Driving Miss Daisy, Again: On the Backs of Black Male Athletes

Excerpts from the forthcoming book – The New Plantation: The Internal Colonization of Black Male Athletes

It should not take a long stretch of the imagination to see how Black male athletes contribute significantly to the athletic labor class at predominantly White National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I Institutions (PWI’s); thus, to the overall bottom-line of the revenue generated. Their presence as starters and their representation on the top football and basketball programs in the country speak volumes to PWI’s need for Black male athletes. Tables 1 &2 illustrate the contribution Black male athletes make for some of the top athletic programs in the nation.

Within this current economic configuration, another area to consider is the contribution Black male athletes are making towards “Title IX sports”[1]: those sports that are added to meet gender equity requirements, which undoubtedly are played mostly by White women (e.g. rifle, golf, equestrian, rowing, bowling, and lacrosse). According to Welch Suggs:

…Only 2.7 percent of women receiving scholarships to play all other sports at predominantly white colleges in Division I are black. Yet those are precisely the sports – golf, lacrosse, and soccer, as well as rowing – that colleges have been adding to comply with Title IX.[2]

Therefore, since Title IX has provided very limited opportunity for Black females but additional opportunities for White women to compete and Black male athletes make-up the greater percentage of the revenue generating sports that contribute to athletic departments’ revenue, and thus their ability to support these additional sports, a reoccurring historical relationship between the White female and Black male has been resurrected. I refer to this contribution and connection as the “Driving Miss Daisy” syndrome.

The Black male-White female relationship in the U.S. has a storied history. Although intimate relationships between Black males and White females were forbidden by the system of White Supremacy and legislated by lynching mobs during slavery and post-slavery periods, these relationships occurred and were managed through clandestine engagements. During these historical periods, the social order prescribed more palatable and professional arrangements for White females and Black males in the form of master/servant relationships, where black males served the needs of Whites, in general, and White women; this service was in the role of carriage drivers, house servants, chauffeurs, etc. Though the laws against miscegenation are buried in the annals of U.S. history, the role of Black males serving the needs of white women continues to prevail in our society.

Driving Miss Daisy, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Alfred Uhry, captures a twenty-five year relationship between a wealthy, white strong-willed Southern matron (Miss Daisy) and her Black chauffeur (Hoke) during the racially charged 1950’s and 60’s. The Hollywood version of this play cost $7.5 million to produce in movie form and earned $93.6 million at the box-office. It went on to capture three Academy Awards for best actress (Jessica Tandy), best screenplay adaptation (Uhry himself), and best film of 1990.

The essence of this movie reiterates the master (Miss Daisy) – servant (Hoke) relationship. At her disposal, although initially reluctant, Hoke endures the degradation and verbal abuse from Miss Daisy, yet served her faithfully. Although Hoke was compensated economically, his responsibility as chauffeur/caretaker was his internal colony, and it relegated his potential in a racially structured society and oppressed his ability for self-expression. Although he was a man, he was perceived to be less than a man – invisible; a cog in the machinery of the Jim Crow south. Hoke’s visible presence as a man was only in theory; mere imagery, in the minds of White southerners. In the social reality of this era, Hoke was deemed a boy and a personified disposal instrument made accessible for the comforts and privileges of the white establishment; regardless of its benevolence. Therefore, pushed to the limits of invisibility, Hoke is provoked to cry out and proclaim to Miss Daisy, “I ain’t some back of the neck you look at while you goin wherever you got to go. I am a man.” Yet, a man racially assigned and relegated to the position of service – driving Miss Daisy.

The institutional arrangements of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I athletics present a similar Miss Daisy – Hoke relationship, where Black male athletes are invisible as men but strategic in bearing the burden of generating revenue for athletic departments across the U.S. Disguised under the auspices of gender equity requirements in college athletics, where once again the benefactors have mainly been White women, Black males find themselves locked in this perpetual relationship of servicing the needs of the White establishment, in general, and White women, specifically.

