White Sprinters
For several years now, professional baseball has been pouring millions of dollars into developing black players. Evidently, the number of black players, at least American blacks, has been in decline. NASCAR is funding programs to develop black drivers after fielding complaints that the sport is too white. Similarly, the NHL now has a “Diversity Program” designed to put more blacks on the ice. I can only imagine the outcry if the 75-percent-black NBA funded development programs for white players. Since I ran the 100 and 220, though, I’m rooting for the “White Sprinter Project.”
Unknown to many today, whites dominated the sprints and accounted for nearly all of the world records until the 1960’s. During all those years of white-sprinting prowess, blacks were competing also, even winning American championships and gold medals in the Olympics. It was not as if blacks were prohibited from competing. Nearly everyone knows that Jesse Owens captured the 100 and 200 at Berlin in 1936, and Owens was only one of many black sprinters America produced. But America also produced white sprinters. So, too, did the nations of Europe. Whites scorched the tracks of both hemispheres. There was even an Australian, Hec Hogan, who tied the world record in the 100-yard dash in 1954 and put the Southern Hemisphere on the sprinting map. If blacks had once dominated a sport and had since nearly disappeared, every black child in America would be made aware of that fact in school, and there would be a heavily funded national effort to bring blacks back to predominance.
Jeremy Wariner stands out today, not only because he won the 400 meters at the tender age of 19 in the 2004 Olympics, but because he is white. Since then, he has been unbeatable in the 400 and is poised to break the world record. After Wariner destroyed a stellar field in the 400 at a meet in Southern California in May, a black coach said that the sport needed more like him. When questioned further, the coach said, “More white sprinters would really help track.”
When I was growing up, I never saw a track meet without fast white sprinters—and California had the finest track meets in the world: The Coliseum Relays, the Modesto Relays, the Compton Relays, and the West Coast Relays were legendary. For nearly a half-century, the world record in the 100-yard dash was owned by Southern Californians: Charley Paddock, Frank Wykoff, and Mel Patton. Paddock ran a 9.5 (seconds) in the early 1920’s; Wykoff, a 9.4 in 1930; and Patton, a 9.3 in 1948. Patton’s record stood until 1962. Patton and the others ran on dirt tracks and without the aid of anabolic steroids and human growth hormone. I suspect they would have run at least two-tenths faster on the springy, rubberized-asphalt tracks of today.
“Pell-Mel” Patton led the University High Warriors to the Los Angeles city prep-track championship in 1943. After World War II, he attended Southern Cal (or simply SC—nobody called the school USC in those days). As a Trojan, the splendid sprinter—six-feet tall and 150 pounds—was smoking tracks and opponents in dash after dash. He tied Frank Wykoff’s record of 9.4 twice in 1947 and won the NCAA championship, then broke the 100 record with a 9.3 in 1948 and won both sprints in the NCAA championship.
In 1948, he was the favorite for the Olympic dashes in London, but on a cold, blustery, wet day, the half-frozen Patton, who appeared to have minus body fat, tied up badly in the 100. The World’s Fastest Human finished a shocking fifth. Devastated, he stood in front of his blocks for the 200 final two days later thinking that he would be lucky to place. More than 100,000 Wembley Stadium spectators were silent as the runners took their marks. Suddenly, someone in the crowd yelled, “Go Uni! Uni High Warriors!” Patton felt a rush of adrenaline course through his body like never before. At the report of the starter’s pistol, he exploded from the blocks and led from start to finish. He later anchored the U.S. 4x100 relay team to victory.
As a senior at SC in 1949, Patton ran a mind-boggling 9.0—some watches read 8.9—but a tailwind was fractionally above the limit. Most observers, including my older brother, who was then running the sprints as a sophomore at Uni, thought the wind was of only small advantage. Patton later broke the world record in the 220 with a blazing 20.2. He finished his collegiate career by wining both dashes at the NCAA championship and anchoring the SC 4x220 relay team to a world record.
White-sprinting dominance continued throughout the 50’s. Larry Remigino won the 100 in the 1952 Olympics, and Dave Sime and Bobby Morrow ruled the rest of the decade. After breaking Patton’s record in the 220 with a 20.0 and twice tying Patton’s 9.3 in the 100, Sime, a Duke sophomore, was expected to star in the 1956 Olympics. An injury put him on the sideline, though, and, at Melbourne, Abilene Christian sophomore Bobby Morrow won both dashes and anchored the U.S. 4x100 relay team to victory and a world record. By the time Morrow finished running, he had won 80 of 88 races, tied world records in both sprints, and anchored two world-record relays.
Recovered from injury, Dave Sime ran a 9.3 again in 1957. He graduated from Duke a year later, leaving behind nine school records—two still stand—and entered medical school. Despite little time for training, he made the Olympic team in 1960 in the 100. At Rome, a terrible start left him dead last, but he closed dramatically and hit the tape in a photo finish with Armin Hary of Germany. Hary got the nod, but both runners broke the Olympic record. With Peter Radford of Britain finishing third, white sprinters had swept the 100 again as they had at Melbourne when American Thane Baker and Aussie Hec Hogan followed Bobby Morrow to the finish line.
