Recent announcements by Michael Sam, Jason Collins, Robbie Rogers, and others belong to a longer tradition that I label the gay male athlete coming out narrative. Consistent with CTM, we contend this previously-unutilized comparison uniquely disorganizes the common-sense view of big-time college sport, producing an effectively reorganized metaphor that challenges NCAA hegemony and provides a context for improved communication and social action within the institutional field of US college sport. Specific elements of big-time college sport analyzed include: (a) the degree to which profit athletes’ daily burdens and obligations exceed those of other university employees, (b) the geographic migration patterns of profit-athletes, (c) a paternalism that suffuses the Collegiate Model of Athletics, promoting intensive surveillance of players' conduct, both in the work context itself and during their ‘free time’, (d) in-kind compensation (grant-in-aid) that is akin to scrip, (e) limited athlete representation in college-sport governance, (f) college-sport participation health risks, and (g) moral and character-based justifications for the Collegiate Model.
Drawing upon historic and contemporary legal, sociological and economic sources, we compare these athletes’ existence to that of oscillating migrant laborers in 19th and 20th Century US company towns. After summarizing previous “neo-plantation slavery” and “sex-worker” analogies, this paper analyzes – utilizing Contemporary Theory of Metaphor (CTM) – the complex relationship between these athletes and PWI athletic departments.
Utilizing a company-town metaphor, this paper analyzes the working and living conditions of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I men's basketball and Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) football players within athletic departments at Predominately White Institutions (PWIs).
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