Eric Estes is the MRC director here at Oberlin College. He graduated with a B.A. in history at Trinity College, where he played two sports. He proceeded to get his M.A and Ph.D. in history from Syracuse University. Before coming to Oberlin, Eric was on the faculty of Duke University for four years and Le Moyne College for three years. He is currently teaching a course at Oberlin titled “Sports Matters.”

How can athletics be used to examine the hotly contested issues of race, class, gender and sexuality?
Mr. E.: In my opinion, sports provides a familiar and valuable lens for better understanding historical and contemporary constructions of and discourses around race, class, gender, and sexuality. Within the context of the world of sports, we can interrogate these categories from a variety of perspectives, especially focused on the performing and passing, resisting and regulating, contexts.

Do you think athletics is a preferred framework to discuss these politically charged issues? How can we better address these issues in the classroom and at an academic level?
Mr. E.: Well, I think it enables people to access challenging and sometimes controversial theoretical issues around identity politics in a more accessible and safe context. I think it also provides a great opportunity to create more seamless connections between the curricular and co-curricular experiences of students. It empowers them to think about how the intellectual knowledge they engage with in the classroom is connected to and helps to shape and define the issues they are working through outside of the classroom, perhaps as student athletes, perhaps [as] members of the Oberlin community.

How does athletic culture at Oberlin College contribute to the social constructions of identity, for example gender and sexuality?
Mr. E.: I taught a similar course when I was faculty at Duke University, a school with a very powerful sports culture. Oberlin College as an institution and community is very different in a lot of ways and a fascinating place in this particular case. Typically, institutional constructions of masculinity, for example, will be strongly influenced by athletics as well as other hyper-masculine cultures like the Greek system or ROTC. But, here you don’t have a Greek system or ROTC and sports culture receives less attention. On top of that add our admirable reputation for being a very queer friendly community and I think it makes for a much more complex environment where a wider range of more sophisticated conversations and possibilities can take place around gender and sexuality. These conversations will hopefully produce, for example, less problematic constructions of masculinity for all Oberlin students, including student athletes.

Do you see athletics at Oberlin as enriching and building community or as a budget buster?
Mr. E.: Well, I understand asking the question this way since unfortunately this is the way it typically gets framed. I think we need to get away from thinking of things in terms of overly simplistic binaries. Certainly, priorities will have to be established and hard decisions made as the College works through the implementation of the strategic plan. I would hope that ways can be found through the setting of budget priorities as well as fundraising to ensure strong and successful athletics programs at Oberlin while understanding that it is only one of many important resources/experiences here for students.

Student-athletes commonly express the sentiment that they feel out of place or marginalized in elite higher education institutions. How are those stereotypes created and why do they continue to exist?
Mr. E.: Well, first let me say that I think all students should be able to find and articulate their voice and to be supported here, and that everyone’s contributions to our community are valued. To again reference an overly simplistic binary, I think that often people see athletics as being anti-intellectual and athletes as being less academically capable or focused. These stereotypes about academics and athletics, especially at stronger academic institution are highly problematic. But, having said this, I do think that athletics and athletes do have to accept responsibility for and work to address additional problems that help to fuel other negative stereotypes — in particular issues around racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia. While these issues are certainly not just challenges for athletics and we all have a responsibility to address them, these issues are often more intense and problematic within hyper-masculine cultures like the world of sports.

How can the MRC be utilized to address these issues?
Mr. E.: I hope that the MRC can be a hub that facilitates collaboration between a wide range of campus stakeholders around diversity and multiculturalism. In many ways, these discussions around athletics and athletes are inextricably linked to identity formation and politics in our community. You can’t have a conversation about the place of athletics at Oberlin or the feelings of student athletes without honest and meaningful engagement with issues of race, class, gender, gender identity and expression, and sexuality. Sports culture at Oberlin is powerfully shaped by these issues and how they are discussed and enacted in our community.