World records. Olympic sweeps. The World’s Fastest Human. Where is the White Sprinter Project?
Roger D. McGrath is the author of Gunfighters, Highwaymen, and Vigilantes.
This article first appeared in the August 2007 issue of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.
Entries(RSS)
What I find amazing is that all-white teams from Europe routinely defeat all-black (or mostly-black) teams from the U.S. in basketball. And yet when it comes time to pick the teams whites are only good for 25% of the NBA.
It seems like there is massive discrimination against whites in the NBA, NFL and even MLB.
Steve Sailer (isteve.com) has many articles on why these things are so.
My impression re the team sports is that Americans tend to overrate the (real) athletic advantages of blacks when compared to whites, leading to an assumption that a black athlete must be better than a comparable white, and this leads to a bias in selection.
This is a common form of stereotyping - taking a real difference, exaggerating it, and even ignoring contrary evidence in the case of individuals.
It seems to me that most of the Coaches,resources,and communal support that were once available to Caucasian athletes in the U.S. are no longer there for us. It seems to go to the Black athlete. I had one son who ran a 1.56 second half mile in a Basic training test .He was 18 years old and had not run Track in H.S. He played Soccer and Wrestled. No Coach ever encouraged him to come out for Track.Even now as he approaches 40 he can fly for 100-125 yards.His Brother could run too.
I asked an assistant track coach at a prominent track school why there was so little attention paid to Caucasian kids by our Track Coaches?He was upset by it too but he could not influence the Head CoachThe late developing kid has no chance.Thane Baker was a late bloomer.
The tie between the Caucasian Nation,our Sports,Coaches,and the athletes from our community who staffed these Sports for so long no longer exists. We need a new institutional support system for them.
T.R.Kelly
Prof. McGrath:
Just a quick note to let you know how much I appreciate your articles on racial matters and 'real history' in CHRONICLES (and also for your work with AMERICAN RENAISSANCE). I read your book on gunfighters, etc., a number of years ago, and recall thinking that this man must be a real (ie, racial) conservative. In recent years, you have masterfully proved my intuition correct.
I think you are the logical choice to take over the late Dr. Francis's PRINCIPALITIES & POWERS column in CHRONICLES. Of course, the editor there is terrified of racial, let alone eugenic, truth-telling (I'm actually surprised some of your World War 2 revisionist pieces have gotten through), so I'm not holding my breath. But a regular column devoted to the overclass-driven war against white America really belongs in the magazine, and you have my vote to write it.
Keep up the good fight!
Leon Haller
"and recall thinking that this man must be a real (ie, racial) conservative."
Deep breaths Sid. Deep breaths.
America has a strange view of black folk. Lot's of guilt and, paternalism. Once they were thought of as savages. Now, they're noble savages in need of special help from whites. That's what we see throughout sports, with the exception of the Mixed Martial Arts world. Many whites of older generations seemed to think that blacks were superb, nearly unbeatable fighters, with amazing killer instincts that whites couldn't hope to match. That's perhaps one reason why they came to dominate boxing.
However, some Russians and, Brits who lacked all the the racial baggage, have shown many American whites that blacks aren't unbeatable, but merely fellow , mortal human beings!
In the MMA world (the UFC being the most prominent example) promoters realize that the 18-34 age group that they market too, wants to see fighters like them, namely, white. They also don't seem to mind black, or Asian fighters who are prominent in the sport, but they relate to fighters that come from their own culture.
The majority of fighters in all the MMA groups are white.
This all started when a Brazilian family, that was taught Judo back in the 1920's, thought that they had the makings of a fighting art that could defeat street fighters, boxers, wrestlers, karate and, kung fu fighters. They proceeded to test their skills in mixed matches until on of the sons of the founder, Helio Gracie, came to America in the 1980's to try and make it big. One of the brothers, a skinny 170 pound Royce Gracie shocked the martial arts world in the 1993 when he beat all sorts of fighters in the original UFC. Other than no eye gouging, fish hooking, or crotch striking, fighters could punch and, kick all they wanted to, without pads. Royce, however, took everyone to the ground, established dominance and, choked and, arm-locked his way to victory. While the mainstream sports world took little notice, many thousands of young, white men began to study Gracie Jiu-JItsu (as well as boxing and, kick boxing), then transferred that knowledge to MAMA fights.
The old paternalistic view of blacks doesn't seem to have much support in the MMA world, where the idea that ones race gives one an advantage, is disproved regularly. Even when blacks win, they are lauded for their individual talents and, training, not their race.
Mr. Mike
Good points, Mr. Mike. Because of media bias, many people don't know that all 4 heavyweight champs are white men from the former Soviet Union. Moreover, white boxers claim 14 of the 24 belts from heavyweight to middleweight. But there is only 1 white American boxing champ (at junior welterweight). Why are all the boxing gyms and government sponsored boxing programs located in the inner cities? If we want Americans who can hang with the Russian fighters, maybe we should locate some gyms and programs in the Ozarks or Appalachia.
