'Tackling the Everyday' explores the complex identities of Black college football stars

When Tracie Canada was in college at Duke University, she found herself living in a dorm with a bunch of members of the school’s football team.

The more she talked to them, she found herself fascinated by their unique status on campus: in a way, they were kind of TV stars, appearing regularly in nationally televised games. They were often given free gear from prestigious brands like Nike, and they walked around campus in brightly colored uniforms with the school’s name on their chests. They were celebrities.

But Canada couldn’t help noticing that they were also, in many cases, Black men — and that meant that in spite of their prestige, they were also subject to the same challenges and pressures that other Black students faced. In some ways, she thought, they were even more vulnerable.

These experiences inspired the research Canada went on to do for her PhD, much of which she chronicles in her book, “Tackling the Everyday.” The book explores the delicate role that Black college football players are asked to play.

When she started writing her book, the NFL was in the midst of the controversies surrounding Colin Kaepernick’s on-field protests and players at the University of Missouri were threatening to go on strike. She figured it would be easy to get players to talk about race. But, it wasn’t that simple.

With the season just weeks away, Canada joined The Show to talk more about her work.