Good afternoon. A good man would prefer to be defeated than to defeat injustice by evil means. Help me! I find sites on the topic: Imitrex with naproxen. I found only this - Imitrex generics. Order now buy generic pharmacies online imitrex sumatriptan pain medicine. It counteracts the buy cheap generic cialis cheap generic imitrex tadalafil generic viagra. With best wishes :-(, Tertia from Lithuania.

Although these topics did not affect the choices made in my sporting experiences, race did play a role in my choices and experiences. When growing up in the city, soccer allowed me to play with mostly white kids who I got along with. This sport was not forced upon me, nor was I privileged in playing this sport. This sport was preferred over basketball because the majority of those players were black. Once grown up, I matured out of this way of thinking about race in sports but also became a victim of believing black athletes had an advantage over me with certain traits. I will never forget a certain situation that happened in high school. I attended Roman Catholic high school for boys, and we played other catholic high schools in sports. This league was predominantly white with a few black soccer players, two that I can easily remember.
While warming up before playing either of these teams with one of the black players, my teammates and I hoped we would not have to be the one to mark this player. Apparently we al had similar experiences with playing against a black player growing up and did not want to do it again. I ended up having to mark both of these players when it came time to play these teams. I remember telling my coach, “I can’t keep up with this kid, he’s black”, fully convinced that this player was faster than me solely because the color of his skin.
When a white player would beat me to the ball several times, I would think to myself, “this player is just faster than me”. I laugh now when I look back and think of how silly it was. A few years ago, a rapper came out with a song including a lyric that caught my attention. The lyric went, “the tallest basketball player is Chinese (Yao Ming), the best rapper is white (Eminem), and the best golfer is black (Tiger Woods)”. After hearing this I laughed at the irony of it and the fact that it was true. Basically, being a certain race does not give you an advantage in sport. The class you grow up in aids you in deciding what sport you play and what type of style you use while playing it.

The media unfairly scrutinizes Terrell Owens. He is an amazing athlete and a very good football player. I agree that it is unfair that they talk about Jason Witten as a hardworking blue-collar player while Owens works just as hard. It is just that Owens has put himself out there more for the media to judge him. He has a flashy personality that makes it easier for reporters to criticize him. I find it very interesting that one rarely hears a black player described as blue collar and hard working while white players are never considered flashy. It is just another problem with the media and it is unfortunately racially based. The media often likes to promote stories that show anti-racism in sports. The same goes for major corporations. In an article by Karyn McKinney, she discusses the ways that the movie Remember the Titans tries to show a great story about a football team who overcame racism. She argues that the movie falls short of this saying, “But sugar-coating the facts of segregation and so casually rewriting the history of the Titans football team during a tenuous period of US race relations is not the answer.” (Giardina, 2005, p. 95). I agree with what she is saying in this article and think that this story really doesn’t help racism. It is evident today when reporters write negative things about athletes like Terrell Owens.
Race is another indicator of how sports and our society reflect each other. As our society has changed to become more tolerant of different races, so have our sports. In an article by Rebecca S. Bigler she states:
“The role that racial and ethnic minorities play in the United States has changed dramatically during the last 4 decades. The percentage of African Americans and other minority group members who hold high status and well-paying jobs, are college educated, and live in integrated neighborhoods has increased in the last four decades.” (Bigler, 1999, p. 687)
Over this time period people of different races have seen a huge increase in what they are able to do within our society. The same can be said about sports. In this time period minority’s rights in sports have increased. Many more African Americans participate in sports today than back in the 50s and 60s. Certain sports such as basketball have seen a huge increase of minority players to the point where they dominate the sport. One of the major signs of this is Major League Baseball. As the Hispanic population of the United States has increased, so has the population in baseball. This sport that is considered to be America’s pastime now no longer seems that way. While I don’t think anyone has a major problem with this trend, it is very interesting. It shows how sports and society reflect each other.
-Josh McGrath

My sporting experience relates directly to this situation. Since I am a basketball player I've had much experience with this whole athleticism between white and black players. Growing up in the suburbs I would predominately play with other white players and all white teams. With that I developed into a great shooter and a player who had great knowledge for the game aka the typical white ball player. And seeing all the black athletes playing ball I would spend hours working on my athleticism and trying to change my game to a more aggressive, fast, high flying style because that's what all the coaches wanted and that's what everybody wants basketball to be.
This is the cycle I continue to see today in youth and high school basketball. All suburban teams predominately white are coached in a style to succumb to the norms of a "white ball player." Screens, shooting, ball movement, team oriented, not flashy. While inner city teams are developed and praised for the exact opposite. This type of social methodology brain washes all white suburban players to believe that all they can and are supposed to do is be able to shoot, play team ball, and be. non athletic.
While the opposite is true for black inner city players. If they dont play aggressive, flashy, or above the rim they probably wont play, even if they can shoot. If a inner city ball player were to play like a suburban white player, smart, team oriented, shooter, he would be laughed off the court. I love basketball because in the end its just you and the ball, but this cyclical social norming continues to perpetuate this implied "black athlete stereotype." And now that's what basketball has become.
Hylton (2005) argues that our society “progresses from the standpoint that we live in a fundamentally racialized and unequal society where processes systematically disenfranchise and limit the potential of black [and white] people” (p.94). In regards to basketball, this concept doesn’t hold true. Looking at the number of black players in basketball both college and NBA, you can see this to be evident. There are plenty of white Americans who grow up the cities and have a tough upbringing, but where are they in the NBA??

Ryan Kannegieter

I don't think that I mentioned TO with MLK, Malcom X, or Ali...all I said was that he is portrayed differently than Jason Witten and that his 'racial' makeup had something to do with it. I pointed out the more overt stuff with Simmons, but I guess you stopped reading by then.

