Stanford Politics

It’s not new for athletes to make political statements — from Jesse Owens’ Nazi-defying 1936 Olympics performance, to Muhammad Ali’s refusal to be inducted into the Army, to the more recent controversy over standing for the national anthem spearheaded by NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, athletics has been historically tied to politics. But in an era when Twitter banter, nationally organized protests, and polarizing dialogue seep into unsuspecting sectors of everyday life, it seems reasonable that the athletic sphere has witnessed an inevitable bolster in its presence in the political realm.

Moreover, Donald Trump’s divisive election, a rising national concern for social injustices, made more visible by modern media and technology, and the especially engaged nature of college campuses all combine to make it near impossible to remain apolitical — at least unwillfully — at places like Stanford. Thus, this begs the question: How has this more political atmosphere manifested itself for student-athletes, a specific subsection of the larger undergraduate population, in their everyday interactions?

While this juncture is dependent on factors such as the demographics of the student-athlete body, the diversity of individual teams, and a broader social context for each respective sport, an excellent case that seemingly encompasses interesting variations of each of these factors is the football team. Additionally, because of the program’s size relative to other organizations and its high-profile nature given the sport’s attention to social issues at the national level, its relevance to the relationship between sports and politics is even more critical.

In this piece, we will investigate how the unique geographic and racial makeup of the Stanford Football team results in differing player perspectives about the nature of political interactions both on and off the field. Furthermore, we will explore how these interactions produce enhanced possibilities for political understanding and, oppositely, hold the potential to exacerbate underlying tensions surrounding political dialogue. Most importantly though, the analysis and discussion of how factors like diversity and demographics play into the team’s interactions will provide a framework for understanding how this bridge of politics and athletes functions for the exchange of ideas and values at the collegiate level of athletics.

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When considering the impacts of diversity on political dialogue, especially in a definitive campus context and team setting, demographics make a tremendous (if not all) the difference. For instance, only 7 percent of Stanford’s undergraduate student body is African-American while 36 percent is white, according to the University’s statistics. Geographically, 88 percent of undergraduates originate from the United States, of which 29.6 percent can be characterized as coming from “red” states (for our purposes, any state Trump carried in the 2016 election) while 70.4 percent hail from “blue” states (those carried by Clinton). While it’s obvious red or blue state origin does not exactly reflect one’s political leanings, it can be used as an indicator of the potential for ideological diversity.

However, not all aspects of diversity in political discourse can be characterized by numerical indicators. Consider campus debate: While some might claim that it is obsolete at Stanford, the dialogue created by campus publications and political organizations arguably proves otherwise. The presence of publications such as the Stanford Daily, the conservatively-inclined Stanford Review, the self-declared left-wing Stanford Sphere, and investigate entity the Fountain Hopper continually offer contrasting perspectives on campus issues ranging from affirmative action and inclusivity to workers’ rights and financial aid. Furthermore, non-journalistic organizations such as the Stanford College Republicans (SCR), Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), and Fossil Free Stanford, to name a few, supplement the conversation, holistically showing that the exchange of ideas is (at least partially) alive on Stanford’s campus today.

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Diversity and variation of perspective are not just unique to the standard elements of geographic origin and demographic identity though. Student associations can be characterized just as equally by their array of identities, and in particular, through the daily habits and experiences of their members. Specifically, among all the different ethnic, racial, religious, political, and interest-based groups abounding on Stanford’s campus, one sphere of students stands apart from their peers: student-athletes. As obvious as it may seem, student-athletes live a starkly different lifestyle than the mainstream student body. Not only do they bear the common burden of academic coursework, but they also have obligations for practice, training, and competition outside of the lecture hall. The act of balancing training and competition throughout the week with seemingly incessant problem sets and response papers, keeping in touch with family and friends, and maintaining personal well-being tends to take a heavy toll on athletes throughout their four years at Stanford. Unlike the mainstream student body though, athletes also have access to privileges not available to the regular student population, including supplemental academic and advisory resources, enhanced dining options (which are open to all students at a fee, but were originally designed with athletes in mind), and most notably, athletic scholarships (of which the football team has the ability under NCAA rules to award 85 annually) that complement need-based financial aid.

The most prominent schism between athletes and non-athletes arguably arises with regards to schedule flexibility and opportunities for involvement in extracurricular organizations. As previously mentioned, athletes must satisfy the time requirements of their sports and are limited in choice when it comes to managing free time off the field and outside of the classroom. Consequently, many organizations across campus, including political ones, tend to see a limited and lower participation of student-athletes in their events and meetings.

