“Riverboat Ron”: A Critical Reading of Ron Rivera, American Brownness & Latino Masculinities in the NFL

Abstract

Ron Rivera, after eight and a half years as the only Latino Head Coach employed by the NFL, was fired in 2019 by Carolina Panthers’ new ownership. Soon after, Rivera was hired as the new Head Coach of the then-Washington Reds*ins. Empowered to not only coach the team, he has been tasked to shake up the organization's cultural, gendered, and racialized leadership-status-quo. In doing so Coach Rivera threads new ground across the ever evolving color line in U.S. sports, particularly “the brown color line.” This essay explores the life, career, and ongoing-regionally based celebrity stardom of Ronald Eugene Rivera. I argue that Ron Rivera charts pathways forward amidst a U.S. socio-cultural-political climate rooted in anti-Native, anti-Black, anti-immigrant sentiment and a sporting industry embezzled in neoliberal racial politics. The essay theorizes “brownness” in sport from a “Latino masculinity” perspective to situate Rivera's struggles for (in)/(hyper)visibility and the complexed realities of the ongoing gendered color line in U.S. sport amid social pressure and protests for transformation and change.