Racial stacking refers to a form of racial discrimination structured within the organization of sports teams and franchises. It is a persistent and pervasive social problem. The concept, first introduced in the 1970s, documents the active process of selecting and assigning players to particular positions on the field of competition based on a players’ racial or ethnic background. The concept extends to the selection of positions of governance and oversight within sports organizations, such as coaches, managers, scouts, and front office staff. Although there has been a breadth of research on offensive and defensive positions of American football teams, no studies to date have examined Special Teams, a unit or collection of positions on a football team tasked with kicking (including field goals), punting and kick-off, and punt returns. The current study fills a gap in the literature and utilizes visual analysis of media guides and game film of all twelve football teams in the Pacific-12 intercollegiate athletic conference for three consecutive seasons (2016–2018), analyzing the racial demographics of all positions within these Special Team units. Findings from this study confirm the persistent presence of spatial centrality and racial stacking within Special Teams units of American college football, reproducing racial discrimination within college sports and American higher education today. Findings also contribute to a more nuanced understanding of figurative centrality within the racial stacking literature.

种族叠加是指在运动队和特许经营组织中构建的一种种族歧视形式。这是一个长期存在且普遍存在的社会问题。这个概念于 1970 年代首次引入，记录了根据球员的种族或民族背景选择和分配球员到比赛领域特定位置的积极过程。该概念延伸至体育组织内治理和监督职位的选择，例如教练、经理、球探和前台工作人员。尽管对美式足球队的进攻和防守位置进行了广泛的研究，但迄今为止还没有研究检查过特勤队，即足球队中负责踢球（包括投篮）、踢球和踢球的单位或位置集合。关闭，平底船返回。当前的研究填补了文献中的空白，并利用了连续三个赛季（2016-2018 年）Pacific-12 校际运动会议中所有 12 支足球队的媒体指南和比赛影片的视觉分析，分析了所有职位的种族人口统计数据。这些特种部队。这项研究的结果证实了美国大学橄榄球特别团队中空间中心性和种族叠加的持续存在，在今天的大学体育和美国高等教育中再现了种族歧视。调查结果还有助于更细致地理解种族叠加文学中的比喻中心性。