Camaraderie and hierarchy in college football:
A content analysis of team photographs

Dwaine Plaza
Department of Sociology
Oregon State University
Corvallis, Oregon 97331
dplaza@orst.edu

Kathleen Stanley
Department of Sociology
Oregon State University
Corvallis, Oregon 97331
stanleyk@ucs.orst.edu

Key Words: sport, Camaraderie, Masculinity, Football, Team Photos

Abstract

As a sport, college football has evolved from a game characterized by camaraderie and intimacy among a small group of players to a highly rationalized business characterized by individualism and competition among a large group of highly specialized players and coaches. We document these transitions through a content analysis of team photographs at a state university from the 1890s to the present. Particular emphasis is given to an increasingly rationalized and hierarchal organization that stresses the dominance of coaches over players.

I. Introduction

1.1 Sport both reflects and reproduces other aspects of social organization. As a social institution, sport provides a lens through which to examine, among other processes and structures, the social construction of gender, social inequality, bureaucracy, and rationalization.

Arguably the most dominant sport in the United States is football. The popularity and appeal of football as a spectator sport is indicative of important values, beliefs, and relationships in contemporary American society. According to Eitzen (1984, p. 55)

Football is the quintessence of team sports. Every move is planned and practiced in advance.
     The players in each of the eleven positions have a
     specific task to perform on every play. Every player is a specialist who
     must coordinate his actions with the other specialists on the team. So
     important is each person’s play to the whole, the games are filmed and
     reviewed, with each play then broken down into its components and each
     player graded. Each player must subordinate his personality for the sake of
     the team. The coach is typically a stern task master demanding submission of
     self to the team. The similarity of the football player to the organizational man
     is obvious. So, too, is the parallel between football and the factory or corporation,
     where intricate and precise movements of all members doing different tasks are
     required for the attainment of the organization’s objective.

1.2 Football therefore has much to tell us about the nature of society and social relationships. As Oriard (1993, p.9) argues “. . . it is the function of football to tell stories.” Our focus here will be on the stories told through football team photographs. Every picture may tell a story but we live in a culture so steeped in visual imagery that we rarely take the time to analyze those images. Photographs are social constructions and, as with written narratives, we must learn to ‘read’ them in order to apprehend their political and ideological content. Our content analysis documents the changing organizational structure of football and provides a unique ‘window’ through which to understand the social relationships that manifest themselves through the sport. In their team photographs, football organizations present themselves to the public and tell us about who they are and how they relate to one another. While there are many stories told through these photographs, we show that intertwined semiotic messages about masculinity, bureaucracy, specialization, and control are the dominant themes.

1.3 For more than a century, sport has been a way that men develop and demonstrate masculinity. This is particularly true of football, one of the few sports that remains an almost exclusively male bastion. As a very physical and aggressive sport, football reproduces aspects of masculinity that harkens back to an earlier era in which men’s physical strength and endurance were of vital importance, helping to ensure the survival of families and communities. By the latter part of the 19^th century, however, industrial capitalism had made the attainment of this masculine ideal quite difficult. Changes in the nature of work, the occupational structure, and in the relations of production created workers who relied on machines more than physical strength and who were dependent on others for employment. The independence and self-reliance of the earlier era was replaced by a hierarchical system of “command and obedience” (Hantover 1978, p.103). Not surprisingly, there was a growing concern about the ‘feminization’ of American men (Hantover, 1978; Kimmel, 1987) and it was within this context that football, and particularly college football, emerged in the last quarter of the 19^th-century.

1.4 This new game quickly caught the imagination of the public for whom it became a metaphor for masculine success under industrial capitalism. Football came to be seen as a rite of passage wherein boys, feminized by an indoor life in the company of women at home and at school, were initiated into manhood. Michael Oriard, who has written extensively on the popular discourses of football, notes:

Behind many of these narratives lies a basic question: who would
     succeed in America, and on what terms? Would success come to
     those who were innately talented, to those who worked hard, to those
     who submitted to authority or surrendered their individual will to a
     common purpose? . . . At stake in the question of success was an even
     more fundamental definition of male identity (1993, p.188-9).