I'm sure our leaders will appreciate a white boxers program. They'll implement it right after they fund white sprinters program.
Mr. Mike: "Many whites of older generations seemed to think that blacks were superb, nearly unbeatable fighters, with amazing killer instincts that whites couldn’t hope to match. That’s perhaps one reason why they came to dominate boxing."
I don't know of any ( let alone 'many')white men of older generations who took that view at all, or anything like it. Black champions were a distinct minority in boxing until Ali was well past his prime. Look at the photos of past champions of all weight divisions from the early 20th century and you'll see what I mean.
As Bernie notes, most boxing gyms are located in the inner cities with majority black populations. That has more to do with the rise in the number of black champions than anything else. Fewer white boxers have access to boxing gyms today without traveling into some very hostile neighborhoods to train.
Black teens who gravitate to sports don't face the pressures to make a living that their white counterparts do. In the inner cities, black culture doesn't stigmatize young men who don't work, live with their parents on welfare and make careers out of training to be professional athletes even when the training is the extent of the career.
Bezug: "deep breaths"
Wir schweigen nicht. Die Sonne scheint noch.
It's the same with soccer in England - dominated by hulking blacks who mature early and thus are chosen rather than more slowly developing whites.
A "White Sprinter Project" project is not neccesary at all. 90% of participants in track and field at high school level are still white. I attend T&F meets all over the midwest and can attest to this. There are simply no blacks within dozens of miles. Its the same story in most rural areas and in most suburban areas in the Northeasstr, Pacific northwest etc because blacks for the most part are found only in cities. So the idea that whites are not participating in track and field or that they are discriminated against has no basis in reality.
The number of T&F scholarships is NOT limited. There are literally hundreds of div I, and II schools, NAIA schools and junior colleges that offer scholarhips.
Hello,
I made a mistake about those "older generations." I mean't people between their 30's and, 50's, of which I'm one. Since I seem to be out of the mainstream, sometimes I have trouble feeling apart of that group!
I have spoken with enough people and, heard enough media pundits speak to believe that Americans in that generation think blacks have some kind of natural advantage in sports. I've heard boxing promoters like Bob Arum and, others criticize MMA as a bastion of white guys from the Midwest. Jim Lampley was surprised to learn that many top MMA fighters were Division I wrestlers. He thought they were a bunch of barroom brawlers.
In high school football, I've seen all white teams beat nearly all black teams, but this seems to change in college, where many coaches seem to believe that blacks are just better athletes. Bobby Bowden of Florida State was quoted in a Sports Illustrated Article as saying that blacks are necessary to a good team because they run so fast. Bear Bryant at Alabama integrated his all white teams after a Michigan State team that was 50% black trounced his team. His explanation was that they had blacks and, we didn't. That, to him, was their advantage. I wonder why American basketball coaches didn't go out and, get more Serbian players, after Serbia beat an All-Star team of NBA players? No one thought that Slavs from Eastern Europe had any special advantage, but they seem to think blacks do.
EE Roberts made a good point about the cultural differences, but I see so many young whites getting involved in MMA, fighting in matches where they don't make much money, to believe that they don't have the time, or interest to improve their game. The MMA world is a product of the free market, unlike team sports, which begin in public schools and, colleges. That may be one difference. Unlike boxing, MMA, BJJ and, traditional martial arts schools are available in white neighborhoods and, the popularity of the UFC and, other groups has helped drive that market. Many MMA fighter hire boxing coaches to help their skills in that area.
"...So the idea that whites are not participating in track and field or that they are discriminated against has no basis in reality.
The number of T&F scholarships is NOT limited. There are literally hundreds of div I, and II schools, NAIA schools and junior colleges that offer scholarhips."
Not quite true. It's how whites are being treated and have been treated that affects some things. Since the late 60's, whites have been flat out told they cannot compete against blacks. Sports Illustrated led the way on this, becoming very hostile towards whites in some ways just about the time of the 1968 Olympics. Merely thumbing through old issues of the magazine will show this. The rest of the "main stream media" also followed suit. Move ahead 40 years and you have whites competing, but many not seriously and most being pushed out of or avoiding so-called black events. Jeremy Wariner has already established himself as one of the most dominant quarter milers in the history of track and field. His publicity is minimal compared to that of blacks who have put together less dominant seasons and statistics. He was among the fastest in the US in the 200 meters and 400 meters as a high school senior and was so lightly recruited as to be laughable. Why? Because fast white kids are not recruited by top schools. Most are left to be walk-ons or to go to smaller programs. At the 2005 World Championships, Wariner finished first and second place went to Andrew Rock, another white sprinter from the US. A sprinter from a Div III school. There is no doubt there is a higher percentage of blacks with the physiological "make - up" to be top sprinters, but no scientific testing has shown that there are no whites with the capabilities. In fact, testing has shown that whites are out there, but they aren't competing or do not train or plain don't care. At the same time, in almost all sports, blacks have special programs, funding, attention and scores of PC brainwashed coaches and schools fawning over them. Most white kids are not on the track with a do or die attitude as they usually have other options. They'd better, because even if they run 20.5 and 40.5 in HS like Wariner, they won't get many offers.