After reading the numbers of articles and our class discussions, I think that it is generalized in our country that the working class, middle class, and the upper class play, or participate in specific sports. The upper class I would say participate in luxury sports that cost a lot of money to play, skiing, ice-skating, hockey, gymnastics, tennis and others. While the working and middle class tend to play sports such as football and basketball, they can play backyard games or pickup games of sports that don’t need to be so organized. The upper class is made up of mostly whites while the lower classes are majority non-white. Since the lower class is made up of mostly black and the sports the generally play are basketball and football it makes sense that the majority of the players in the NBA and NFL are blacks. This goes back to the poor black kids trying to make it in sports for upward mobility on the social ladder. So maybe we all have the same genes after all, but it still seems like black really do run and jump faster and higher then whites. Are they just more motivated then us because of where they came from?
I grew up in a town that was pretty much all white. Race was never an issue in the sports anyone played because there were no other races. When we would play other schools, or mostly black schools, it was assumed that those athletes were bigger, and more aggressive; we never thought they were better, just that they played “dirty”. That came from parents talking or refs making bad calls, and most of the time they did play dirty but I doubt it was because of their race.
After coming to college and watching athletes of different races play sports I realized more that it doesn’t matter what their skin color may be, I have seen plenty of white athletes act just as crazy on and off the field as black players. Maybe blacks get stereotyped because they are different and they over came where they grew up to make it big. Either way black athletes seem to be punished more in sports like basketball and football then white athletes. As for T.O. I never thought that one person can lead a team to the super bowl, and as soon as everyone realizes that it takes a team, then maybe the cowboys, or the 49ers, or the eagles… or even the new bills, will finally get to the super bowl. It does not matter where T.O. plays, he is a good player and will have success anywhere, but the media will still pick out everything he does wrong and make sure we all know about it. McKinney states, “A common belief about white racism is that the working class is primarily responsible for it. However, without acquiescence and participation from those in the middle and upper classes, racisms could not continue. It is these who have control over corporations, the media, and the political system that still systematically discriminates against people of color (p.130)”

Kristen S

Since a young age I have never really considered race as a big factor when playing sports. When I was younger and playing soccer, basketball, and baseball I predominately played with the white race. Throughout my childhood and early teenage years I never even thought that race would be a factor in playing sports. I had figured that everyone was treated equal and given equal playing time so there really wasn’t a race problem. Race only started to come to my attention when I reached high school and when my school started to become more mixed and getting on sports teams was tougher. The only reason it was tougher to get onto sports teams was because there were now tryouts instead of just everyone making the team, in other words race still didn’t play a factor.
Today when I watch most college sports as well as professional sports I have noticed the large number of African Americans compared to whites. Personally I have found I just enjoy watching the game that’s taking place instead of looking at what color the person playing the game is. If a person playing for my favorite team hit a game winning shot at time expires I could care less if the person was black, white, blue, green, orange, or purple as long as they won the game. I feel that most people would agree with me in saying this unless they are considered a person with power.
In some cases I would say that punishments are much harsher than they should be because of race. In the case of Terrell Owens on the other hand I feel that the problems arise not from race but from the fact that he talks too much. Terrell Owens or T.O. has been disrupting team chemistry since his first bust out season for the 49ers. Since then T.O. has cared much more about his personal statistics than winning a championship. People wonder why there is always so much controversy between T.O. and other teammates and the answer is very simple, teams want to win championships while T.O. wants to go down as the best ever. Terrell gets the entire burden for the Cowboys losing playoff games because he has the ego of the best wide receiver in the NFL but has the statistics of a mediocre one. He may not get thrown to as much as a Steve Smith of the Carolina Panthers but he always seems to be at the top of the list for dropped passes in a season. Then when you talk as much trash to everyone including your own teammates about how you aren’t getting the ball enough, or how the team would be nothing about him, then he will get blamed for a loss.
Michael Vick on the other hand I would say got a lot worse punishment for being African American than he would if he was white. I feel that the punishment for Michael Vick in the dog fighting case was much harsher than it should have been and this was partially because he was black. The now filing for bankrupt Vick was sentenced to 23 months in prison for his offense. I feel that this punishment was way too harsh for the crime and they say that he was black and made the punishment much harsher. They could just have easily made him donate money to PETA or give speeches for them but instead he went to jail for 23 months.
I completely agree with what Bill Simmons said and how he backed up what he said when they called him out. Yes he did acknowledge the fact that they were both white but I feel that it was meant in a joking manner. It’s true that this comment could be taken in the wrong way but in this day in age I feel that you should be able to joke about race. He didn’t come out and say that because Adam Morrison and J.J. Reddick were the two best college basketball players at the time the clearly the white race is much better. Bill Simmons was just making a joke as he should when he was forced to back up his first statement. For people of any race to take this quote personally is ridiculous.
“Once such usage has been put over on us, then if ever we deny that any person or group is oppressed, we seem to imply that we think they never suffer and have no feelings. We are accused of insensitivity; even of bigotry. . . . But this is nonsense. Human beings can be miserable without being oppressed, and it is perfectly consistent to deny that a person or group is oppressed without denying that they have feelings or that they suffer”
(Frye, Chapter 4, pg. 115).
This quote shows how today people can’t say anything without being politically correct especially with the broadening of the word oppression. Today all people have had one form of suffering or another but that doesn’t exactly mean that they are oppressed. It may be a hard concept for some people to grasp but people sometimes want to say things because they are funny and not to try to prolong the suffering of a race.
People want to build up the fact that race plays a huge part in all sports but I just don’t see it, what I see is best player will play in any situation whether they are black or white.

I do not agree with Mr. Simmons thoughts. Growing up I never thought to myself that that kid must be better than me at basketball because of his color. I did feel that the minorities/poorer kids were better. When I would prepare for a team as a young child, when we would play the urban area teams would we expect them to kill us. I feel that they only have basketball as an activity to do, where as my parents would take me to the aquarium, theme parks, ext. Athletes come in all shapes and colors, as well as do clumsy people. The color of one’s skin I do not feel gives them better athleticism but the background of one’s history. Where a child is brought up and his/her restrictions are what can make a young child better at sports. I also feel a lot of it is just god given. Some children are just born to play sports. They are given the physical ability, the mental ability, and the athletic ability from birth. They are just born to play sports. Good examples are Jim Brown, Lebron James, and Tiger Woods. These guys were born to play sports and took advantage of it at a young age. Becoming a good athlete is about putting in time and work to be the best you can and taking the abilities you were given to their highest potential. T.O did that but he just can’t be on a team sport. I do not feel because he is black is why he always gets kicked off his teams. It’s because of his antics. If there were one person football teams I think t.o would own, it play on It, and coach it.

