Sports Illustrated: Out of the Running

There was a great article by Phil Taylor about the lack of white running backs in college and pro football. He talks about how in the 70's, 80's, and even 90's there was a lack of black quarterbacks because the perception was that they were not "intelligent" enough to lead a team. Well, he argues that white running backs are not getting opportunities because coaches and teams are literally picking black players over them. The stereotype that white players are not fast enough is unfounded yet somehow it is being practiced. Why is it ok that these players are perceived this way? Try and name one starting RB in the NFL in the last 15 or 20 years that was white. Can't do it either? It would seem that it is a problem that needs addressing then.

Brockton High

Well I'm sure everyone heard the news about the shooting on the Brockton High campus on wednesday. I have kids I mentor who were pretty shook up over this and see it as a wake-up call. Until they hear the media and other people's opinions. There is the usual "well i'm not surprised it is Brockton." And it really pisses me off. I don't understand why my city gets the reputation. Yes, plenty of bad things happen in my city. Amazingly, they happen elsewhere too. Bad things happen in Weymouth and Sudbury and West Roxbury too. I'm just so tired of hearing how Brockton is all thugs doing drugs and shooting people. Not everyone here does it. 99% of the kids at that school are good kids who just wanna make something of themselves. So before you go around labeling these kids and this city, why don't you spend a day here and walk around. Let me know and I will be your tour guide. Maybe you will be surprised at what you see.

Tiger Woods

Now most of us are away of the ongoing Tiger Woods saga. My personal opinion is that his personal life and his decisions should be his and his family's alone. Obviously, that's not going to happen in this age of media combined with his exorbitant celebrity. But he is now being vilified in the media for his transgressions, especially in the sports world. People are saying "Well he has always been a jerk so this is karma." People don't know him. When he yells at a fan who is taking a picture while he is swinging, that's not him being a jerk. It's him being an ultra-competitive athlete. The point is we can't act like we know someone like Tiger when we hurl insults his way. Sometimes I wish that we remembered that athletes, no matter their popularity are still human and are entitled to a small piece of privacy still.

Spotlight skips cases of missing minorities

I found this article very interesting. People are often hesitant to bring race into a debate, especially one involving a tragedy like this. However, it has to be at least discussed here. When we look at Amber Alerts and stories on the news, how many times are there white children missing and the world seems in a panic. But when children who are minorities are missing, there just never seems to be the seems sense of urgency or widespread panic. Tamika Huston's family sure has done everything in their power to get some publicity in order to help find their daughter, their niece, their sister. Does anyone have a good reason not to give it to them? Didn't think so. So why don't we?

here is an excerpt and the link:

Spotlight skips cases of missing minorities

By Mark Memmott, USA TODAY

Tamika Huston's family reported her missing a year ago this week.

When police in Spartanburg, S.C., began investigating the 24-year-old woman's disappearance, her loved ones swung into action. They distributed fliers, held news conferences and set up a Web site. Huston's story became a cause célèbre in the local media.

Huston lived alone and obviously hadn't been home for days, if not a week or two. Her dog, Macy, had given birth to puppies.

Rebkah Howard, Huston's aunt and a public relations professional in Miami, tried to get the national media interested in the case. "I spent three weeks calling the cable networks, calling newspapers — even yours," Howard said this week.

Not much happened.

Last August, Fox News Channel's On the Record with Greta Van Susteren briefly noted Huston's disappearance. Fox network's America's Most Wanted did a story about the case in March (it will be repeated this Saturday). National Public Radio did a report last month that, like this story, focused on the lack of interest in Huston's case.

Now, the disappearance of Alabama high school student Natalee Holloway, 18, in Aruba is getting lots of airtime on the cable news networks and morning news shows. Those networks, which drive such stories, are being asked a tough question: Do they care only about missing white women?

Holloway, like "runaway bride" Jennifer Wilbanks, murder victims Laci Peterson and Lori Hacking, kidnap victim Elizabeth Smart and several other girls and women whose stories got significant airtime in recent years, is white.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-06-15-missing-minorities_x.htm

The Blinside

This movie was pretty good. Often, I find sports movies like these that are ticketed as "heart-warming and inspirational" pretty annoying because the directors dramatize the little things and completely distort the sports aspect into just plain stupidness. But they did a good job with this. They decided it was gonna be about a black kid's story who just happens to play football instead of a football story that includes his story. The only reason I say a black kid's story is that is how Michael Oher, the person who the movie is about. It was definitely a quality film where the fact that he is black is almost an after-thought as opposed to it being over-emphasized in most sports movies that somehow involve a black or minority character.

Thanksgiving Football

Brockton High football is pretty much a stable of every Thanksgiving here in the city. However, the starting QB, Kicker, and an offensive lineman were suspended for this year's Thanksgiving game along with their first round playoff game because they were caught drinking, obviously underage, and driving around a Stop & Shop parking lot ramming their car into shopping carts. My issue is that a few years ago the coach threw two players, who were both black, off the team for possession of marijuana. Yes the two infractions are different but this happened in the beginning of the year so those kids missed 8 or 9 games and never played again. The players this year were white. It was talked about a little on the local radio as "boys being boys." I'm not accusing anyone of being racist or anything but isn't it clearly obvious there is at least a huge double standard here?

World Cup

Countries have just finished up their qualifying for the World Cup and it has started to bring up a lot of issues. As many people know, apartheid was a huge issue in South Africa, the site of the long-anticipated 2010 World Cup. Thierry Henry, a star French player who is also black, expressed some trepidation in an interview about playing in a country with such a long-standing reputation for violent racism. He talked about some of the things he has dealt with playing in England and he worries that it might be worse in Johannesburg next summer. A few other minority players have questioned the selection and it was interesting to me because it shows the contrast in sports internationally versus here in the U.S. Here players get heckled. In some countries, like South Africa, players are killed literally for own goals and the like. It is startling.