If you don't think this is true, watch the NFL Combines. The same prejudice against whites in track and football carries over to the pros. That division I schools ignore most of the best white prospects at certain positions is a given. Things are pared down even further at the next level. Watch the NFL Combines. Not just the ESPN edited version, the whole thing. Read all the results. You will be stunned at how dominant whites are in some areas of testing that the media presents as dominated by blacks. Then you'll see how a huge percent of players, white players, are pushed to the back of the line behind blacks. The excuse given is usually talk about "intangibles". Thus we have scores of fumble-thumb black receivers (the few white receivers are known for their "hands") and "quarterbacks" like Michael Vick who, if they were white, wouldn't be in the league, never mind on the bench, such is their lack of ability in throwing, reading defenses, adjusting to defensive change-ups, etc.
The results in MMA competitions, which were not under control of main-stream forces early on, have led to what we now see in boxing, with whites dominating from 150 lbs up. Sure, more black champs will come along here and there and be trumpeted by the media, but these days blacks seem to only win against second rate or old white and latino fighters in the ring. In MMA competitions, great black fighters are rare or are a flash in the pan. One wonders how realistic other "sports" and facts about black athleticism are when you see this and the drubbing NBA stars have taken from European and Argentine squads over the last decade. The talk about a drop in black talent is bs, as there are more black kids trying boxing and playing basketball in the US than ever.
Tom
Your contention that SI is hostile towards whites is negated simply by doing a google search on "sports illustrated covers" then select pictures. Virtually 80% of the cover personalities are white. Hows that for hostilty ?
I have seen quite a few SI stories hostile to whites. But I have seen a plethora of stories hostile to Latinos and blacks. As I see it, SI is an equal opportunity basher. Its the one magazine that had the courage to embarass Michael Jordan to the point where he refused to ever do an SI interview again.
Your perception that whites are victimized is tinted by the fact that you are so sensitive about the way whites are portrayed that you dont realize that most articles on whites are actually positive.
Jeremy Wariner is great. I am a big fan of his. But track athletes never gain publicity except during the olympics. How many Americans really knew who Maurice Green was when he was dominant ? Gatlin set the world record albeit drug induced and how much pub did he get ? Almost none. Does the average American know who Tyson Gay is ? I highly doubt it. In the 80s, Butch Reynolds, Quincy Watts, Valery Briscoe etc were dominant. Does anyone remember them ? No
I dont know how many scholarship offers Wariner had but I have seen white athletes including sprinters get multiple scholarship offers from the top schools. This is a common occurrence. Andrew Rock did not run the 400m in high school which is why he was not recruited. He actually did the 100m. Furthermore coming out of high school, he wanted to focus on academics and not track. Which is why he chose the club system of Div III.
On the issue of whites being pychologically brainwashed, I am afraid it does not wash. White parents push their kids towards sport a lot more than latinos or blacks. Whites pay for their children to attend camps, pay for coaches, attend games maniacally, study their videos and spend time playing with their kids unlike blacks whose parents are not even present in many cases. I have ever heard a white parent discourage their kids from sports for racial reasons. I have seen quite the opposite. White parents tend to be more engaged in developing their child athletically.
Suburban schools and private schools have better coaches, gyms and other facilities. Inner city schools in many cases do not even have basic equipment like hurdles. Gyms are the reason inner city schools cannot hope to compete with private schools at football. When one offensive line unit is on a weight training and nutrition program closely monitored by coaches while the other is going on raw strength, guess who wins ?
In professional sport, its a known fact that fans like to root for hometown heroes. Most NFL fans would like to see players they can relate to. So why would NFL GMs discriminate against white players ? I fail to see how political correctness makes coaches deny whites opportunities. When a coaches job is on the line, race is not much of a factor in his decision making. Vick is a lousy QB. But he is not the worst. There are worse QBs. Grossman for one is clearly not up to scratch. Vick may be a lousy passer but he is capable of winning a game. Plus he sells jerseys and puts bums in the seats.
In basketball, its true that Europe has closed the gap. I celebrated like no one else when the dream team was beaten by Lithuania marking the 1st time they ever lost. But I also realize that the reason European teams beat the USA and will continue to do so is because b-ball is a team sport and the more that a team plays together, the more cohesion they have , the more likely they are to win. Last year, team USA simply could not defend the Greek pick and roll as a team. Players have to play together for eons before they learn how to defend as a unit. Going to camp for 3 weeks before a tournament wont cut it. I think most basketball fans are realistic enough to realize this. Also the world championship like the big dance is a one game elimination so upsets galore. Can you really convince yourself that Greece would beat the USA in a 7 game series ? Argie beat the USA in 2004 but they next time they met, they lost by 20.
