Richard is joined by Joel Anderson, host of The Ringer Tailgate and The Press Box podcasts, for a conversation about the NAACP’s Out of Bounds campaign and the bigger question underneath it: What is fair to ask of Black college athletes and recruits at a moment when lawmakers and the courts are attacking Black voting power? They start with HBCUs and PWIs, move through the campaign’s specifics asks, and cover lots of topics from there: political education, NIL incentives, the transfer portal, the limits and power of boycotts, and why college football keeps becoming the platform for this kind of discussion.
In this episode:
* 0:00: The roles of HBCUs and PWIs in Black college life, and how generational experiences shape Richard’s and Joel’s views.
* 12:01: The NAACP’s campaign and its asks of recruits, current athletes, fans, donors, and consumers.
* 16:16: What is fair to expect of college athlete activism now
* 26:55: Whether the idea of a “boycott” has lost force
* 37:53: The role of the NAACP in 2026
Producer: Anthony Vito
More on the story covered in this episode:
* CBS Sports on the NAACP campaign
If you like this episode, you’ll love a paid subscription.
For $10 a month (or you can get a free month with an annual subscription), subscribers get about twice as many Split Zone Duo podcasts, as well as our coach carousel reporting, deep dives on college football history, Q&A opportunities, and many more goodies as we think of them. You also help keep this show independent and ensure we’re making a podcast that puts our listeners, not anyone else, first.
