Billy Hawkins loves sports. Always has and always will.
He grew up playing sports in a little town in north Florida. After a stint in the military, he played basketball at Webber College near Tampa. He played well enough to get an offer from a semi-pro team in South America. But a bad knee and a growing interest in academics led him down a different career path.
Not entirely different, of course.
Sports still occupies a large part of Hawkins’s life, but now instead of playing it, he teaches and studies it. Hawkins focuses on how sports affects our culture, our social institutions and, ultimately, ourselves.
In his latest research, the sports sociologist examines the experiences of African-American students in intercollegiate athletics and youth sports and the representation of African-American athletes in advertising.
His research is exposing viewpoints rarely considered in the field. Because there have been few African-American sports sociologists, most journals have published little research on race issues in sports, says Hawkins.
In his research into alleged academic deficiencies of African-American student-athletes at predominantly white NCAA Division I institutions, Hawkins concluded that students’ problems were not always in academics.
“It may not necessarily be the academic deficiencies of black student athletes as much as it is the social-cultural deficiencies of the university in handling black student athletes,” he says.
“Differences in class, educational background and culture may cause barriers that can hinder these students’ academic progress. Some universities have created programs to help black student athletes with this adjustment.”
Hawkins also has studied midnight basketball and other youth anti-crime programs.
“These programs are good gestures and they’ve helped a lot of kids on the borderline, but they’re only band-aids for greater social ills,” he says. “If these programs expand beyond being basketball-centered they may reach a larger population of youth. Some have expanded to include other sports, field trips and mentoring.”
Hawkins has also studied the negative, stereotypical images of black male athletes in advertisements in sports periodicals.
“The angry-black-man image has been a part of the fabric of sport since Jack Johnson,” he says. “When black males are depicted as violent and angry in advertisements, commercials and movies, conclusions are drawn that stigmatize black males as criminals, thugs and gang-bangers. “Companies [that create the images in advertising] must be made aware of the evils they are perpetuating. Black athletes represented in these ads must also become aware of the stereotypical images they have bought into and must demand to be featured in a more respectable manner, more representative of blacks--we are not all criminals, violent nor angry.”
Hawkins ties his research into his teaching, in courses like contemporary issues in sports, sports sociology and the social aspects of sport.
“Students are provided with a broader social and historical context to analyze sport--it is more than entertainment,” he says.
Many of Hawkins’s students go into sports-management careers, often becoming tournament directors, sports agents and athletic directors. Some find positions with professional sports teams.
Hawkins also serves as coordinator of the coaching minor, which provides those going into teaching the credentials and expertise to coach.
“It helps solve a problematic area for schools, where often there are not enough qualified people to coach athletic teams,” he says.
The opportunity to teach students headed for sports management is one of the reasons Hawkins came to UGA from Northern Illinois University in 1996.
“Sports are a big, big dollar industry,” he says. “It’s important that we have qualified people running them--from youth sports programs all the way to professional sports. And being in a program to train those students is really exciting.”