i have assignment and quiz based on readings and short videos

Temple University - Fox School | STHM_0857_-_Ethnicity_in_American_Sport-SD

AUBREY KENT: Hi. I'm Aubrey Kent. We're going to talk about ethnicity, specifically race, in American sport.

We're going to talk about some key issues. And we're going to talk about some notable

examples from the American sport world that address the ethnicity issues that continue to

plague and/or illuminate what goes on in society, hearkening back to our microcosm

discussion a week ago.

So as you read in previous weeks, sport and race are really intertwined in American history,

From? The civil rights movement and before, in terms of participation rights, to post civil rights

movement, to the symbolism that sport affords certain groups to address issues on a much

larger stage.

Stereotypes remain, however. The conversation in academics when it talks about ethnicity in

sport is often a tension between the athletic minority population or an anti-intellectual debate,

right? There seems to be a concern with sociologists and those who study communities, an

over-preponderance of athletic role models within the minority communities, as opposed to

role models from other spectrums of society. Becoming a professional athlete is such a small,

infinitesimal percentage of the population that the fear is that too many kids are looking up to

athlete role models and modeling their goals and their aspirations after them, even though it's

a less than 1/100% chance that they will actually be able to make a living in athletics.

Stereotypes remain, though. As you see in the slide, I have, for example, Campanis. What that

refers to is Los Angeles Dodger vice president for player personnel back in the '80s, Al

Campanis, very famously, on the 40th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's breaking the color

barrier in baseball, being interviewed by Ted Koppel, and asking about the progress of African

Americans within baseball. And he said, and I'll quote, that they were good players, but why

they were lacking in management positions, quote, "I truly believe that they may not have

some of the necessities to be a field manager or perhaps a general manager," indicating what

was perceived as his belief that there was an intellectual gap between the races.

Now, Campanis was fired 48 hours following that inflammatory conversation with Ted Koppel.

But Frank Robinson, who was one of only three managers in baseball at the time said, you

know what? Campanis was actually just saying what was commonly understood within the

baseball world. In fact, Campanis had hired more minorities than most other executives had,

and was viewed as somewhat progressive. He was simply, as Frank Robinson said, a product

of baseball's traditional thinking, and that he was reiterating a widely-held belief in baseball

that "blacks aren't smart enough to be managers or third base coaches or part of the front

office," end quote.

So this is obviously problematic. And baseball is certainly not immune to, or is not alone in, this

type of thinking. One of ways that ethnicity or race has pushed itself into the conversation is

that since this time of Jackie Robinson, for example, breaking the color barrier in baseball, and

really, the post World War II era, where African Americans were so vital in the war effort, and

began to push towards the civil rights movement and became prominent in sport, was the

rapid change in the demographics of participation from not being able to participate due to

segregation rules, and less than 50 years, despite being only 12% of the US population,

dominate what are the most popular American sports. Today, there are 80% of the National

Basketball Association, 65% of the women's NBA, 65% of the NFL, just to name three sports.

In the short time that they become the dominant athletes, they've not been able to as heavily

penetrate coaching, executive, even ownership positions. And so while some are pleading for

patience and that it's a slow move, some are advocating that it should happen much quicker.

If we look back at the history, it really did get catalyzed less by the civil rights movement and

more by World War II, post World War II attitudes. In 1949, for example there were no black

NBA players. But in 1950, Chuck Cooper was the first to be signed by an NBA team. In 1944,

there were no African Americans in the NFL, or in professional football, as it was then. In 1946

Marion Motley was the first to break this barrier. Certainly, more famously, in 1946 there were

no African Americans in baseball. In 1947, Jackie Robinson broke the barrier.

While it's important to note that for population percentage statistics, there's an over-

representation of African Americans within basketball and football especially, there's an under-

representation in most other sports, whether it be golf, or hockey, or Olympic-type sports.

So theories abound for why this clustering towards certain sports might be happening. Some

look at biological or genetic reasons. Some look at environmental reasons. Some are, maybe,

historical or sociological, or a mixture of those. Most seem to understand that it's a

combination in terms of what people believe and societal norms in terms of what is expected in

terms of participation. These types of variables are indifferent to race or gender or class or

religion. And so this environmental explanation has seemed to have the most traction and be

the most powerful, such that anyone from any background can excel, as long as they're

dedicated and determined and put in the time to perform at elite levels.

Interestingly, a lot of the research, especially in earlier periods-- maybe not in the last 10 or 20

years, but in the earlier periods-- of integrated sport had looked at a phenomenon called

stacking, which was that while the establishment in many sports were allowing minorities into

the games, they were pigeon-holing them into certain positions. Probably the most obvious or

noticeable example would be in baseball, where you would put athletic minority athletes in the

field, but where there was perceived to be more of an intellectual capability needed to perform

the duties of the position, they were predominantly white athletes. Pitcher. Catcher. A

quarterback in football would be another example.

And so this idea of stacking or positions defined by race, presumably based on the intellect

needed to perform the duties, got a lot of traction. And it something that was viewed as a

negative, obviously, for how you would cluster and sort your team based on race.

Now, more of the focus is on while we've figured out athletes and their participation seems to

be merit-based in playing the game, not so much does that happen within coaching, executive,

management, or in ownership.

Finally, what we look for within ethnicity studies-- not just African American, but in all race type

studies-- is this idea of role models, as I alluded to earlier. Charles Barkley famously said, I'm

not a role model. It's not up to me to raise your kids. And he was being tongue-in-cheek

somewhat in a Nike commercial, but at the same time, he was addressing a bigger issue-- this

whole idea that African American youth and other minority youth need to look up to a broad

spectrum of heroes to aspire to be, and not just into the athletic space.

That said, we do have a lot of athletic heroes within the minority populations. Jackie Robinson

I've already mentioned. Jesse Owens, certainly, a track athlete in 1936, winning gold medals

in front of the Nazi regime in the Berlin Olympics. Tiger Woods, breaking through in a

predominantly white sport of golf, and becoming a phenomenon for two generations.

Now, we seem to have more role models on the business side, although they were hall-of-

fame-caliber athletes. Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson have arguably made a bigger

impact on the ownership businessperson side by becoming successful in that sphere, almost

eclipsing their hall of fame careers on the court.

Well, we haven't had time to get into depth on a lot of issues I've hopefully exposed you to,

some of the conversations that happen when we're talking about race and ethnicity and sport.

And we've been able to identify some notable examples where sport has provided a good

platform to have these conversations.