Thus, the free exchange of ideas that lies at the heart of Stanford University’s values, which is augmented by engagement in a variety of groups and social circles around campus, can be jeopardized for student athletes due to their intense time commitments. As a result, many student-athletes who wish to express their political ideas and values may have little opportunity to do so but in the setting of their sport, of which the fact of being on a team as well as the varying diversity in upbringings, race, and geographic origin can play a vital role.

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As these specific social groups and cliques emerge from the general student population and as different clubs, organizations, and teams stake their claim to their own brand of diversity and expression, political dynamics often become tailored to the individuals that make up that group. While select student groups are able to maintain the variety of perspective present within the entire Stanford undergraduate body, most groups attract sectors of like-minded people, and consequently, people with similar interests and backgrounds.

Though not self-selected, the Stanford Football team is no exception — players from all positions together form a subset of the undergraduate population, most prominently united from their experiences of being committed to the same sport as each other for several years. However, demographically speaking, the Stanford Football team consists of a diversity far from the norm of the larger student body. In particular, the football team strays from the makeup of the student body in two major ways: an abnormally high percentage of white and black players and an increased percentage of players from red states.

Racially, the football team is just under 54 percent white and slightly over 37 percent black. Geographically, nearly 43 percent of the players hail from states that Trump won in the 2016 election, whereas 57 percent originate from blue states, resulting in a ratio of 1.4 blue-state students for every red-state student, compared to the 2.4 to one ratio in the general student body. This dramatic contrast, characterized by a duality of more white and black players and an increased representation from more conservative regions, holds the commanding potential to shape the political environment of the team. But in what ways does this diversity influence the political atmosphere of the team? Is this demographic profile one that produces a beneficial dynamic of mutual political understanding and cultural respect among the players? Or oppositely, does it cater to a network brimmed with underlying conflict and suppressed viewpoints, one that buries the opinions of a few to preserve the image of the team?

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Before evaluating differing player perspectives on the effects of this demographic divide, it seems necessary to first address the degree of political engagement present among the football team. Stanford Politics reached out to 18 current and former players to acquire a variety of player viewpoints on political issues, to which we received responses from only four individuals: two freshmen, a sophomore, and a junior, all on the team’s defense. Many other players didn’t respond or expressed hesitancy to discuss topics not directly related to their gameplay, especially without prior approval from the Athletic Department’s press managers. Stanford Politics also reached out to the communications office for the football team for comment, but they respectfully declined. From the four players we did speak with, however, a broad (and arguably unsurprising) consensus emerged among them about how they perceived the climate of political involvement among their team.

Regarding engagement, the players concurred that political associations exist within the team’s social atmosphere. “Absolutely,” said one, “there were actually people in our weight room [yesterday]that were having a conversation about politics.” “It’s not everyday, but players are definitely politically involved,” he recalled.

However, even as others acknowledged the presence of politics in weekly routines, a couple of the players were hesitant to characterize it as a pressing issue. “It’s about 50/50 [with regard to engagement]. If our teammates are engaged, they try not to show it. Our team tries not to let politics into the locker room because we probably haven’t learned how to communicate about it that well with each other, at least that’s my interpretation of it,” said the sophomore.

Even as engagement plays its fair role in the football team’s political network, the distribution of players’ ideologies can’t be ignored in the broader conversation. Nearly every player characterized the views of the team as mixed, with a slight lean to the left (similar to the mainstream student body). However, a more stringent context exists among the politically outspoken individuals of the team — the majority of them tend to be conservative.

“I think conservatives feel more outspoken on campus, which I think is fair,” said the junior. “We definitely have guys who supported Trump, so they would definitely feel more outspoken.” Another player augmented this stance by elaborating on how factors beyond ideology often play into the outspokenness of particular individuals on the team. “I can’t tell if it’s more [financial background]or because political views often times stem from the parents,” he mused. Regardless, two key takeaways emerge for political engagement among the football team. First, it is undoubtedly present; second, it is usually supplemented by more pronounced dialogue from the Right.

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The players are generally very straightforward with their responses about political engagement and ideology on the football team, often giving answers in a simple “yes” or “no” format. But when we dive deeper into how political themes like demographic and geographic divides may affect political dialogue, as well as the role that they believe politics should play in the team’s atmosphere, it’s not surprising that we uncover more thoughtful, albeit varied, mentalities.

It should be noted that the interviewees shared a common respect for all of their teammates and recognized a civility present in all political circumstances, despite player differences in opinion. “In general, it becomes a lot harder when you hear someone’s opinion who you don’t know — it’s easier to become upset because you don’t have to see them everyday. We interact so much and have to go through so much together, the [interactions]are pretty positive and there’s definitely differences of opinion, but it’s never negative. It’s usually a conducive conversation,” said one of the interviewees. Others also acknowledged that even if comments pushing along the lines of controversy are laid out on the table, damaging and permanent strains never result from such interactions. “We pick our battles, so a lot of times people will hear something and they’ll keep walking and ignore it, but if it sounds too far-fetched, then comments get made, sometimes there’s a discussion, but it’s never combative and always reasonable,” added a defensive back.

