A labor market perspective on the mobility of college football coaches

In the present paper, the effects of market constraints on the mobility of college football coaches are investigated. Moves of 1,260 senior and junior college coaches between the 1977-78 and 1978-79 academic years are connected to form chains of movement following White’s vacancy chain model. The chains numbered 964. Internal exchange mobility proves to be small relative to mobility in and out of the market. Although chains of moves tend to pass through senior colleges affiliated with NCAA Division I, in general little movement is observed between levels of competitive affiliation. Comparison with prior studies following nonstructural approaches to mobility indicates that establishing the independence of individual moves is a necessary preliminary to such work.