1.5 Definitions of masculinity are, therefore, tied to changes in the organizational structure of football. Football was initially a game controlled by players who organized the games, set the rules, recruited other players, maintained fields, created their own uniforms, and ran their own practices and drills. The organizational shift away from player/student control of the college game was evident by the early part of the 20^th century. By the 1950s, the sport had assumed a very different culture and structure of authority and control. With the increasing authority and professionalization of coaches came standardized rules and uniforms, an emphasis on statistics and records, and the hyper specialization of both coaches and players.

1.6 The transformation of football as a sport parallels the development of modern organizational structures with their emphasis on rationality and bureaucratic control. The features of bureaucracy identified by Weber (1925[1947])- a well-defined division of labor; a hierarchical system of authority, written rules and regulations along with a system of extensive record keeping, the use of skill and qualification as the criteria for position in the hierarchy – are all evident in the history of college football and in the team photographs we analyze.

1.7 We begin this paper by providing a brief history of football as a social organization. We then go on to consider in more depth the role that photographs play in the social construction of reality. Finally, we present a content analysis of football team photos at a state university from the 1890s to the present, in order to demonstrate the organization shifts within the game of football as it became more rationalized, specialized, and hierarchical. Particular attention is paid to the changing role of the head coach in terms of his dominant role on and over the team.

II. From student to coach control

2.1 As early as the 1870s, long before professional football coaches became prevalent, students controlled all aspects of the game, albeit with the permission of the college administrators. They were engaged in recruiting of talented prep and high school players. In the absence of today’s scholarships, new players were recruited with flattery and promises of social favor. In other cases, athletes might be given special ‘student’ status whereby they played on the team but did not necessarily attend classes. Former stand-out players, who had already graduated, were given instructorships on the college faculty to allow them to continue playing intercollegiate athletics (Smith, 1988).

2.2 By the1890s, school authorities became convinced of the need for direction by older, more responsible individuals, primarily because football programmes were constantly in debt (Smith, 1988). Student control of the sport declined even further in the early 20^th century when intercollegiate football conferences were formed. Students who sought to standardize rules and establish continuity in the scheduling of events had organized the earliest intercollegiate associations. Once the associations were formed, however, student control declined as administrators were brought in to assure continuity and adherence to the rules (Smith, 1988). By the beginning of the 20^th century very few programmes had complete student control. In addition to growing faculty and administrative restrictions, was the influence of alumni. The alumni, even before they gained an official voice on many of the college athletic committees, had acquired control over athletic programmes through their financial donations (Smith, 1988). This frequently meant that the alumni would contribute financially to the programme if they could have some say over in the overall running of the team. As a result, it became common for the student athletic manager to lose much of his power to a graduate treasurer, or alumni athletic manager (Smith, 1988).

2.3 The introduction of a professional coach at the beginning of the 20^th century intensified the emphasis upon winning.

Walter Camp, the leading figure in college sport at the time noted the difference between the team captain’s control of the football team as opposed to control by a professional coach was the fact that: “the captain usually desires to win that one year, no matter at what expense. The coach sometimes, particularly if he is to continue assisting his college, had the desire to win that year coupled with a hope for developing good material for future victories.” A decade later an observer of the collegiate scene emphasized the same point: “Players like to win but head coaches and especially paid coaches had to win” (Smith 1988, p. 211-212).

2.4 As professional coaching became more commonplace the recruiting of athletes became more systematic with greater year-to-year continuity (Smith, 1988). By 1910, football coaching had become a specialized profession using principals of scientific management to teach strategies and train the athletes. There was a heavy emphasis on obedience to authority, both on and off the field. Coaches became responsible for all decisions including choosing assistants, recruiting athletes, arranging schedules, determining playing time for individual athletes, game strategies, acceptable behavior, grooming and other personal habits, and even, in some cases who an athlete could date (Edwards, 1973, p.132).

2.5 Over time the college football teams came to be conceived of by coaches a ‘family’ with the head coach as patriarch. This ‘family’ included not only the athletes but also every person affiliated or identified with the team. Because the head coach was ultimately responsible for winning, he was able to demand, and in most cases received, total autonomy with regard to running his shop. Accordingly, the authority structure in college football from the 1920s onward became rigid and autocratic (Edwards, 1973).

