Blacks In Sports: What Did We Learn?

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

The OGS "Blacks In Sports" series that we hope you enjoyed last week was an eye-opening one for us.

We conducted 10 telephone interviews that averaged 45 minutes in length. That's 7.5 hours of listening to stories, memories, opinions, highlights and lowlights from the lives of 10 African-American people who are or were in some way involved in sports. OGS is very thankful for all of their help.

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Blacks In Sports: The Means Is The End

Inspired by Sports Illustrated's 1991 update of its groundbreaking "The Black Athlete" report in 1968, I wrote my own three-part series called "Blacks In Sports" for my college newspaper at the University of Cincinnati's The News Record. Now, nearly 20 years later, I've updated my own report, this time in five segments, and I hope you enjoy it. Everyone quoted in this series is black unless noted. Today's Part V is "The Means Is The End."

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

The coddled, catered-to, modern-day black athlete. Has he no respect?

"No," is the answer you'll hear from plenty of old-school observers. He doesn't care about the struggles that black athletes endured in the 1950s and 60s. And he definitely doesn't care about a college degree because once he puts in the minimum time necessary to be available for a professional draft, he's gone.

But did you know it wasn't long ago that an athletic scholarship was celebrated in many black homes because it meant the first person from him family would go to college? Maybe even graduate and make something of himself? Without the athletic prowess, college was once just some unattainable dream because his parents couldn't have afforded it.

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Increasingly after the midpoint of the 20th century, however, black families were celebrating that promise. Young athletes from inner cities across America were heading to college, leaving proud parents behind to hope, pray, brag to the neighbors and count down the days until Christmas break like they'd never done before. Like their own parents had never done before.

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Blacks In Sports: Networking & Relationships

Inspired by Sports Illustrated's 1991 update of its groundbreaking "The Black Athlete" report in 1968, I wrote my own three-part series called "Blacks In Sports" for my college newspaper at the University of Cincinnati's The News Record. Now, nearly 20 years later, I've updated my own report, this time in five segments, and I hope you enjoy it. Everyone quoted in this series is black unless noted. Today's Part IV is "Networking & Relationships."

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

Are you going to tonight's social meet-up? Did you go to that media mixer on Monday?

For those who embrace modern networking, there are plenty of ways to connect with like-minded folks in your field as you seek a better job and, possibly, a better life. You might even have something planned for tonight.

Don't forget your business cards.

But what if you're an aspiring black football or basketball coach? Or an aspiring Major League Baseball executive? There's no weekly or monthly happy hour where hopeful climbers can gather conveniently and pass contact information around. And what if it was still the 1990s? Networking events like the ones we frequent today weren't nearly as common as they were 20 years ago. Or even 10.

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As blacks have been getting more jobs in most sports the last decade or so, the conversation has shifted. The question is less about whether they're getting jobs. Now, we're asking if they're getting good jobs? Are they getting jobs after being fired, as many white coaches do?

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Blacks In Sports: The Summer Of LeBron

Inspired by Sports Illustrated's 1991 update of its groundbreaking "The Black Athlete" report in 1968, I wrote my own three-part series called "Blacks In Sports" for my college newspaper at the University of Cincinnati's The News Record. Now, nearly 20 years later, I've updated my own report, this time in five segments, and I hope you enjoy it. Everyone quoted in this series is black unless noted. Today's Part III is "The Summer Of LeBron."

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

"It's always, um, you know, a race factor."

Those were the clumsy words of one of the galaxy's most recognized athletes not long ago. A shooting superstar among mere stars. A then-25-year-old Mack truck of a ringless NBA phenom.

LeBron James voiced that declaration on CNN last fall, nearly three months after he made his unforgettable free-agency decision on an ill-conceived ESPN program called "The Decision." On a warm Thursday night in July, the self-anointed King James announced in sleepy Connecticut that he was going to take his talents to South Beach to play for the Miami Heat.

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What happened 500 miles away in Cleveland immediately afterward and throughout the online universe in the days that followed was nothing short of pure hatred. Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert's prompt reaction was well-documented, and you've been living under a burning river if you haven't seen at least a dozen times the video of fans burning No. 23 jerseys.

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Blacks In Sports: The Hall Pass

Inspired by Sports Illustrated's 1991 update of its groundbreaking "The Black Athlete" report in 1968, I wrote my own three-part series called "Blacks In Sports" for my college newspaper at the University of Cincinnati's The News Record. Now, nearly 20 years later, I've updated my own report, this time in five segments, and I hope you enjoy it. Everyone quoted in this series is black unless noted. Today's Part II is "The Hall Pass."

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

It was hardly unusual for O.J. McDuffie to spend an entire weekend at the home of a white high school buddy whose parents welcomed him with warm, open arms.

McDuffie was a four-sport superstar at Hawken School in Cleveland, which is why, in looking back on those times in the mid- to late-1980s, he thought he got a little extra consideration from his friend's family. A pass.

"If I was just the average black kid from homeroom, I don't know if it would have been that way," said McDuffie, who was the farthest thing from average. While at Hawken, he starred in football, baseball and basketball, and was a state-champion sprinter in track. He would go on to star at Penn State and play eight NFL seasons with the Miami Dolphins.

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"Black athletes are treated a lot differently than black people are. People were very welcoming to me because I played sports. As athletes, we've had it a lot easier than the average black kid who walks the streets of America."

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Blacks In Sports: Remembering The History

Inspired by Sports Illustrated's 1991 update of its groundbreaking "The Black Athlete" report in 1968, I wrote my own three-part series called "Blacks In Sports" for my college newspaper at the University of Cincinnati's The News Record. Now, nearly 20 years later, I've updated my own report, this time in five segments, and I hope you enjoy it. Everyone quoted in this series is black unless noted. Today's Part I is "Remembering The History."

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

You'd think a black man in his 50s in 2011 America would have known well the sting of racial hatred since he was old enough to hear. But it took until age 12 before Lorenzo Romar finally learned what such ignorance sounded like when, in 1971, a Little League baseball teammate called him a nigger.

"For him to say that the way he said it, he had to have had some kind of a race issue," said Romar, now 52 and the basketball coach at the University of Washington. "So then I thought that maybe the entire time, maybe those other kids on the team had been looking at my color more than at me as a person."

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That Romar grew up in Compton, Calif., close enough to watch the smoke rise from the fires of the Watts riots as a boy in 1965, meant he was raised in a neighborhood where folks looked just like he did. So Romar was shielded from racism in his early years, on the streets, at school and on the playing fields. But in 1971, his local summer league had ended early, sending him looking for more baseball before the new school year started. He found more baseball alright, just not in his own neighborhood, and just not with folks who looked like he did.

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