Table 1. 2007-2008 Associated Press College Football Top 25 Poll[3]

University/Team	Percentage of Black Males on Football Team	Percentage of Black Male Undergraduates	Revenue Generated by Football[4]	Percentage of Total Athletic Revenue
1. LSU	52%	3.5%	$48,141,751	63%
2. Georgia	72%	2%	$59,516,939	78%
3. USC	52%	2.3%	$31,705,207	42%
4. Missouri	42%	2.2%	$15,284,731	31%
5. Ohio State	42%	2.9%	$59,142,071	76%
6. West Virginia	48%	1.8%	$25,174,217	78%
7. Kansas	45%	1.6%	$11,258,985	17%
8. Oklahoma	71%	1.8%	$20,412,787	44%
9. Virginia Tech	62%	2.6%	$40,634,499	62%
10. Boston College	42%	2.2%	$17,452,269	30%
11. Texas	57%	1.8%	$63,798,068	61%
12. Tennessee	51%	3.5%	$31,193,706	33%
13. Florida	59%	3.6%	$58,904,976	55%
14. BYU	8%	.2%	$10,142,975	32%
15. Auburn	50%	4.1%	$56,830,516	70%
16. Arizona St.	49%	1.9%	$23,519,742	44%
17. Cincinnati	47%	4%	$8,162,664	24%
18. Michigan	46%	7.1%	$50,982,629	57%
19. Hawaii	24%	0.7%	$7,533,652	60%
20. Illinois	54%	2.7%	$20,764,472	37%
21. Clemson	56%	3.6%	$32,029,237	57%
22. Texas Tech	39%	2.3%	$20,827,440	39%
23. Oregon	42%	1%	$21,495,626	43%
24. Wisconsin	39%	1.2%	$34,105,991	41%
25. Oregon State	31%	0.9%	$28,299,199	62%

Table 2. 2007-2008 Associated Press College Basketball Top 25 Poll[5]

University/Team	Percentage of Black Males on Basketball Team	Percentage of Black Male Undergraduates	Revenue Generated by basketball[6]	Percentage of Total Athletic Revenue
1. North Carolina	59%	3.7%	$17,215,199	30%
2. Memphis	100%	10%	$6,405,720	22%
3. UCLA	50%	1.3%	$9,108,587	15%
4. Kansas	47%	1.6%	$13,223,255	20%
5. Tennessee	65%	3.5%	$7,301,964	8%
6. Wisconsin	27%	2.4%	$14,332,269	17%
7. Texas	50%	1.8%	$14,678,656	14%
8. Georgetown	69%	2.9%	$11,534,863	42%
9. Duke	38%	3.7%	$13,410,114	28%
10. Stanford	50%	4.7%	$6,049,183	9%
11. Butler	36%	1%	$1,463,988	14%
12. Xavier	86%	3.5%	$9,421,233	51%
13. Louisville	65%	4.5%	$23,216,728	43%
14. Drake	35%	2.2%	$1,239,978	11%
15. Notre Dame	36%	2%	$2,947,106	4%
16. Connecticut	92%	2.6%	$7,761,834	15%
17. Pittsburgh	93%	2.9%	$7,645,937	20%
18. Michigan State	40%	3%	$13,225,963	18%
19. Vanderbilt	63%	3.3%	$6,620,614	17%
20. Purdue	50%	2.5%	$9,565,497	17%
21. Washington St.	20%	1.1%	$2,830,494	9%
22. Clemson	67%	3.6%	$7,395,101	13%
23. Davidson	27%	3%	$1,320,770	15%
24. Gonzaga	50%	.7%	$3,647,003	27%
25. Marquette	80%	2.1%	$13,061,279	60%

References

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[1] According to the Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 to the 1964 Civil Rights Act states that, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subject to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” According to the NCAA Gender Equity Task Force, “An athletics program can be considered gender equitable when the participants in both the men's and women's sports programs would accept as fair and equitable the overall program of the other gender. No individual should be discriminated against on the basis of gender, institutionally or nationally, in intercollegiate athletics.” National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA Gender Equity, http://www.ncaa.org/wps/ncaa?ContentID=286 (accessed April 3, 2009).

[2] Welch Suggs, A Place on the Team: The Triumph and Tragedy of Title IX (Princeton University Press, 2005), 180.

[3] This top 25 poll was posted at the end of the 2007-08 season. Data collected from Universities’ Office of Institutional Research, Universities’ Factbooks, and Media Guides from the Official University Athletic Departments’ Websites, and The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS).

[4] Data collected from the following sources: U.S. Department of Education: http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/.

[5] This top 25 poll was posted at the end of the 2007-08 season. Data collected from Universities’ Office of Institutional Research, Universities’ Factbooks, and Media Guides from the Official University Athletic Departments’ Websites, and The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS).

[6] Data collected from the following sources: U.S. Department of Education: http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/.

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