Issues of race and racism have been shown to be embedded in many aspects of American social life, from politics, to the economy, to housing demographics, to education. As a result, a great deal of attention has been paid to the need for culturally relevant and sensitive schooling practices, where race is recognized and accounted for, especially by teachers. However, presently we have very few studies examining exactly how teachers understand race in schools and whether and how it might influence their practices in classrooms. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine teachers' perspectives on the ways that minority students influence their physical education teaching practices. Following an interpretivist, qualitative research design, we interviewed 25 middle school physical education teachers (32-65 years old; 15 males, 10 females; 11 African Americans, 14 Whites; 4-35 years of teaching in the district) from a large urban city (93% minority) in the Midwestern United States following a semi-structured format. Interviews lasted 45-60 minutes, followed an interview guide supplemented with extensive probing, and were audio recorded and transcribed. We analyzed the data using constant comparison and analytic induction, while seeking trustworthiness through member checks, researcher journals, and an experienced peer debriefer. Our analysis revealed that for these physical educators teaching minority students influenced: the content they taught (e.g., navigating basketball culture), their involvement in extracurricular activities (e.g., mentoring and sport programs), how they adorned their gyms (e.g., facets of race representation), their communication patterns with students (e.g., negotiating cultural language versus standard English), their interactions with minority parents (e.g., parental feeling of caution), and their interpersonal relationships with students (e.g., establishment of caring dialectic). These findings revealed that student and community racial dynamics played a key role in how teachers thought about and enacted their physical education practices. The findings also have direct relevance for preparing future physical educators to teach and work with minority students and communities, especially in urban areas. We discuss connections between these research findings and wider critical race theory and educational multiculturalism-related issues. Keyword(s): multiculturalism/cultural diversity, physical education PK-12, research