Transitions to the Top Race, Segregation, and Promotions to Executive Positions in the College Football Coaching Profession

This study investigates the effects of job-level, task-based, segregation on racial differences in promotions to executive positions within the college football coaching profession. Using event-history methods to analyze the careers of 323 college football coaches, the results suggest that, relative to White coaches, Black coaches' career prospects are harmed by their disproportionate placement into jobs that inhibit mobility (i.e., noncentral positions) and their differential returns from occupying jobs that induce mobility (i.e., central positions). These findings shed light on processes related to job-level racial segregation, particularism, and racialization in the coaching profession as well as more general, high-status, labor market contexts.