NBA coaches have made it an open secret that they prefer European players due to their stronger fundamentals and their lack of entitlement. An NBA coach will gladly recruit a European before an American. So if the Greeks, the Argies and the Italians were better individual players, they would dominate the NBA. I like to be realistic about things. I for one would like to see more Euros. I followed Toni Kukoc while he was still at Bennetton. I used to watch the Euro league a lot during my stint overseas. But being realistic, I know that Europeans are not better individual players. Their national team programs are certainly better. They have players who have been playing together in some cases since they were 12 years old. They have U-14, U-16 and U-18 teams. The players know each other inside out. They live together in dorms for years. Talk about cohesion. Contrast that with team USA that gathers for practice 3 weeks before gametime. And that my friend is the reason team USA will continue to lose. Unlike in Europe, the NBA takes precedence over the national team.
The issue of whites being discriminated against is a phenomenon that some cling to as a crutch when they absolutely do not want to deal with reality. The way I look at it is that society cant possibly be delusional. So if 99% of white society thinks theres no discrimination and 1% does, who is the delusional one ? Think about this for a moment.
"The issue of whites being discriminated against is a phenomenon that some cling to as a crutch when they absolutely do not want to deal with reality."
I disagree with the above. Whites are discriminated against at all levels of society and are the butt of constant jokes in the media. Look at how many commercials have the dorky, uncool, stupid white guy being shown up by blacks and women.
There seems to be something in the air, as blacks are starting to lose the apparent edge they enjoyed for several decades in some sports. Some of the edge was due to innate abilities, some of it due to social conditioning and I'm not talking about at home.
Using the excuse of the NBA taking precedence over the US National Team is a crutch. Most of the white players on the European teams either play for NBA teams or for European teams in countries that are not their own. You have Germans playing in Italy, Ukranians in Spain etc who only have a few weeks practice before hitting the court for their respective national teams. To be blunt and probably tick off a bunch of people, I suspect the European players are a) outsmarting the NBA players b) nowhere near as self centered as the NBA players and c) those same arrogant NBA players appear to be frozen when they see some white guy juke and then leap way into the air and fire off a shot from a difficult angle or make a seemingly impossible pass. After all, only black guys can do this, right? Another problem the black athletes have beyond their selfish play is that in many International contests the rules are enforced. If you've spent your whole life traveling, palming the ball and worse it's hard to actually rely on skills refined through following the rules as written.
In track, I have some experience, having coached HS and club level athletes in Los Angeles and Southern California. First off, it has been shown time and again blacks are far more likely to push their children into sports than whites. Period. That's seemingly all they do if they take part in their children's activities. Most urban schools actually receive more funding, as in Los Angeles. When I worked in schools high schools there, the more white students there were in the student body, the less funding the school received for sports, equipment upkeep, maintenance and so on. Several center city schools I worked for received generous funding but the students destroyed brand new equipment, stole equipment, ignored upgrades and worse. The white families see sports for their kids as part of growing up, the blacks see it as the only way to go.
Back to track, I watched many youngsters first hand. There are more black kids for the size of their population with sprint talent, no doubt about it. But I ran into white kids all over the place with talent also. They were completely cowed when it came to competing for the most part. No joke. This is even with a 15 year old kid who had never run before, clocked a 51 second quarter mile in tennis shoes in a try out. (By the way, Jeremey Wariner ran about the same the first time he ran the quarter as a sophomore in HS) I told the kid he had awesome potential. He had no training background whatsoever. "No, the black kids will smoke me." He had no interest in giving a sprint the effort. I had this type of thing happen all the time. And I had parents, constantly, tell me no when it came to their kids sprinting and long jumping. Ask any football coach in big city schools and many suburban areas and they'll tell you the same thing, and it's racial. In some cases the parents weren't brainwashed into thinking their kids couldn't compete. They simply felt that even if their kid could sprint or be an outstanding receiver, they wouldn't get the proper or deserved recognition a black with the same or even slightly less ability would get. And they were right. Other coaches will tell you the same thing. Interestingly I never had any whites who were intimidated in terms of strength events when competing against blacks. There is genetics involved in this too. You don't see very many blacks even make it to qualifying rounds in the World's Strongest Man contest or in Olympic style weightlifting. The NFL was so embarrassed at blacks being shut out in their strongest man contest they eliminated the competition until they were able to set it up basically using only black players bench pressing a very light weight for high reps.
Working at schools I saw blacks put all their effort into sports and entertainment. I didn't see this among white kids or Asians. The hispanics were more heavily into sports than whites also, but not super serious about things like football where they had a size disadvantage.