Growing up the sports teams that I played on were not very diverse. This is mostly because of the area that I grew up in. I grew up in a rural county that was prodominantly white. Also the sports that i played. My favorite sport and the sport that I played the most was baseball. The league was almost exclusively white, and all of the best players were white. While I was playing I never thought that it was odd that all of other kids were white. As I got older I did start to notice but I thought it was because of the area I lived in, but there were minorities that lived in my county. When I played basketball the teams were more diverse. In basketball there was more of a mix of the best players. I don't feel like minorities were discouraged from playing baseball they just chose not to. They played basketball and football. I also go skiing. Skiing is a overwhelmingly white. Skiing can be very expensive. I am fortunate to have the opportunity to go skiing. My cousin owns a slope side condo at Sunday River in Maine. I go their every year for a week. When I was little I did not notice, but now that I am older I have noticed that there are very few minorities skiing or snowboarding. When I do see a minority they are on the beginner trails struggling to stay upright. I am an advanced skier and I rarely see a minority on the expert trails. In recent years I have begun to wonder why the skiing population is so slanted to whites. I wonder if more minorities had the opportunity would they ski or snowboard.

Growing up in a predominately white neighborhood, most of the teams I played on as a youngster were made up of mostly white kids. In my first couple years playing basketball, I can only recall one to two African American kids in the whole league. The same could be said for baseball. Almost all of the teams in my youth baseball league were mostly white. As I got older and the leagues were more spread across the county I the ratio of black to white kids shifted and I noticed more African American kids on the opposing squads. I can significantly remember one year our basketball team was made up of all white kids and the team considered the favorite to win it all that year was mostly black kids. I thought at the time that we seemed to have a pretty complete team. I felt like we were a skilled group but we also had some good athletes on the team. We had a couple of bigger kids on our team and we could usually depend on size and athleticism to beat our opponents when the offense broke down, except when we played the predominately black team. Practice weeks were different when we played them. The coaches preached execution and were really on us about our fundamentals. The kept telling us how we had to execute our offense to perfection, be fundamentally sound, and really pay attention to detail if we wanted to beat this team. I never thought much of it until our lecture in class regarding race and sport. I guess I just went along assuming they were the best team in our league. I realize now that our coaches didn’t feel we were athletic enough to match up with them like we could with other teams, so it was necessary to execute our game plan to perfection if we had a chance to beat them, but that’s what sports has come to now. In order for the white player to beat the black player, he has to perform flawlessly in the skill and technique aspect of the game, because he will never “out-athleticize” his black counterpart. In fact, as I’m typing this response right now I am also keeping an eye on the Connecticut Missouri game in the NCAA tournament. UConn freshman Kemba Walker was praised by Jay Bilas, who had this to say about the freshman: “He’s from the Bronx and he’s playin with that Bronx toughness”. You never hear anything like that about a white player. I’ve witnessed plenty of white basketball players who have exhibited toughness on the court but in the announcers eyes they aren’t playing with the same toughness as a black athlete from a ghetto. I’ve never heard an announcer praise a white player for having the fundamentals and sound skill set that you get growing up in the suburbs. I enjoy listening to Jay Bilas (he is the only Duke graduate I can stand) but he unknowingly made himself a great example of how we are brainwashed to believe that black athletes are raised and play one way whereas white athletes are brought up and play the game a different way.

Since my participation in sports has evolved, much as I have, over time I have come to learn that it is not necessarily the basis of your skin color that leads to great success. Starting as a child, I participated in very segregated leagues in both baseball and football, particularly due to the fact that the teams were formed as a basis of where you lived. Coming from a predominantly white area, I had more exposure to playing and competing with other whites. As time went on, leagues crossed up and met during the playoffs and the regular season. As a youngster, I could look back and remember being “mentally programmed” to expect better athletes in the minority areas, but now I realize it is because they put more emphasis in their program. The reason behind this is meaningless, but the results were obvious. With more practice, more community support, and overall enthusiasm came greater success and reoccurrence of success.
In high school, I was exposed to a more blended team structure and found that competition was a great factor in the success of the athlete and team. While competition was key, racism did play a role. There were many circumstances in which race played a deciding factor. On my football team, there were certain white individuals who worked harder, performed better, and were more dedicated than black individuals and were just overlooked. I can conclude that this was due to a racist view because my coach was the only colored coach in my league and felt he needed to prove to others that colored people (black, tan, etc) had just as much of a right, or even more, to play. At the college level, I noticed that work ethic was still the key to success on the field. I played against and competed with blacks, whites, Hispanics, and Asians all the same and what it came down to was the most prepared, educated and determined athlete would get the job. No “standing” meant anything; a freshman was our starting quarterback and I played as a freshman as well.

sorry for the delay

I can see how race and racism is perpetuated in the media through sport and everyday life. Personally it has never really affected me so much in which my sporting experience was impacted. As stated before I grew up in Howard County, Maryland’s melting pot. My teams were mixed with every type of race group you can imagine. All teams even the basketball and football teams were not dominated by one race but dominated by elitness. Since social background had a lot to do with your sporting experiences, most of the kids in Columbia have had a competitive sporting experience because everyone played sports,(at least that’s what it seemed like). There were so many programs and outlets for people at all levels to be involved in sport thus, the reason why one race didn’t dominate a sport. Even soccer was mixed. Now I know this wasn’t the issue everywhere because when we would play out of county teams you could clearly see the dominance of one race in particular sports. I think that when you are in an area where everyone has the same competitive edge that race is not an issue instead skill level is. Sure, a race group could be more prone to a sport but that is not my experience. Mr. Simmons comment about Reddick and Morrision to be is ridiculous and I think that because of my race related sporting experience. Being white or black doesn’t take away or give you more glory to a sport, your skill and effort does. So if the best players were white so what, race doesn’t have to ne the guideline for a sporting requirement.

