RACE ISSUES WITHIN INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETICS:AFRICAN-AMERICAN VERSUS WHITE ATHLETE’S PERCEPTIONS OF ATHLETICS AND ACADEMIC AND COMMUNITY SOCIAL CLIMATE

The purpose of this chapter was to examine the relationship between African- American and White college student-athletes’ perceptions of the social climate on men’s basketball and football teams, on campus, and within the community. Today there are more opportunities for African-American student-athletes, coaches, and administrators within the hierarchical structure of college sports. Male student-athletes attending a state university in the southeast completed surveys, surveys were returned by approximately 59 percent (n = 49) of the football players and 92 percent (n = 11) of the basketball players for a total sample size of 60 participants. Responses from the basketball team made up 18.3 percent of the total sample. Thirty-nine respondents (65%) were African- American while nineteen were Caucasian (31%). Two respondents (3.3%) were classified as other and were not analyzed in the results. One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to find the differences among the white and Afri