Sports Illustrated is mentioned by a couple of guys. While a lot of covers have white athletes to ensure sales the articles do tend to fawn over blacks. I can remember them running their "Whatever happened to the white athlete?" feature a few years back, and they mentioned genetic advantages for blacks in certain events. But they never acknowledge that whites have genetic advantages over blacks in certain areas. That's verboten. Most of the time the articles concerning blacks, even negative articles, are real butt-kissing pieces. The black guys are always dignified, charitable, pillars of the community. Or excuses are made. For many years we've had to sit through the worship of Michael Vick who is at best mediocre. Grossman is not very good, but he's an awesome passer compared to Vick and does not go into a complete panic like almost all black quarterbacks when the blitz is on. SI and the TV announcers tell us that Vick will be awesome when "...he finally learns the game," or "...gets more experience." He's had almost a decade in the NFL. He's not going anywhere but hopefully to jail. The League is so desperate to make the sport entirely black that they'll even slight another black athlete, Reggie Bush, just to give a second rate partial season starter like Vince Young the Rookie of the Year. Grossman was savaged by announcers all season while Vick and Young received incredibly undeserved praise. No white player with as many horrible passing seasons in a row as Vick would remain a starter. No way. He's fast, he might have been able to be in the NFL at some other position. Maybe. But he is simply horrible as a passer. Literally no improvement over the years. A couple of good games here and there. I've heard a few people be snide and "joke" that maybe the league will someday flat out fix games in order to make sure they have the right kind of black QB win at all points from start to finish. Meaning a black QB who runs all the time and refuses to be a pocket passer.
I would tend to agree that whites have been browbeaten by the media and academics. Whites sure have been brainwashed to praise blacks, be afraid of blacks, not compete against them. Like the other poster mentioned, the Europeans who are finally being allowed to compete in significant numbers in boxing and basketball and other sports are in fact dominating blacks. The heavyweight division isn't the only division dominated by whites. There are more black fighters than ever but they are facing more competition than ever. Boxing had been dying out among whites even before blacks surged in the sport. Now that there are a lot of white champions, the white bashing media makes up stories of no blacks fighting in the US etc but the numbers show otherwise. A cynic might feel that at some point US media money will probably come in and "adjust" things to make the sport darker, just as they will no doubt attempt to "help" in fixing the problems the NBA is having in International Contests.
I do feel that there is a bit of panic with the emergence of some white sprinters and middle distance runners, white boxers, wholesale domination of MMA by whites and some latinos despite all the programs tossed black's way when it comes to various sports. It will be interesting to see what happens. Whatever does happen, you won't see the white sprinter project. All the money is in the black QB project. The black baseball project. Black boxing projects. The constant building and rebuilding of inner city gyms and park facilities. You get the idea.
As someone who has read Sports Illustrated since the mid-1960's, I agree with Jay Cutler's comments. I recall a Sports Illustrated story titled something like "Black Is Best," in either 1970 or 1971.
The sports media has tried to build up black quarterbacks for 40 years now. Does anyone remember a Sport Magazine article titled, "Eldridge Dickey's Mission?" Dickey was the Tennessee State quarterback in 1966-67.
Of course most jokes in the media are at the expense of whites. Why ? Because the punch lines are delivered by whites. Everyone in the media wants to be funny. Do you really expect the media which is primarily white to deliver jokes at the expense of Latinos or blacks ?. Whites crack on whites and blacks crack on blacks. In public anyway. Chris Rock and other black standup comedians have a field day cracking on black lifestyles. It makes perfect sense that most of the jokes in the white media are at the expense of whites. Why are you so sensitive ? Learn to laugh at yourself sometimes.
Regarding international basketball, most of the teams such as the Greeks spend a lot more time together. They play in various tournaments as a team every year. They have been playing together as a unit for decades. Team USA on the other hand is chopped and changed every single year. Maybe they are now trying to get some continuity going but this has never been the case.
I have been around high school and college track for years. I have relatives whose children took up track. I find it laughable that any parent would deny their kids a chance to compete because in your words "they would not get the recognition that blacks get". And how does this impact a white parent in Nebraska, Oregon, Upstate NY, Montana, Nevada and the dozens of states that have almost no black people ?
The notion that white parents are so easily brainwashed implies idiocy on the part of white parents. This is delusional on your part. All I see around me is white parents taking great pride when their kids star in track and field.
Blacks may be more intersted in sports but they dont take it as seriously. A typical black kid wants to go the court, hang out with his buddies, shoot a few 3s, try a few dunks , smoke some weed then go home at 12 am. And since they likely have no father figure they really can go home at 12 am. And there is no one out there to push them in the right direction sports wise. White parents on the other hand tend to pay a lot more detailed attention , make sure their kids are working on fundamentals, hire shooting coaches etc.
Whites do indeed have stronger upper bodies. But using the strongest man contest as a sign of white dominance is a straw man argument at best. How many blacks or Latinos participate in that sport ? That sport is primarily a European sport. Based on such logic, You might as well use the X Games as proof of white superior agility. In any case the strongest upper bodies people on earth are probably Pacific Islanders such as Samoans and Tongans. There is data to back this up. Should they take up
the strongest man contest in droves, the results could be different.