Aleka Ross

I can see how race and racism is perpetuated in the media through sport and everyday life. Personally it has never really affected me so much in which my sporting experience was impacted. As stated before I grew up in Howard County, Maryland’s melting pot. My teams were mixed with every type of race group you can imagine. All teams even the basketball and football teams were not dominated by one race but dominated by elitness. Since social background had a lot to do with your sporting experiences, most of the kids in Columbia have had a competitive sporting experience because everyone played sports,(at least that’s what it seemed like). There were so many programs and outlets for people at all levels to be involved in sport thus, the reason why one race didn’t dominate a sport. Even soccer was mixed. Now I know this wasn’t the issue everywhere because when we would play out of county teams you could clearly see the dominance of one race in particular sports. I think that when you are in an area where everyone has the same competitive edge that race is not an issue instead skill level is. Sure, a race group could be more prone to a sport but that is not my experience. Mr. Simmons comment about Reddick and Morrision to be is ridiculous and I think that because of my race related sporting experience. Being white or black doesn’t take away or give you more glory to a sport, your skill and effort does. So if the best players were white so what, race doesn’t have to ne the guideline for a sporting requirement.

Aleka Ross

I guess growing up in a predominantly white town my whole life I guess you could say that race has had an affect on my sporting experiences. From the ages of 5-14 I had never even competed with and against an athlete from another race. However, when I got to high school that totally changed because our high school recruited from 3 regions (primarily 2 whites towns, and 1 black town). I have to say that at that first basketball practice it was a totally different experience for me. The two different styles of play of the white kids and the black kids were definately different. The black kids played quicker, more flashy, and played more one-on-one match ups. As for the white kids style it was a lot more team oriented with strings of passes being put together and they concentrated heavily on fundamentals. I don't really know why the styles were different but I think it might be because most of the white kids played in organized instruction leagues growing up where coaches and instructors were discipline and stressed fundamentals and team basketball. As for the black players most of them grew up playing street ball on outside courts where you had to be flashy and play a strong one-on-one game in order to make a name for yourself. As far as Bill Simmons comments I believe that race as no effect on how could of basketball player you are. There are plenty of good white players out there but from my personal experience I do think that overall black players are more flashy (JJ Redik and Adam Morrison are not). As far as the T.O. situation with his career history with his quarterbacks I guess you could say I'm a little biased because I am an eagles fan. I think what gets him involved in all the contraversy is he can never keep his mouth shut and when something goes wrong T.O. is the first person to call someone else out and make excuses. I think why he gets all this negative attention is because American's like people who just work hard and keep their mouth shut. I'm not saying T.O. doesn't work hard, because absolutely does, he just can't keep the big mouth shut ever.

Tanner Strow

I am split in my opinion of Bill Simmons comments about race in basketball. I am in no way, shape, or form racist, but I believe that, to some extent, black players are better basketball players. I don’t really know where that though originates from, but it could have something to do with my background. I grew up in a poor neighborhood, which was extremely diverse. My direct group of friends was mostly black, and when we would get together to play sports it was either football or basketball. I was never the greatest, but I would always be the only white person playing. My friends were so much better than me that we would actually joke about how black athletes are naturally better at basketball. While Simmons’ comments on the grand stage were definitely out of line, to some degree I would agree with him. I read somewhere that about 75% – 80% of NBA players are black. I do not know how true that is, but it can definitely be linked to black athletes being better at the sport.
Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not saying that every white basketball player should quit because they are wasting their time. And I am not saying that Bill Simmons was correct with his comments. There are and will be many great white players to play in the NBA. But I believe that because of my personal experiences growing up, that black players have a better chance of making it. It may be true that because of my experience of not being the best player on the court that I never attempted to pursue a career in basketball. I was a great football player in the pick-up games I played growing up, so I played football in high school and was the only junior that started one year. I was one of the best players on every lacrosse team I played with, and still play today. But when I go to the basketball court on Kenilworth with my black roommate and I am the only white guy out of 20, it strengthens my opinion that black players are slightly better naturally at the sport. When I go to the Towson gyms to play, there are many more white players, and the playing field in terms of skill is more level, but, in my opinion, the black players are better. Again, I am not racist in any sense, and I am not against white people playing basketball, this is just my opinion.

As I was watching last night’s upset of Siena over Ohio State I couldn’t help but notice the only white player on Siena’s team. He was the stereotypical “white” basketball player. Doofy as can be, tall and lanky. He was the hustle man but was getting abused down low on the boards. Every time down the court I felt like he was on the ground. I’m glad that I waited until today in order to write this response because the same conversation came up as you wrote about white college basketball players. This kid was one of the tallest players on his team but all of the big men on Ohio State that were his size looked like absolute beasts with a whole lot more of athletic ability. I have noticed this through my years of playing high school basketball as well and, I have to think that there is something about white and black basketball player’s differences that is inevitable to question.
When it comes to Terrell Owens I totally disagree with you about him being a scape goat because he is black. Every team that he is on there is always controversy. For this trend to be as ongoing as it is, you would think that he would learn his lesson already. Off course a team like the Buffalo Bills would sign him. Buffalo has been contemplating a move to Canada for some years now because of their lack of business and interest in the team. The fact that T.O. got released is the best thing that could have happened for the Buffalo Bills organization. Owens is a name recognized anywhere in America. So on the business side of things, T.O. will bring more fans into the seats along with fans buying more Bills jerseys. I just can’t wait until the season starts and Owens starts badgering another one of his quarterbacks for not throwing him the ball every play, although he is among the league leaders in drops. What do you think is going to happen when either Trend Edwards or JP Losman doesn’t give him the ball every time? I believe another incident where T.O. is ruining a locker room as he has always done will surface yet again.
In my experiences throughout my younger years playing sports, i have to say that i got a in depth cultural out look. Besides baseball there were athletes of other ethnicities on my football and basketball team. This has helped me adapt to others cultures quite easily and I have made some of my best friends in doing so.