2.6 Assistant coaches also became more specialized and departmentalized according to specific activities or functions (quarterbacks coach, running backs coach, offensive line coach, receivers coach etc). This specialization was a consequence of major organizational changes in the game of football. Up until the1940s, a one-platoon system was utilized in college football; each person on the team was required to play both offense and defense during a game (Oriard, 1981). As the two-platoon system developed, players became more specialized on either offense or defense. This specialization was linked to physical attributes and skills such as size, speed, and strength. The restructuring of the game led to the rationalization of playing positions and a corresponding increase in the number of players required to fulfill these specialized roles.

2.7 The coordination and integration of team play became the sole purview of the head coach and his staff. Thus, the players came under his direct supervision and authority. This was very different from the previous period in which players had some autonomy with respect to the coordination of the offense and defense. As the game evolved, players came to have very specialized roles, which were the focus of their training and play. The coaching staff set the tone and the players carried out their dictates without much input. Essentially, the players became individual parts of well-oiled machine driven by the coach.

III. Photographs

3.1 Photographs provide a unique window for understanding social life. As social constructions, they create and capture a moment in time. Roland Barthes (1968) argues that photographic images have both denotative and connotative meanings. The denotative meaning of a photograph refers to its descriptive meaning, i.e. its documentation of objective situations and events. Connotative meanings emerge from a photograph’s social and historical context. The meaning of photographs is dependent on the larger cultural messages they impart, which is, in large part, a function of their social, political, and cultural contexts.

3.2 Photographic images are produced according to the social and aesthetic conventions of their time. Conventions are like road signs; we must learn their codes for them to make sense and the codes we learn become second nature. Just as we recognize the meaning of most road sign symbols almost instantaneously, we learn to decode more complex photographic images with little conscious thought given to the process of decoding. We also interpret images according to their socio-historical contexts. (Sturken & Cartwright 2001, p.25).

3.3 Photographers make and select photographs on the assumption that viewers know the conventions. They constantly impose their own aesthetic, professional, and cultural standards by determining the subject of the photograph and how that subject should be represented (Sturken & Cartwright, 2001). Both the content of the sport photograph and the context of it influence the photograph’s meaning. The content includes the physical appearance of athletes, their poses and body position, facial expressions, emotional displays, and camera angles. The context includes the visual space in which the photo appears, the way in which the players are organized, the position of the head coach and his staff in relation to the players. These contextual features contribute to the meaning of the photograph for the audience. In the case of football team photographs, the audience recognizes the machine-like qualities of an efficient, organized, cohesive and professional team versus a team that appears unorganized and ineffective.

3.4 Photographs can, therefore, be used in a historical analysis of the changing hierarchical structure of college football over time because they capture for the viewer in a split second a fixed record in time of the team’s public persona. We argue in the rest of the paper that team photographs reveal the bureaucratic changes in team organization, hierarchy, and the increasingly important role of the coach. Our analysis documents the ways in which a single football team presented itself to the public and what was being said about the hierarchy, power structure, and organization of the team. Photographs for this type of organizational analysis are useful because they provide a unique window for understanding social life, unlike interviews, which are full of nostalgia. In order to understand these organizational changes over time, we focus on variables that we believe are indicative of hierarchy, bureaucratization, and ‘Taylorization’. Taylorization, also known as ‘scientific management’, is the focus on breaking down work into very specialized tasks and speeding up repetitive work (Taylor, 1917).

3.5 Photographic images are not, however, interpreted unambiguously. There is always an interaction that takes place between the reader/viewer and the image beheld. Although the encoded meanings may be interpreted differently by different audiences, it is probable that there is a dominant meaning encoded into the images (White & Gillett 1994). Methodologically, then, we must develop a systematic process of decoding the images that will minimize our own subjective interpretations and help us to better understand what the team is saying about itself.

3.6 Using Weber’s (1925 [1947]) analysis of bureaucracy and Ritzer’s (1996) analysis of ‘McDonaldization,’ we have identified a number of fragmented elements encoded in the photographs that we believe represent increasing rationalization over time. We argue that these fragments provide evidence of not only the changing nature of the game but also the relationships between and among players, coaches, and others. For example, the degree of specialization among players and coaches is reflected in the size of the team. Homogenization and loss of individuality is demonstrated by the uniformity of dress. Furthermore, the organizational structure of the team is represented by the formation in which players and coaches are posed for the photograph. Finally, the spatial positioning of the coach, in relation to the rest of the team, reflects his role and his overall degree of control and authority.