I disagree with the idea that the media fawns over blacks. Rather I think they are looking for sensational stories. The media dwells on black players arrests, drug charges, disfunctional behavior, real or imagined etc. Do you remember Bill Parcells crack about the Cuban missile crisis. They spend all day covering Terrell Owens in the vain hope that he will do something dysfunctional. All this while legit players who work hard on their games and do the right thing get no media coverage. If the media was so interested in upholding blacks, one would think that their focus would be on players like "marvin harrison " who arguably the best wide out yet he gets no coverage. The media will never cover his hard work , his charitable work. But as soon as he is stopped for a DUI, theres a media frenzy. So much for fawning over blacks.
Regarding Vick, he was not rated the worst QB in the league. There are at least a dozen starting QBs whose overall rating was worse. Vick kept his job because he did indeed win some games.
I found your quote below to be so ironic I did not think it warranted any comments
"The League is so desperate to make the sport entirely black that they’ll even slight another black athlete, Reggie Bush, just to give a second rate partial season starter like Vince Young the Rookie of the Year. "
A black player being slighted by the same media that fawns over blacks ? Do you begin to see how detached from reality you the "white discrimination crowd" are ?
In any case Vince Young was cheered by the media because the media simply likes sensational stories. A rookie QB winning an NFL game is a sensational story. Tom Brady got a lot more pub even long before the Patriots won the superbowl. A black QB is also sensational because for years we were told by so called experts that blacks lacked the innate intelligence to play QB. How often have we heard this ?
By the way there have always been great white middle distance runners and sprinters. I am not sure what planet you live in but havent you heard of Seb Coe, Steve Cram, Andre Bucher, Borzakovsky, Roger Black, Kenteris, Shirvo etc. Its not exactly a new phenomenon.
Regarding the white sprinter project, I would say that its ludicrous for several reasons. Firstly , European countries spend a lot more money on their track programs. far more than any Latin American Asian, Carribean or African country. Programs in Europe are equipped with the best coaches, sports medicine , facilities etc. Track and field is virtually none existent in most parts of Africa and Asia and much of Latin America save for a few. One can only imagine what would happen with a level playing field.
And if you are honest with yourself you will admit that private schools and suburban schools with their boosters are generally better equipped and better staffed that inner city schools, many of which might not even have enough money for chalk, much less T&F equipment.
"Blacks may be more intersted in sports but they dont take it as seriously. A typical black kid wants to go the court, hang out with his buddies, shoot a few 3s, try a few dunks , smoke some weed then go home at 12 am. And since they likely have no father figure they really can go home at 12 am. And there is no one out there to push them in the right direction sports wise. White parents on the other hand tend to pay a lot more detailed attention , make sure their kids are working on fundamentals, hire shooting coaches etc."
I guess you believe in their inate physical superiority, then, at least in football, basketball and, track? If they were as you say, how can they dominate those sports?
Perhaps, someone is actually working with the better black athletes more that the white athletes, at least at the college level? Also, most black athletes in football and, track probably come from the south, where blacks aren't cooped up in inner cities, or the inner cities are part of country school districts.
I think there is some private affirmative action thinking, along with a belief that blacks are just better athletes.
I dont believe in innate physical superiority. But I do believe that the slight physiological differences between blacks and whites means that whites are better at some sports and blacks are better than others. You dont have to believe me. Many White athletes have said so. Most experts agree and society in general has come to terms with it. It does not mean whites cannot be great sprinters or that Latinos cant be good power lifters or that blacks cant be good swimmers. But basketball and especially international basketball is increasingly a team sport which is by Kobe type players who are not team oriented are doomed to fail.
Regarding your assertion that most sprinters come from the South, I dont see any evidence of it. More seem to come from Cali.
Your assertion that college coaches focus more on black athletes is just more paranoia. Give coaches some credit.
Mr. Young,
Name one "so-called expert" since around 1967 who said publicly that blacks "lacked the innate intelligence to play QB."
A few points of correction:
1. Mike Vick had the second worst passing rating for a starting QB last year. The worst was Vince Young. If these guys were white they would be backups at best.
2. Your point about b-ball makes no sense. If all-white teams from Europe are beating all-black teams from the U.S., why is this not translating into more spots for whites in the NBA? Your contention that blacks are still better athletes individually is a prime example of the racism whites face. We beat blacks time and time again and still "blacks are the better individual athletes!" This is why we complain about anti-white discrimination in sports.
3. Private schools do have better coaches, equipment ..etc. But blacks are often recruited to these schools to play sports. Moreover, MLB has special academies in inner cities and Latin America to develop talent. Why no academies in the Ozarks or Appalachia?
4. I would love a level playing field in sports because we see who usually wins in international competitions (soccer, boxing, basketball, MMA ...etc) . But the myth of the superior black athlete remains (ever heard a white receiver referred to as a speedster?) And that impacts the percentages of the NFL, NBA and MLB.
There is a cultural aspect at work here, I think, that dovetails with race but is not, itself, biological. Different groups, and the parents and communities that are made up of them, have different thresholds of expectation when it comes to athletic achievement, and those expectations change as the group changes, either through evolution or through social engineering. When I was a kid, I played plenty of pickup games with blacks who couldn't shoot or control the ball; of course, there were those who could do all of the above far better than I. Typically, the latter were in programs where this was expected of them.
