The Social Structure of a College Football Team
...anize under a single social structure. This conformity allows decisions to be made quickly, unquestionably, and by the most knowledgeable individual. Once the team is organized, the once singular individuals become bonded under the control of a capable leader and form a cohesive team. During practice the team mostly ran through their plays. Every move they make must be planned and practiced before they play in a game. The players that occupy each of the eleven positions have a specific task to perform. Every player is a specialist who must coordinate his actions with others on the team. Not only do the coaches hold rank over the players, but there are also different rankings within the positions on the team. The leader of the offensive players would be the quarterback. Every play the offence runs begins with him. Interestingly on defense in football there is a play caller who is usually either the free safety or the inside linebacker. In order to properly organize, and be successful on defense, there must be a leader who will call the plays with instruction from the defensive coordinator (coach). Although this is a necessity, we did not observe any clear leader within the defense. Colorado’s defense might be organized differently, possibly every player has equal status (no assigned captain) or maybe the captain on defense is not shown the respect from the rest of the players. Either way, without a defined leader, the defense will most likely not be successful. Although the head coach has the most power and highest rank on the team, it is the players who hold the most social status. In society you are looked to as being blessed if you either play a sport to get money for college, or play a sport to make a living. Society looks up to football players, and also looks to them for entertainment. Men look to them as heroes, and women tend to look at their fit bodies and think of them as sexual icons. Sports play a major part in the United States culture, and athletes are our celebrities. The coaches, and people involved with the team also hold social prestige. The head coach has a very high social status, and all the coaches under him do also just because they can say they are part of The University of Colorado football team. You definitely hold a higher social status if you are involved with athletics. For the most part, our society views African-Americans as being more physically capable in terms of athletics. Blacks are socialized to view athletics as a profession in which they can thrive; therefore we believed that even at Colorado, a university with a small percentage of minorities, the football team would include a large number of African-Americans. To our surprise The ratio between white and black players on the football team was pretty equal, however out of the players that start, and play dominant roles on the team, there are more black than white players. On the starting defense for example there is one Hawaiian and the rest of the players are black. On the offense, the starting offensive line and quarterback are white, however the running back is black and one of the wide receivers is also black. So it’s pretty equal, but there are still more blacks that start. Although there is minor racial inequality, the way a sports team is run is always fair. The players that are the most athletic, and the most dedicated to the team, will get to play. Entering into the football practice we had a few preconceived ideas about what we would observe. First we were fairly sure that females, if any, would not play a significant role in the social structure of the team. The manner, in which females are socialized in our culture, creates a barrier for women entering into sports. Females are taught to be less competitive than males are, and it is also somewhat of a folkway that women are not supposed to competitively participate in sports, therefore as they mature they lack the motivation to be involved in athletics. The absence of women in sports then perpetuates and further ingrains the beliefs that women do not or should not participate in sports. For more than a century, sport has been a way ...