Nevertheless, a schism first emerged when one of the players described his take on tensions underlying the variances in players’ backgrounds. Referring to socioeconomic circumstances in particular, he concluded: “Just naturally, it’s hard to communicate with others who you might not understand…assumptions get made, and in my opinion, there’s that divide among people who it’s like ‘I understand him better than I would understand that person so I hang out with him more.’ If we’re at the same place together having fun, we will all be around each other, but when it comes to relaxing and chilling and understanding each other, that’s about it.” He colorfully added, “You might have someone from Tennessee and someone from California, and those are two very different cultures. You’re wearing cowboy boots and I’m wearing flip-flops and Toms.”

A “siloing-in” of players to backgrounds similar to their own was illustrated by this player as he described how interactions outside of team settings can sometimes be limited in scope and vigor between people of disparate upbringings. However, not all the players held these same attitudes. Indeed, some pushed back from this narrative and focused on how they actually believe political understanding can result from demographic and ideological differences among players on the team. “I don’t think it causes any conflict…I would say that people from different backgrounds don’t hinder discussion or anything like that. I think it kind of opens people up and makes people aware that players are from other places, and because there’s such a wide variety of where people are from, there’s so many different viewpoints that people are sort of understanding and recognize the fact that everyone has a different perspective on an issue,” said one of the freshmen.  Along similar lines, themes of unity in light of ideological differences surfaced when discussing the potential for verbal conflict (or lack thereof) among politically charged teammates. “I don’t think politics has a big influence on the cohesiveness of our team. I don’t really see much conflict within people just based solely on their political ideology,” said the other freshman, echoing prior views established by his teammate.

The effects of demographic divides on the football team’s political environment isn’t the only discord in player mindsets though. A prominent rift in perspective also appeared with regard to the extent to which politics should be present in the team atmosphere. Two of the players prescribed to a train of thought that politics doesn’t have a necessary place in their business, despite recognizing its prevalence in a broader societal context: “I don’t know if it’s necessarily our duty or job to [talk about those issues], but sports teams and players do have a huge influence on the rest of our culture. It carries a lot of weight because there’s so many individuals following these people and looking up to them.”

While most recognized the ability that sports like football have to affect political discourse and spur awareness for social injustices (as seen in instances like the recent national anthem protests), others maintained that, outside of large-scale issues that directly impact members of the team, football players shouldn’t bear a burden to tackle — even only among each other — complex, political issues. “If it’s something notable or trending, it’s definitely talked about. But as far as whether it needs to be talked about more, I don’t really think so. I think it comes up naturally in conversation, I don’t think it should be forced upon more,” said one player.

Not all could wholeheartedly agree with these sentiments though. One player depicted an interesting contrast to the aforementioned viewpoints. Specifically, he portrayed a separation between political dialogue among players in a team setting and political dialogue among players in a university setting, suggesting that players should still consider how they can play a role in perpetuating dialogue from a student perspective.“I think it has its balance like anything. When we go to football, we are there for football, but we’re not at Stanford only for football. We should have opportunities to subscribe to whatever beliefs and do as much as we can to take advantage of the Stanford experience.”

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Interestingly enough, one player did divert from the more apolitical attitudes of his teammates — and quite strongly. Not only did this individual direct attention to the topic of team political dialogue by offering an issue-specific perspective, but he also drew on underlying sentiments of political action by questioning the framework of how players should capitalize on these polarizing moments.“I definitely think it needs to be addressed more. From a police brutality standpoint, there’s a lot of frustration, and definitely for black people on the team, because it’s like nothing is being said to how we should feel or what we should do.”

But he didn’t just express views correlating to a responsibility that players should bare in accelerating dialogue. He put forth his vision for a hierarchical dynamic of open communication for political views, one with players actively engaging with one another at the base and coaches directing and encouraging conversation at the top. “I think our coaches should play a part [in bringing awareness to political issues]because they recruit us to come here.” He reasoned further that coaches should be designated with this position to raise political awareness because they seem to have an unparalleled perspective on the contexts and backgrounds of their players. “They see the houses and apartments they walk into to go get certain kids, where it’s either the golden walkway or they see a bunch of bad little kids playing on the side…They should feel the responsibility to take care of us and make sure we’re becoming successful men.”

