“Cleat Chasers”: College Football Players Talk about Women and Sex

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the ways that the high social status gained through sports participation, and the competitive pressures surrounding hypermasculinity and male bonding influenced the behavior and attitudes of college football players in their sexual relationships with women. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 male college-football athletes at a Southeastern NCAA football bowl subdivision university. Findings indicate that the college football players feel a sense of sexual power over women, which fuels their sense of entitlement to do what they want with women, and get what they want from women. Many of them viewed women as sex objects, and discussed how common it was for them to have multiple women as sexual partners. Their reference to women as “cleat chasers”, “hunters”, and “gold diggers” further suggests that they may be adhering to a traditional masculine script in which they believe that women use their sexuality as a resource to help them gain status and financial stability.