I was expected to hit freethrows. At basketball camp one summer, I had a little one-on-one coaching from Bill Hanzlik (Denver Nuggets). He told me that, as a big man in the middle, I needed to master three things: getting position, boxing out, and hitting freethrows. If you get position, you'll get hacked, and you'll be at the line a lot. So I shot hundreds of freethrows on my own, every day during the summers. My dad and my coaches expected me to hit them, and I did.
The dearth of white athletes does have something to do with race, because coaches and administrators (and parents) believe that black athletes are naturally better, so they expect more out of them, recruit them, give them more attention. What would happen if white parents (especially dads) expected more from and worked harder with their boys? Or if coaches did the same?
Not all black athletes have the hunger and drive to make achievements in sports, but a greater percentage do, in part, because of their place in society and the culture in which they find themselves. That same desire is inculcated in white athletes in, say, the former Yugoslavia, who excel in basketball, or in young baseball players in the Dominican Republic. But that doesn't mean that all Serbs are born with an innate ability to hit turnaround jumpshots, or that all young Dominicans are biologically predisposed to see a slider when it leaves the pitcher's hand.
A white sprinter project is definitely needed, but I am not sure if it will ever break black dominance of the sprinits. It is absurd to say that whites have ben demoralized into thinking that they cant sprint well, neither is it correct to say that the glaring absence of white world class sprinters is attributable to the glorification of the black sprinter by the media. The fact of the matter is that whites were dominant sprinters in a long ago era when the field of sports was not level. Lets face the facts. This un-levelness was exemplified by limited opportunities for black American sprinters, widespread and unashamed discrimination against them in all spheres of life. Above all, black sprinters of West Africa and the Caribbean were largely asleep, while the starting blocks were kept busy by white sprinters of Europe, North America and Australia.
Surely, if whites have been physcologically defeated into thinking that they cant sprint, how come this was so succesfully done on a global scale when we know for a fact that black people do not control the media? How do we account for the demise of the white sprinter in the countrries of Europe where blacks are a miniscule percentage of the population? Look at Britain, its sprinting prowess has been kept alive only because of its cadre of black sprinters of Caribbean and West African origin.
The same is true of France with Ronald Pognon ,and Portugal has imported former Nigerian Francis Obikwelu.
Where are the once mighty German sprinters today?
My point is that it cannot be coincidental that all of the 100m finalists in all the Olympic Games since Los Angeles in 1984, have been black,and that there have been 39 sprinters to go under 10 seconds in the 100m event - non being white. Out of that group, only one was not of western African heritage. Patrick Johnson of Australia is the only non-black. He is half irish and half aboriginee. No white, hispanic, native american, or Asian has achieved this magical number.
Jamaica has only 2.7 million people. It is a poor third world country with very limited resources. For years the island only had one synthetic running track, yet that did not stop the island from spawning sprinters who crossed the finish line first at the olympics of Seoul -Ben Johnson (later disqulified for drug violation and running for Canada),1992 -Linford Christie (running for Britain), 1996 -Donovan Bailey (runing for Canada). Now they have the world record holder- Asafa Powell. Compare this tremendous feat with Australia , Russia, Germany, Italy or other far wealthier countries which dominated the sprints when the black athlete was absent.
Thus the record speaks for itself. Res ipsa loquitur! The black sprinter is just simply better.I would love to see a white sprinters project, but I hardly think it will stop this avalanche of black athletic talent which is being unleashed on the world of spriniting.
If white people are fed up with white athletes being snobbed by
the NFL or other sports organizations, don't go to the over-
priced games and don't buy sports memorbalia. I am sure that
would cause some thought that there is something wrong
with the professinal sports organizations that needs alot of
fixing. It is disgraceful.
Sandi
when I was a young lad in Junior High I was embarassed by my body. I had a slender build of 140# at 5'7". My most shameful physical characteristic was my big bubble butt and protruding chest. I ran track in Junior High and High School until the butt became huge, the calves were skinny and incapable of holding up socks, my thighs were huge in proportion , thin feet, strong well muscled arms from lifting weights and a large private part.
It was not until I entered competition ,NCAA, at Abilene Christian and later Oklahoma State running the 100 and 220 that I realized the one above had actually blessed me in that I was in fact a white person built like a black sprinter. Physically at the Drake Relays you couldnt tell me apart from Trenton Jackson except the color. I love black sprinetrs bring em on.
Dick Engel
OSU '67
ACC '64
Interesting forum here.
During the 1930's, much discussion about 'Racial Purity' was in the air and,almost everywhere, National Socialism was on the rise.
I seem to recall that some entity completed anthropological screenings of 1930s era Olympic competitors.
Jesse Owens' physical attributes were found to be more caucasian than black.
Now, China has a world class hurdler.
Really simple statistics suggest that the really fast people will be found in really large populations.
We just might find that the fastest man (or woman) in the world will be a member of the human race.