For others, the implications outweighed any potential benefits regarding the idea of the coaching staff leading political discussion. A couple players suggested that bringing in conversations about political issues, which often incorporate themes dependent on personal background and have the ability to bring about passionate dialogue, could very well jeopardize the “professional relationship” common to the team’s social network. One player specifically addressed his deeper concerns about how this hypothetical dynamic would be abnormal and could hold a daunting potential to bring about distress among players with opposing views: “They talk about the climate of college football and how we need to be smart on campus at an individual level, but politically I think that would be weird. It would anger a lot of people one way or the other.”

Even though this topic presents yet another contrasting take on the role of politics on the football team, it frames an interesting proposition: Where do the coaches fit in to this puzzle of political dialogue? As much as some of the players insisted that any brand of political awareness shouldn’t be perpetuated through a “top-down approach” and that they would prefer to leave it to players to hash out these issues in other appropriate settings, the coaches still appear to hold a role in this inextricable link between politics and athletics.

“We are always on watch for what we tweet, so we can’t really tweet our feelings or tweet that we agree with something. We kind of get told to be neutral about stuff,” recalled one player. Upon further questioning about who the “watchdog” of the football players’ social media is, the player responded, “It’s definitely the coaches and the athletic department, not our teammates.”

Thus, it appears as though coaches’ actions — even if devoid of explicit verbal support for or opposition to raising political discussion — can speak louder than words, and often times do. The same player elaborated on how this “watchdog” culture allows the coaches to expediently crack down on controversial rhetoric by discouraging what they constitute as “emotional tweeting.” “If my teammates do say something, I’m quick to support them by quoting it or retweeting it,” the player said, adding, “because our coaches are on us so bad about emotionally tweeting, we try our best to be politically correct in what we’re saying. If it’s completely factual, our coach has a very hard time trying to correct this, because when there are facts, why are you mad?”

However, other players pointed to the notion of preserving the team’s image as appropriate justification for the coaches’ roles as censors of political dialogue. Some even extended these concerns to encompass a university-level social context in which players’ comments can be applied. “Obviously we are representatives of the team as a whole and the university, and they don’t want us to say anything that would be controversial or create issues or that’s not politically correct,” said one player, who also outlined the potential implications that could arise from uncensored social media. His biggest emphasis was on the possibility that it could jeopardize team goals such as cohesiveness. Another player offered, “I understand why they have that mentality of looking out, because we obviously don’t want anything that someone says or does on social media becoming a distraction for what we’re trying to accomplish.”

Nevertheless, these competing views provide a larger framework for questioning how and to what degree the relationship should unfold between coaches and players in tense, political situations. Should coaches filter social media to preserve an orderly and distraction-free team image? What about situations when players want to opine about more contentious issues, such as the acceptance of the LGBT community in athletics, which only three years ago was not the most catering to discussion at Stanford; or the polarizing 2016 presidential race, when players recalled great “tension” and “surprise and shock” following the election of Donald Trump? Players say that dining halls at breakfasts were divided between teammates sporting MAGA hats and others sitting separately who felt the election was a “terrible time.” At what point and to what degree do coaches and players possess a duty to address these underlying, political disagreements? While the interviewed players were split on their views of this dilemma, it nevertheless poses an interesting conversation with regard to issues of political dynamics on athletic teams going forward, especially in the polarized Trump era where these issues are sure not to cease anytime soon.

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It seems abundantly clear that the political atmosphere on Stanford’s football team is no exception to the norm of the greater athletic realm in the United States — from perspectives of mutual understanding to observations of underlying tensions, the players and the coaches both hold at least some respective, minimal role in fostering productive dialogue in the face of demographic schisms and broader societal polarization.

While this delicate and complicated relationship between politics and athletics may not be as verbally pronounced as it is at the national level with pre-game protests and public advocacy, Stanford Football players are still very much involved — even if that may go unseen to the public eye. Players acknowledge that politics functions as a hot topic in the locker room and in non-football settings from week to week. A few described the outspokenness and willingness of individuals to communicate their perspectives, even in light of unpopular opinion. Some held that politics should play a minimal role in the team dynamic, while others disputed that it should serve as a staple of the group’s social atmosphere, regardless of whether it gives rise to a culture of mutual respect or accentuates awkward tensions in a locker room diverse in demographic perspective.

Ultimately though, despite potential differences in ideological thought, the impact of demographics on team relationships, and the reluctance of the coaching staff to buy into a team culture fueled by political discussion, all the players echoed a common theme: because of their common identity as Stanford Football players, politics — however prominent for some — remains secondary for all. “Because of the grind, we all love each other,” one player said. “We have our disconnects with one another sometimes, but at the end of the day, we’re just trying to win games and potentially play for a championship.”

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Thomas Pfeiffer, a freshman studying economics and public policy, is a staff writer for Stanford Politics. This article appears in the June 2018 issue of Stanford Politics Magazine.