: skin color. Some of the most glaring examples — say, the scarcity of African Americans in the NHL and Major League Baseball — can be explained as purely cultural coincidences. Black youths simply don’t play that much hockey or baseball; consequently, not many grow up to be pros in those sports.
But if we highlight the scarcity of white halfbacks, wide receivers and defensive backs in the NFL (or white players in the NBA, period), the discussion gets more complicated. Tens of thousands of white kids play football and basketball, from youth leagues to high school and through college. So our conversation takes an awkward turn, with stereotypes and preconceptions battling reason and logic for supremacy. As the late tennis great Arthur Ashe said in the 1989 NBC News special Black Athletes — Fact and Fiction, the issue of race in sports is “a sociological red button.”