-Mike Levy

I think that race did have an effect on my sporting experiences growing up. Throughout elementary and middle school I went to a private school that mostly consisted of white kids. This provided me with a false identity of how the sporting world was actually made up of. I considered myself a pretty good all-around athlete throughout my time in middle school, but looking back on it now, it might have been because I was mostly competing against white kids, and not against other races of children who could have been raised differently and had their own unique sporting experiences that might make them better athletes. This all changed when I went to high school and was mixed with all different types of races and social classes. I quickly realized that I was going to have to work harder and put in more effort in order to succeed in sports.
I think Mr. Simmons is wrong in his analysis of the 2006 college basketball tournament. The two best players being white should have nothing to do with the level of talent and excitement in the entire sport. People sometimes tend to have a skewed outlook on basketball in terms of race. White athletes are usually thought of as shooters and more finesse players, whereas black athletes are thought of as bigger, stronger, dominant players who are high-flyers and go for the dunks and flashy plays. This is a stereotype that is not backed up by any scientific evidence and should not be endorsed as fact, although sometimes it is.

-DJ Walker

I think that race did not play a factor in my sporting choices and experiences. I started playing basketball in my predominately white suburban neighborhood as a kid on my white neighbors basketball hoop up the block from my house. As I grew older and continued to play basketball I realized that basketball was a racially dominated sport. I played on a couple recreational basketball teams where there were only 1 or 2 white kids and the rest of the team was African Americans. My high school varsity basketball team was actually fairly diverse, with more white players than black.

I think that white basketball players are branded as the most coachable, fundamental, and best shooters of the game (Larry Bird, Dirk Nowitski, Steve Nash). On the other hand African American basketball players are sometimes stereotyped as argumentative, flashy, and disruptive players (Rasheed Wallace, Allen Iverson, Ron Artest). Ron Artest will always be branded as a troublemaker/bad boy after he leaped into the stands and started punching fans in 2004 at the infamous brawl in Detroit.

The thing with Terrell Owens and the Dallas Cowboys soap opera that lasted half the NFL season was an annoying preamble to their disappointing finish to the season. TO has always been a great performer on the field and few can boast his current NFL statistics. Unfortunately TO is a terrible teammate who cannot share the spotlight with anyone. As a Dallas Cowboy for three years I think he was let go recently because his numbers were declining the past two years and Dallas was getting rid of all their troublemakers (TO, Adam “Pacman” Jones, Tank Johnson). The cowboys are thinking that if they have a unified locker room they can translate that into a unified team effort to win football games and succeed in the end. Terrell Owens’ character in the end only reinforces unfair negative stereotypes against African Americans in sports and also sets a bad example for youth athletes everywhere.

Evan Johnson

Like many other people that have written, I too grew up in school system that was strongly lacking racial diversity. I attended a private school in Denton, Md. Let me put this into perspective: my school didn’t have a gym or cafeteria, we wore uniforms every day, and in most cases had to find our own transportation to and from. I was in a classroom of the same 16 students every day. I distinctly remember the only student that wasn’t white- she was enrolled in the school because her mother had gotten a teaching position, and therefore a cut on her tuition. We didn’t really have organized sports, so my only opportunity to socialize was before or after school. I was obviously given the wrong impression about society in general. When I hit middle school and transferred to the public school system I was in for a rude awakening. I met people of all colors and races; I was exposed to many different ways of life, one being through sports. This is the time I began to learn that basketball was a predominantly black sport, whereas lacrosse was predominantly white. As we discussed in class, this can be justified because one sport is more costly than the other. This got me thinking. In the area in which I grew up, the one factor that held most athletes back from pursuing some kind of mobility within their sport was strictly their financial situation. Fortunately for me, my parents let me participate in a variety or sports, but when I look back they were all pretty pricey, therefore limiting my chances to socially mix with other races. I played soccer, lacrosse, swam for a few seasons, and even got in a season of baseball. (Yes, baseball.)

Social inequalities never really affected me until high school. I’m of Egyptian decent which throws people off when looking at me. I can’t even begin to tell you how many people have thought that I was mixed, black or white. When I picked up lacrosse, almost all of my opponents and even a few of my teammates looked down on me because of the color of my skin. When reading Karyn McKinney’s article, this paragraph stuck out to me because I am able to see this discrimination from both spectrums. (2004, pg 119) “As a white person I always saw terms like honky or cracker as evidence of how much more potent white racism was than any variation on the theme… When a group of people has little or no power over you institutionally, they don’t get to define the terms of your existence, they can’t limit your opportunities, and you needn’t worry much about the use of a slur to describe you and yours since, in all likelihood, the slur is as far is it’s going to go. What are they going to do next: deny you a bank loan? Yeah, right. So whereas ‘nigger’ was and is a term used by whites to dehumanize blacks, to imply their inferiority, to ‘put them in their place’ if you will, the same cannot be said of honky: after all, you can’t put white people in their place when they own the place to begin with.”
As far as race is concerned, everyone brings their own style to the game. Race never affected what sports I played, but more like who I could compete against.

Not only do I disagree with Bill Simmons but I think it is regrettable that somebody can express himself in such an offensive way. This proves how racism still persists in our society nowadays. I was taught to judge and reject any type of racial discrimination since I was little. Back home it is almost impossible to talk about races because at this point in time they are all mixed up. I grew up with people of different skin color and we were all treated the same way, especially in my catholic high school. For this reason I do not consider that race had a significant impact on my choices of sport or life in general. Definitively the social class had a bigger impact on my sporting activities and considering the fact that race and class are somehow related then maybe there was some influence that unless you are part of a minority; it is imperceptible. I must admit, however, that because of the media I did tend to think that black athletes were “privileged” or “particularly gifted” even though there was never a concrete or convincing prove of this statement. Now that I know that there is not a scientific explanation to support this old but wrong idea; I think that all these athletes deserve all the credit for accomplishing their objectives. Regardless of their motivation behind to compete at a professional level of a given sport, the several hours of hard work and dedication should be admired and used as an example for future generations.

