Hello, friends. My name is Ted, and I often write over at A Price Above Bip Roberts, although I’ve been known to guest blog a smidge. This weekend, for Sportable, I thought it might be relevant to take a look – via my own eyes, since what other eyes can I use? – at the week in race and sports.
In the interest of full disclosure, you should know this about me: from 2003 to 2005, I taught public school in the northeast part of Houston, but very definitely the inner city. I taught second and third grade, which isn’t nearly the most serious in terms of common urban blight issues, and I had a relatively good support structure, both personally and professionally (all things considered).
I taught in the area where Anthony Young grew up – you might know him from such losing streaks as “27 games” as a pitcher with the Mets and Cubs, among others. He actually still lives in that hood, across the street from arguably my best friend on staff, the P.E. teacher. His yard sales were generally subpar, and he spent a lot of weekends washing his car.
I worked not far from where Emeka Okafor eventually caught Jim Calhoun’s eye, not far from where Vince Young danced around defensive ends pre-Rose Bowl, and within spitting distance of T.J. Ford’s adolescence, which is now resulting in a north-of-the-border renaissance in the NBA.
I use these examples not to link myself to greatness, because I run about a 7.8 40 and am only considered a God by Buddhist women, but because, as a teacher in this community, I understand the powerful role that athletics plays in the lives of inner city residents. Sadly, in our society today, sports is the most logical ticket out of a situation such as the one most of my children were in; the neighborhood behind the school, “El Dorado,” was always full of stickball, street basketball, and even low-key football games. These kids would imitate their favorite Rockets (T-Mac), Texans (Carr – I guess it’s been a while), and even Astros (Bagwell) amongst abject poverty. Oftentimes, they didn’t even watch the games; the home didn’t have a TV.
Getting out of this situation with academic excellence alone is a dicey, and inconsistent, proposition. Getting out with athletic talent, if you have it, is a far safer bet; at the very least, you’ll be in a coveted soical position come your formative high school years. The point is: athletics is a big deal, perhaps even a bigger-than-society-itself, kind-of-a-new-religion deal in these communities.
The recent whirlwind of activity in the intersection of race and sports has been interesting, and mostly positive. After referring to Rutgers women’s players as “nappy headed hoes,” Don Imus ended a career already in its twilight in a fall sharper than Dan Rather’s. USA Today said what everyone probably thinks, but using pictures, by showing photos of 50 recent NFL conduct policy violators on its cover, almost every one of whom was black. Still, Pac-Man Jones was told to sit the entire season, and Chris Henry about half of it. At the same time, Tommy Amaker got a gig at Harvard.
These are, all told, good lessons. Imus needed to be fired; a mere suspension would send a message that a major U.S. corporation was comfortable with a disgusting racial slur meriting only a slap on the wrist, so the overall action was positive, and struck a blow for the (sadly) continuing development of African-American rights in America. I use the term “sadly” there because you would hope, after so many years and so many battles, dating all the way to the Little Rock Nine, we’d be as comfortable granting full, undeniable rights to a black man as our next door neighbor. ‘Tis, of course, not true.
The NFL situation is slightly grayer. No question that Pac Man and Henry deserved their punishments, and hopefully future violators will receive similar sentences. The key is this: those in leadership positions in the communities where perception of this is most crucial need to convey the fact that Pac Man
was, ultimately, punished. Too often the discipline, once handed down, is glossed over by residents of places like El Dorado, in favor of the fact that skill can get you money, and money can get you anything. Concepts such as personal accountability to your family, your friends, yourself, your Lord, etc. are often overlooked; ironically, those are the same ties that make the inner city such a unique place to begin with.
So long as the right message about Pac Man and company filters down, the sentence handed across by Roger Goodell is exceptional. It might make smaller children, relentlessly hooping on a carved-up street in Houston, remember that it doesn’t just matter how skilled you are, it also matters how you act. This is a notion forgotten often, because with skill comes everything you can’t have because of society’s overwhelming structure, and the difference between “reality” and “perception” is often too great to think about anything else.
Tommy Amaker, while someone I have little respect for – I think he could have done a lot more in Ann Arbor – is still a good, and interesting, hire for Harvard. Sports at all levels need more African-American leaders; for an example, look no further than the past Super Bowl, which pitted two great men against each other; or the fact that the Mavericks might raise their second consecutive Western Conference banner with a head coach whose skin tone is a mere secondary element to his passion for the game, and teaching it.
Race and sports was the issue of this week, interestingly enough (or perhaps, utterly logically) in the same week as the six-decade anniversary of when it seemingly all began for black America and professional athletics. Not to be trite in concluding, but if Jackie were here among us today, I think he’d be proud of has been done, and his role in bringing it about; but I also think he’d be the first to concede that tremendous amounts of work need to be done. The key is staying on the right series of messages. This week took steps in that direction. Somewhere thousands of miles north of Dodger Stadium on Sunday night, I think Jackie will look down and know that.
