Arguing that the close and complex relationship between race and religion can be uncovered through sports, Smith does a masterful job of weaving together critical race theory, US religious history, and sports to examine institutionalized racism in intercollegiate athletics. Specifically, Smith examines the realm of the sacred through the uneasy relationship between black student athletes and Mormonism’s larger theological constructions of race. Smith points out that within the Mormon Church blackness, especially in regard to black male athletes, is in tension with the notions of freedom, justice, and equality. However, Brigham Young University is not very different from other primarily white schools where, when it comes to sports, big money commands more interest than does the need of athletes. Black student athletes are especially under attack from the systemic white racism of the NCAA sports world. Perhaps most interesting here is Smith’s attention to how change can occur both within Mormon circles and in the sporting world at large. This book is timely, excellent, and worth a very close read. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels.

Choice Reviews

I want to highlight this amazing book . . . [It] is a really fascinating read . . . I can’t plug this book enough and tell everybody they need to read it.

Mormon Stories

The intersecting of race, religion and sport (or perhaps in the author’s words, the ‘collision’ of
the three) is a rare feat in the world of scholarship…. An analysis of their association is certainly warranted. Darron T. Smith does just this by wading into the waters of the sports programmes at the flagship university of the Mormon Church. His thesis, that long-standing tenets of Mormon theology have unduly served to punish black athletes at Brigham Young University, extends beyond the expected descriptive account of race, religion and sport converging. Smith bravely aims to expose the racist underbelly of BYU and other similar predominantly white institutions with sport acting as the prism through which to inspect. Hence, When Race, Religion, and SportCollide stands as a critique of the kind of theologized institutionalized racism that hides within the ranks of big-time college athletics. More to the point, racism and its effects are unique and likely more ingrained and pernicious at religious schools – institutions that should be leading the charge in the opposite direction…. When Race, Religion, and Sport Collide is a respectable gambit into the literature that deals both with race and sport,as well as with sport and religion. Indeed the three are tightly intertwined forming a rope thatcan pull us out of our shameful racist past but also continue to pull us down into long-standingracist histories with nothing less than the force of God.

Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics

When Race, Religion, and Sport Collide: Black Athletes at BYU and Beyond takes us well past the Davies dismissal to consider the nexus ofrace, religion, sport, and economic inequality in American society writlarge, using BYU as an exemplar of the nation’s colleges and universities…. Smith should be commended for taking on the herculean task of trying to unravel the complex intertwining of race, sports, inequality, and religion.

Mormon Studies Review

When Race, Religion, and Sport Collide is a forceful, insightful, and powerful book built around the Brandon Davies honor code violation, which took place during Davies’s sophomore year, while he played for Brigham Young University’s successful basketball team. Here, Smith has connected the dots between sports, race, and religion in such a way that the book will be essential reading for anyone interested in sports and societal issues. This book is a tour de force;a must-read!

Earl Smith, PhD, Rubin Professor of American Ethnic Studies and Sociology Wake Forest University, author of Policing Black Bodies: How Black Lives Are Surveilled and How to Work for Change.

Using the athletic department at Brigham Young University as a case study, Darron Smith explores the complicated and shifting intersections between sport, race, and religion in contemporary American society. With an eye on the historical evolution of the relationship between race and the lucrative world of sports, Smith exposes the ways that black bodies are commodified and racialized for white consumption. Mix a sometimes inconsistently applied honor code with religious justifications for historically excluding black bodies from full participation in Mormon priesthood and temples, and the setting is ripe for a complex set of dynamics to haunt the experiences of black athletes at BYU. When Race, Religion, and Sport Collide not only offers a candid assessment of those dynamics at play but proposes insightful solutions as well.

W. Paul Reeve, University of Utah; author of Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Struggle for Whiteness