Evelyn Izaguirre

Race has never been a factor in determining what sport I played or the sports I enjoy. I predominantly played football because it was and is my favorite sport and I have always enjoyed it. Also many of the male members of my family played football. I enjoyed the aggressiveness of football and even the strategy involved with creating plays and blocking schemes. Football unlike almost any other sport is a great release of energy, frustration, and anger. I do not think race, ethnicity, or social class had anything to do with me playing football. I believe the only reason you play a sport after a certain period of time is because you genuinely like it and feel good doing it.
I also very much enjoy baseball over basketball. I am African American male whose family is from the inner city; you would think I would like basketball more than any other sport. However, I have always liked football and baseball more. Also as I said earlier the male members of my family leaned more towards football and baseball too. I think race really has nothing to do with how well you play a sport or what sports you are attracted to. Some people are just more naturally talented than others no matter what their race is. Talent and skill level is the only reason some are better than others. There are people of all races playing different sports. Some people were just around some sports and not others and have thereby through practice become greatly skilled in those particular sports.

I guess that race was subconsciously used in making my sporting decisions. I played the sports that everyone in my community played. I didn’t have to worry about being the best at a sport because not many of my peers were concerned about being the best at a sport; we didn’t have to worry about having enough money to move onto college. My peers were also predominately white, I don’t really remember many black athletes until I hit high school, and even then there were a few of them because to be an athlete was the “white” thing to do. There were about 20 or 30 black students in my school and a majority of them belonged to the ‘white shirt gang’ and if you strayed away from them, you weren’t really black. A girl who ran track and was a cheerleader was actually told she wasn’t ‘acting black’ because of her decision to participate in school athletics. So, in class, when we discuss the fact that black students use athletics to move up in life, it’s new information, because the black athletes I did know had enough money to participate in the sports I participated in.

My spring break trip allowed me to think a lot about what this forum was about. I am an avid rock climber, it’s been my passion for the last three years and it is basically going to be the rest of my life. Rock climbing in America and most other countries is a predominately white sport. I went to the red river gorge in Kentucky and at the campground I stayed at I only saw one black man and he came with us! There is no rock climbing gene, and there are so many styles of rock climbing that it would be hard to find one. Why there are not more black rock climbers, I’m not sure, but it’s probably because it is a somewhat expensive sport and to really get into rock climbing means to shell out a good chunk of change. I have been lucky and have had parents who have been able to support my crazy rock climbing habits. There was an instance during one of the climbs where the climber has to jump to the start hold. My friend M, who is black, was able to jump up to it just fine, while my other friend C, who is white, was not. He ended up having to use a “cheater stone” to be able to reach the hold without jumping. My friend who is white basically alluded to the fact that it was because he was white that he wasn’t able to jump as high as my black friend could. The whole trip had this theme going on and I just wanted to yell to them what I had learned in this class about there not being a gene connecting race to being an athlete. I have always thought that there was a jumping gene, but now I understand that there isn’t.

Let me start off by saying that I am not racist in one bit and I do not agree how the journalist Simmons said his feelings, but I do somewhat agree with him because I do not know what it is but black people seem like there bodies are made to play the game of basketball and excel at other athletics. There are so many racial stereotypes in basketball it is ridiculous but most tend to be true. You see a 7 foot black guy playing and you say he must dominate the competition and I can’t wait to see him in the NBA. You see a 7 foot white guy and you see him a kind of a klutz and the only reason he is good is that he isn’t playing against any tall competition. Same things apply to the smaller guards in basketball. Small black guards are supposed to be great ball handlers and very quick where as small white guards are slow and only used to shoot 3 pointers. I grew up playing basketball and I was never a really good ball handler but could shoot lights out from the 3 point line. Now was I born this way because I was white or did I just choose to practice 3s more that dribbling because I choose to. In the article that we read they talk about racism and show the names that were used to describe each race. I feel that portraying peoples skills in basketball because of their skin color is just as racist as using the N word for black people or the H word for white people in real life. I feel that there will always be racism in sport and that blacks are always going to be in the focus because even though they are not the minority in the sport, they are in the eyes of many the minority of life.
Corey Cline

In my elementary and middle school years I do not recall race being a factor in my sporting choices or experiences. I believe race may have been less of a factor because I spent these years in an isolated military community. It could also just be a lack of awareness because of my young age. Looking back one way I can think that race may have effect my sporting experience, is in my parents’ willingness or reluctance to sign-me up for a particular sport. They signed me up for both T-Ball and soccer at the age of four. My dad was a baseball fanatic so that easily explains the T-Ball. However my dad never played soccer growing up, so perhaps the perception of soccer as a “white” people sport in America contributed to him signing me up soccer at such an early age. When I was seven or eight my dad finally signed me up for my first season of basketball, a perceived “black” sport. Even then the only reason he signed me up was because one of his work buddies was the coach and asked if I wanted to play.
When I reached high school, basketball became not only my primary sport but my only sport of choice. I honestly on average played basketball six out of seven days of the week while in high school. Basketball has become a prominently “black” sport in America, so in a way I was now the minority. An interesting quote from “Being White: Stories of Race and Racism” states, “ Whiteness historically has equaled power, and when that equation is threatened, their own whiteness becomes visible to many white people for the first time.” Although I think the word “power” is a little strong for my particular example, but if you replace “power” with “majority” it accurately describes my situation. On the basketball court I had become the minority and was now well aware of my “whiteness”. Not only was I well aware of my whiteness, but I was also continually reminded of it. If a non-English speaking person were to observe the pick-up games I played in, they probably would have thought my actual name was “White Boy”. If a player wanted to compliment my game it was always in reference to a white player such as Larry Bird, Pistol Pete, or Jason Williams. On the other hand if a player wanted to talk trash to me, they called my Opie Taylor (my personal favorite) or a white NBA bench warmer such as John Crotty.

