Why Don't Black Football Players Kick or Punt?

HBCU football teams seldom have black kickers. One even had a white Latino girl kicking off for them. How come?

As I mentioned awhile ago, October is the peak of the American spectator sports schedule, so my apologies for all the sports-oriented posts lately

Why do African-American guys tend to think that soccer and even football placekicking are so gay that a couple of years ago the historically black college or university (HBCU) Jackson St. had an injured white Hispanic girl kicking off for them?

From CNN:

Mexican American woman becomes first NCAA Division I female kicker at an HBCU

By Justin Gamble, CNN Oct 15, 2023

(CNN) — A Mexican American woman has become the first female kicker at Jackson State University, a NCAA Division I Historically Black College and University.

Leilani Armenta told CNN she was nervous when she stepped onto the field during the team’s September 23 game against rival Bethune-Cookman University, but she knew she had a job to do. She said she just focused on playing the game.

Armenta wasn’t just nervous about her historic game time debut – the freshman communications major is also recovering from ACL surgery she had last year and has spent the season training and kicking in a brace.

Soccer is hard on teenage girls’ ACLs.

Despite playing through the pain, Armenta was instrumental in Jackson State’s 22-16 victory over Bethune-Cookman University. Her 25-yard kick-off late in the game helped seal the win.

Uh, 25 yards is not very far.

Armenta told CNN she chose to attend the Jackson State University, an HBCU, because the school had one of the best programs for her major. But she’s also passionate about sports and has cultivated a love for football since high school.

HBCUs have recruited non-blacks for some time to fill sports roles that blacks aren’t much interested in. I can recall reading an article a quarter of a century ago about an HBCU that was forced by Title IX to have a women’s golf team. But back then practically zero black teenage girls played golf. (There are probably more today.) So the team wound up recruiting three girl golfers from Australia. (That would have been a good role for a young Rebel Wilson in a black college comedy.)

At HBCUs, 22% of women’s softball players are white.

The New York Times reported in 2018:

White Kickers and Punters at Black Colleges Are a Thing

There are not many black kickers and punters in the country, even at the nation’s historically black colleges and universities.

By Marc Tracy Oct. 5, 2018 …

Just a handful of the specialists featured on the roughly two dozen H.B.C.U. [historically black colleges and universities] football teams in Division I identify as black. Many, like Delaware State’s punter and place-kicker, are Latino; others, like N.C. Central place-kicker Adam Lippy, are white. …

There might be more Australian punters in pro and college American football than black punters.

The dearth of black kickers and punters is notable throughout Division I college football, where the majority of players are black, and in the N.F.L., where roughly two-thirds are.

It’s been this way for a while. An ESPN the Magazine article found that in 2010 just one of the 120 teams in college football’s top tier fielded a black kicker or punter in a game.

“You look at your demographics and the majority of your clients, and by all means I’d say the majority is white,” said Chris Sailer, who runs a popular kicking and punting camp. …

Paywall here.