IV. Methodology

Sample

4.1 This study is based on a quantitative content analysis. The sample is a convenience and purposive one in that we looked at (n=107) images featuring the Oregon State University football team photographed from 1894 to 2001. The team photographs were found either in the published annual school year book or through the athletic department’s archival collection. One team photograph was selected per year. For the study, the unit of analysis is the image of the team. This image generally included the players, the coaching staff and other members of the football organization (trainers, equipment managers, etc.) who had been selected at the time for inclusion. The photographs we dichotomously collected were coded for the presence or absence of the variables outlined below. The categories for each variable were mutually exclusive and exhaustive.

Coding scheme:

4.2 Number of players: This is a count of the number of people in the photograph who appear to be players. The number of players is a continuous number.

4.3 Number of coaches: This includes the number of individuals who were not in football uniform, possibly in formal attire, or who appear to be older. Also included are other members of the coaching staff such as trainers and managers. We include all of these individuals because they are obviously important enough to the team’s success that they were chosen for inclusion in the team’s presentation of itself.

4.4 In rows: If the team was aligned in symmetrical rows the photograph was assigned a value of two points. Photographs in which teams were not in rows received one point.

4.5 Same pose: If team members were positioned in the same rigid pose (contrived), the photograph was assigned two points. Photographs in which team members adopted unique individual poses received one point.

4.6 In uniforms: If team members were in a standardized uniform, the photo received two points. If the team was not wearing uniforms or, in some cases, matching suits and ties, we assigned the photograph one point.

4.7 Numbered jerseys: If players were in uniforms which were numbered, the photograph was assigned two points. Photos of teams without numbered jerseys were assigned one point.

4.8 Arranged by uniform number: If the team was arranged sequentially by uniform number, we assigned the photograph two points. All other formations were given one point.

4.9 Position of the coach: Since this was our most important variable, we assigned a different weighting to various locations of the coach. We felt that the more ‘up front and centered’ the coach was in relation to the rest of the team, the more prominent his role was in the organization. We assigned the highest score, five points, to this positioning of the coach. If the coaching staff ‘boxed in’ the rest of the team, we assigned four points. If the coach appeared centered in the last row, we assigned three points. If the coach was positioned in the middle of the team, surrounded by players, we assigned two points. If no coach appeared in the team photograph, we assigned zero points. See the appendices for examples of team photographs and the various positioning of the coach.

4.10 To carry out the analysis we added up the total scores for each period starting in 1895 using every fifth year. We decided on every 5^th year because we felt that any major changes in organization could be captured in five year increments and would be lost if we used ten year increments. The highest score a team could attain in our coding scheme was fifteen while the lowest score was five. A high score for the photograph indicated more rationality while a low score indicated less. The numbers of players and coaches were analyzed separately because these are continuous numbers, which, over time, become so large that they overemphasize the single variable of specialization and obscure other aspects of organizational change.

V. Findings

5.1 Figure 1: Presents the number of OSU football players in every fifth team photograph from 1895-2000. The number of players fluctuates from a low of 13 players in 1915 to a high of 120 players in the year 2000. In general, the number of players has increased substantially over the period 1895-2000. One way of examining this trend is by averaging the number of players over a twenty to twenty-five year period. When analyzed this way we see that in the period from 1895-1915, there was an average of 23 players. In the period 1920-1935 there was an average of 33 players. In the period 1940-1955 there was an average of 56 players. In the period 1960-1975, there was an average of 62 players. In the most recent period, 1980-2000, the number of players on the team jumps to an average of 104.

5.2 Figure 2: Presents the number of OSU coaches in each fifth year team photograph from 1895-2000. The number of coaches also fluctuates from a low of zero in 1930 to a high of 32 in the year 2000 (this includes head coach, assistant coaches, mangers, and other support staff). In the period from 1895-1915, there was an average of two coaches. In the period 1920-1935 there was still an average of two coaches. From 1940-1955 there was an average of eight coaches. From 1960-1975 there was an average of ten coaches. In the most recent period, 1980-2000, the number of coaches increased to an average of twenty-two.