I grew up in Northern Harford County, where the population is predominantly white. However, if you head towards Aberdeen, Edgewood, Joppatown, those areas begin to diversify. It wasn't till i began running track in fifth and sixth grade for Harford County Track Club that I became the minority in the sport I participated in. Though my track team was majority white, all of our opponents were African American. To be honest the beliefs of physical abilities between races in sports was never apparent to me. I ran and jumped, and hurdled and the other kids were better then me. Once I entered high school I began to see the change in how people white or black saw athletes of the opposite race. My freshman year of high school I was pulled up to varsity in the beginning of the season where I stayed, and ironically played more then I did on JV( coaching issue). My high school was known as the Duck Farmers, we were an agriculturally based school, and we had a drive your tractor to school day. It wasn't till redistricting that African Americans became a presence at my school. However, playing basketball and being a pretty descent team, we had the chance to play a lot of inner city teams. Within our county, there was always this emphasis to really get ready for games when we played the predominantly black teams. Though we usually always one by a large margin. There were a few close games I will never forget. I never forget playing Aberdeen at home and I'm coming down the right side of the court, right before the three point line, and the girl guarding me was being dramatically aggressive and I was a hot head, so i hesitated my dribble and gave her a smirk, she popped me right in the face in front of everyone. I got right up, but was completely dumbfounded. Anyways, I can remember always bragging about beating the teams with majority of black players. Everyone felt that way, it was not only the white players but the African American teams always warmed up and would laugh at us as we entered the school. We were little preppy white girls who couldn't possibly have attitude or be aggressive, however most of us started sports once we could walk, and a lot of us grew up on farms with older brothers who made us tough and taught us how to play the game. It truly is an unfortunate stigma that will never go away. It is quite obvious there are many differences between white people and African American's, the differences are simply culture, no more and no less really. People try to make answers and excuses for the experiences and unknowns in their lives and it has caused these stereotypes. I wish I could answer otherwise but I was assimilated tot he idea that white people and black people are physically different, it wasn't until I entered college and was able to begin thinking on a more critical level that those beliefs could be shattered. Especially with lacrosse as my main sport, you rarely see African Americans playing the sport, mostly because of the areas it takes place, and the space needed. You can't play a quick lax pick up game in downtown Baltimore, you'll shatter a window before you score a goal. Entering college and beginning the workouts I did which were the same workouts as the Rutgers football players just modifications were implemented for women, I realized it was what the player does off the field that makes them good. I had three black girls on my team, and two of them had horrible work ethics and they sucked, but they were some of the most muscular and fit girls I know. When has anything been successful without a little hard work, obviously some people have natural talents at certain things, but success and ability is bread from time spent on that talent or task. African American's have been so successful in the professional sports because majority of African Americans grow up in urban settings where there are little choices of what to do, sports is one of them. There are no physical racial differences among sport, the differences are found in culture and the style of play growing up, less rules in pick up ball then at rec league everyone should realize this.
-Kathryn Lawrence

The Towson area is not very racially diverse so all of my sporting experiences were very much singularly white players on all of my teams until high school and even then there were few minorities on the teams for which I played. When playing for a travel team, one which played other rec council teams, there were other teams that had a much larger representation of minorities from other parts of the county. I never thought "I want to play an all white sport" or "what is the one sport I will not have to mix with other races?", there just wasn't much of a chance to mix races/cultures in the area I grew up in.
My mom especially has tried very hard to get my brother and myself to see all people as equals in aspect of life, not just sports. I remember at one dinner my brother asked if the "jumping gene" was true and said something like it would explain why black people play basketball. She has a BS in physical education and set him straight right away that that statement is completely and scientifically untrue. Then he went on and made a crack about Steve Nash, so at least he's equal opportunity.
This may be slightly off the original topic but it is mainly the white population that are perpetuating many of these myths by saying or writing them, but is anything stopping a white athlete from training just as hard as a black athlete in competition for a running back slot on a team. If anything, the white athlete may (I say may) have better training facilities and more time to train. The steorotype of African Americans is that most are lazy, but maybe it is the white athletes are the ones being lazy and are saying these things to compensate for the lack of effort.
~Cory

I do not believe that race affected the sports I played but if I were a male I feel as if it would have made a difference. Looking back at high school race definitely played a role in different situations. For example, my junior year there was seven Black, seven White, and seven Asians on the cheerleading team. I am not sure if the coaches planned this but it did cause racial segregation among the girls on our team. We always had the “white girl picture” or the “black girl picture.” We had different cliques within the cheerleading team but the whole team always got a long. The high school I attended was very multi-cultural but the sport teams were definitely segregated with the basketball team being all black, with the exception of one or two. The baseball team was all white, with the exception of one or two. In the movie “Remember the Titans,” they were under the impression that “sport is colorblind, a level playing field where “race” only does not matter, but where the institutional structures of sport actively work to form a more perfect union of racial harmony.” I did not see this in my high school and I am not sure if it was because the players felt that they could only try-out for the team that had the same phenotype feature players as them or that was just the sport that they were good at. I do not believe race affects sports but people are under the impression that they have to play a specific sport because that is what society believes. One day the color of your skin will just be a color and we will not even notice that there are seven Black, seven White, and seven Asians. We will just see twenty-one girls on a cheerleading team.