5.3 Figure 3: Presents the ratio of players to coaches pictured in team photographs from 1895-2000. Clearly shown in this figure is the decreasing ratio of players to coaches. The ratio has gone from 9 players per coach in 1895 to four players per coach in 2000. What this table is suggesting is that although the number of players has been increasing, the coaching staff has increased even more.

5.4 Figure 4: Presents the combined scores for all variables except the number of players and coaches. The general trend suggests that over time there is an increasing amount of homogenization, Taylorization, bureaucratization, and control by the coach. In the period from 1895-1915, the combined score averaged 7.8. In the period 1920-1935, the average was 9. In the period from 1940-1955 the average was 10.5. From 1960-1975 the average was 11. In the most recent period, 1980-2000, the average was 13.5.

VI. Discussion

6.1 So what stories do these pictures tell us about hierarchy, specialization and bureaucratization within the context of college football? The photographs provide evidence of the changing nature of the game and the relationships between players, coaches, and others. The degree of specialization for both players and coaches seems to be reflected in the size of the team. Homogenization and loss of individuality seems to be indicated by the increasing uniformity of dress. Finally, the spatial positioning of the coach, in relation to the rest of the team, seems to reflect his growing importance and the overall degree of control, which he comes to assume. In light of these general conclusions, we will now discuss each of the variables that we identified as indicative of the rationalization of college football.

6.2 The increase in the number of players suggests an increased level of specialization on teams over time. In the earliest days of the game, players were expected to play both offense and defense, i.e., the ‘one platoon’ system. This meant that the total number of players on each time did not need to be more than eleven players plus a few substitutes. As the game evolved in terms of strategies, rule changes, and pressures to win, the result was a need for larger numbers of players to carry out specialized roles. In the contemporary period, players fill a specific niche on the team. All players now are recruited for a single position; some are even recruited for specific plays.

6.3 Coaches have also become increasingly specialized over time. Assistant coaches, trainers, and other team support members now have specific responsibilities. Most teams have both offensive and defensive coordinators in addition to a head coach. Many assistant coaches are recruited to work with players for only one position, e.g., quarterback coach, running back coach, special teams coach, and so on. There are also numerous coaching assistants, managers, and trainers who are responsible for equipment, logistical support, and the players’ health and fitness.

6.4 The data gathered from team photographs show quite clearly that the ratio of coaches to players has been steadily decreasing. Although the number of players has increased so have the numbers of assistant coaches and support staff. In the contemporary period, each player, therefore, receives much more individualized attention. At the same time, however, the size of the team means that some players may feel a sense of atomization and alienation -- the iron cage of rationality.

6.5 Our assessment of rationalization was based on a subjective coding of each team photograph. In addition to the numbers of players and coaches, we also looked at how the teams presented themselves in their photographs. In the early pictures, teams appeared to be a casual group of companions bound by their love of the game. As time progressed, the photographs became increasingly formal and reflective of a corporate organization (individuals are arranged in rows, posed uniformly, dressed uniformly, and identified by number). The players and coaches came to occupy positions in the team photos that reflected their importance to the team and their relationship to one another. The coach’s increasing control of the team is encoded within the later photographs. Over time, the coach moves from being a peripheral member of the team to being the central figure on the team.

VII. Conclusions

7.1 Photographs provide a unique lens through which to view social change. Our semiotic analysis documented the ways in which a single football team presented itself to the public and what this said about the hierarchy, power structure, and organization of the team.

7.2 This pattern however, can also be discerned at other universities with long-standing football traditions. For example, photographic archives of football teams Princeton, Brown, Yale and Notre Dame Universities demonstrate remarkably similar transitions over time (see web links in the bibliography for examples of these trends). The early photos at these other universities, like ours, show camaraderie and intimacy among team-mates. These portrayals emphasize a group of friends, playing a game, choosing their own leaders, and devising their own plays. In contrast, later team photos come to resemble a corporate organizational chart with the corporate CEO (i.e., the head coach) positioned in the most distinguished and powerful position in the photograph. This process of rationalization results in images of football teams as machines composed of specialized, interlocking parts with head coaches as the engines of success. Individual players become merely cogs in the machine (though some emerge in certain positions as ‘stars’).

7.3 Gone from the college football team of today is the autonomous, self-reliant man who participated in a very simple game for the pleasure of participation. In his place has emerged the ‘organization man’ who is part of a rationalized business directed by a coach with power and authority over him.

1901 Team