Hey, being exiled for 6.5 million bones isn't something to cry about. Yes, the cowboys faithful will repeatedly talk about how Jason Witten is the heart of the team, and that if everyone played as hard and disciplined as he did, there team would go somewhere which I find very doubtful anyway with Romo as their quarterback. That is neither here nor there. I think that there is definitely a fine line when analysts discuss race as we’ve seen in the video clips of Jimmy the Greek, and the dodger’s gm who were abruptly fired. I think the intention behind the comments are what are most valuable and as critical sports intellectuals it is our job to read between, under, and over the lines when racial statements are blurted all over the media. Does TO have an attitude? Yes. You can’t attribute it to race, what you can analyze is TO’s cultural, and social upbringings, in impoverished Tennessee, where being the talk of the town helped boost himself into a scholarship for college football where he could then shine in front of NFL scouts. He does a wonderful job of self promotion, because, any publicity is good publicity when it comes the entertainment business, and that’s exactly what the NFL is.
“Moreover, researchers have fond standardized tests to be racially biased, condemning students of color to bottom slots within the educational hierarchy where there is bad teaching, emphasis on worksheet knowledge, and alienating social relations” (pg 87, Giroux)

TO’s upbringing and socialization on this lower tier, molded him physically and mentally to have a skill set which allowed for success but in the same sense also set him up as a media punching bag. It’s just how Owen’s is perceived, in regards to the restrictions of the racial binary. I definitely think he gets the short end of the stick in terms of how much he helps an NFL team in comparison to the Jason Witten’s of the world.

Looking back at my upbringings it is very clear to me that race did not play any role in my personal sporting experiences. Ever since I was young my whole life has almost revolved around the sport of hockey. Aside from a handful of exceptions it is very easy to see that this sport is not racially diverse, probably for many reasons. However, I know deep down that a diverse hockey rink would not have changed my views on the game whatsoever. While for some people race may be an issue, it has never been for me. I believe this directly comes from my parents who always taught me to be accepting of all different types of people. While I went to a diverse high school it was mainly concentrated around a few different minorities. For instance, throughout my entire high school career I believe only 3 African Americans attended my school. This did not make me look at anybody differently but instead furthered my thoughts on "not judging a book by it cover." As for Terrell Owens, I believe his case is absolutely different than almost anyone's case before him. While he has all the football talent in the world, (not because of his skin color) he lacks the ability to realize he in not bigger than a team. TO has been given many chances to clean up his off-field antics but continues to believe he is bigger than the game itself. Until TO realizes that he is no different from any of the other players he shares the field with he will continue to look for a new home almost every year. Time is running out for TO and it is possibly already too late to fix his tarnished reputation.

Race I don't believe ever played a factor into what sports I played. I think again like many others may feel; class was the main motivator. Like I said in previous blogs was that I bowled as a child as well as basketball and football. I think I just tended to stick with football more because that was the only way in my society where I could physically and mentally "destroy" someone without receiving any consequences for it. Now I know that sounds horrible to most people that may read this but that was the truth. Dealing with all of the frustrations of life just from coming from a "bad" neighborhood and being born into a family where education wasn't regarded as something mandatory I spent a lot of time being angry and confused. It wasn't until I got older like in high school that I realized football was actually fun and it wasn't all about that brutality that I had once thought. I began looking at it as something to just pass the time away and keep myself in shape. I never even thought about the idea that I was supposed to be a great athlete just because I was black. I get asked all of the time do I play football just because I spend a lot of time around the game and in the gym, but just the thought of that notion is ridiculous to me. Why can't I just like to work out? I have met many different races and genders that are physically more gifted than a lot of people that I know; so I can never think that just because you are one race that was the reason. It all boils down to how much you want something and how hard you are willing to fight and sacrifice to achieve that goal.

I would have to say that race hasn’t really played a role in my sporting choices and experiences growing up. I think my choices were based more on my class as I said in my prior blog entry. When I was young, the reason I didn’t want to play basketball (a “black” sport) wasn’t because I was white, it was more that I was always one of the shorter kids in my grade and most of my friends played soccer. Sometimes I played basketball in my backyard with some of the neighborhood kids, but we mainly played soccer and football. As I got a little older I started to pay more attention to the stereotypes out there, the ones that people like Mr. Simmons helped to spread. While I was aware of them, they didn’t deter me from playing “black sports”. I was just used to playing soccer, so I wanted to focus on that. I never played organized basketball, but I played a lot of pickup with my friends in High School. For a long time, I admit, I believed the ideas that people like Mr. Simmons put out there. I never really thought twice about it because most of the athletes I saw dominating basketball and football were black. After listening to the lectures in class it now makes sense to me that most of the black athletes used sport as a way to get out of their class. I now understand that there isn’t a “jumping gene” or a “skiing gene”, its just people’s perception and the fact that most of them fall victim to the media stereotypes.

When I was about 3 or 4 I was put into gymnastics and as I have said before it is because my mother was a gymnast and my grandfather coached at his inner city school. So, for me to say that race was apart of me joining this sport I would have to disagree. From listening to my mother speak the reason I joined the sport was because I had to much energy. But, I can see how some people can say that gymnastics is a white girl sport. Mainly, because if you go to a gymnastics meet the majority of the girls are white. This explanation though only explains what you see on the outside. On the inside of gymnastics race plays a very big role. I am told that because I am black that I vault well and can jump higher than anyone else on the team. While this may be true I don’t believe it has anything to do with race, it has to do with strength. My legs are stronger than the other girls allowing me to go higher into the air. Race is everywhere no matter where you go, what sport you play or do, I feel as if we will never escape. So, yes I been encouraged to think like Mr. Simmons but being in anatomy and other similar classes I know that whites and blackes are not different the only difference is our skin.
Alise McDonald

You and many otheres have missed the point yet again when it comes to why TO was cut. (Not shipped) as you put it. The last thing it had to do with was play on the field. Its is what went on off the field. So trying to move the debate to.....Well Jason Witten did this, or he did that during this play-off game has zero relevance.

Does racism exist in our world? Yes but this new push to try and get TO, mentioned with the likes of MLK, Malcom X, and Ali, truly is a disservice to those that truly have faced and fought racism in the past.

What you risk greatly by trying to inaccurately frame this debate, which really was about team first, one player second, into a question of race, is not only a loss of credibility, but an even more dastardly result.

You could one day find and identify true racism. and scream about it at the top of your lungs. And nobody will care, because they stopped listening long ago.