|
| |
 |
ArticleBot V1.0: Submit Your Articles to More Than 400
Top Of The Line Article
Directories Completely
On Autopilot For Massive Backlinks...
HOT!Requires: Windows |
|
Black college quarterbacks used to be a novelty outside of the traditional Black colleges of the southeast. Conventional wisdom before about 1975 held that Blacks could not hold leadership positions on the field, and the split second decision making required of college quarterbacks and middle linebackers was more than Blacks could handle.
Since then, Black quarterbacks like Warren Moon, James Harris, Doug Williams and Randall Cunningham rendered such thinking a canard. Now, Black college...
•Dontrelle Willis Struggles to Regain Form
Dontrelle Willis took the big leagues by storm when he arrived with the Florida Marlins in 2003. He went 14-6, threw two shutouts, was voted National League Rookie of the Year, and helped the Marlins upset the Yankees in the World Series.
Two years later his record was 22-10, his ERA was 2.63, he led the National League with seven complete games and five shutouts, and finished a close second to Chris Carpenter in the Cy Young Award voting. As a 6-4, 235 pound left-handed pitcher, he seemed...
•Pioneering Black Quarterback Builds Career in Football Administration
When it comes to black quarterbacks, Doug Williams was not the first and he was not the best. But in many ways he is as important a figure in the evolution of pro football quarterbacking as Jackie Robinson was in paving the way for Blacks in Major League Baseball.
What Williams did was win, and win big, as quarterback for the Washington Redskins. Williams was MVP of Super Bowl XXII in 1988, beating John Elway and the Denver Broncos 42-10. Of the many Black quarterbacks, he remains the only one...
•Career Minor Leaguer Darnell McDonald Putting it All Together For Boston Red Sox
As spring training ended in April, it appeared that outfielder Darnell McDonald was facing another season of minor league life.
Cut by the Boston Red Sox, who were loaded with outfielders owning guaranteed contracts, McDonald, 31, was on his way to Pawtucket, R.I. for another six months of pre-dawn wakeup calls, insufficient meal money and subsistence-level compensation. He had brief shots in the majors with the Orioles, Twins, and Reds and had failed to impress. At the end of the day it...
•Black Hockey Player From Midwest Helps Bring Stanley Cup to Chicago
The only minority in sports smaller than black hockey players might be obese jockeys, but Dustin Byfuglien of the Chicago Blackhawks beat the odds on June 9 when he hoisted the Stanley Cup after his team beat the Philadelphia Flyers 4-3 in overtime.
Byfuglien (pronounced Buff-lin) was born in Minnesota to Norwegian-American Cheryl Byfuglien and African American Ricky Spencer. Growing up in Minnesota and Chicago, Dustin was exposed to hockey and immediately became one of the top players in the...
•2010 Football World Cup: 32 Nations Come Together in Country Famous For Segregation
On June 17, at the 2010 Football World Cup put on by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), 32 nations will come together in a celebration of the highest level of the world’s most popular sport, soccer. They will do this in South Africa, a country infamous for sanctioned apartheid, perhaps the vilest form of segregation against Blacks.
Starting in 1948, the Nationalist Government in South Africa enacted laws to define and enforce segregation. With the enactment of...
•L.A. Sparks Star Candace Parker Throws Weight Behind Anti-Fur Campaign
Candace Parker embodies athleticism, beauty and grace in her roles as Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) star, young mother, and corporate spokesperson. Now, she has decided to use her attributes on behalf of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in a campaign discouraging the use and purchase of fur coats.
"I feel very passionate about the fur campaign for PETA," says Parker. "I really feel like it's very cruel what [fur businesses] do to animals. … Animals don't...
•Reaction to Donovan McNabb Trade Depends on Commentator’s Point of View
It seems these days opinions regarding events in Washington go straight down party lines, and the Donovan McNabb trade was no exception. If you live in the nation’s capitol you love it, and if you’re from Philadelphia you wonder why the Eagles would do such a thing.
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell said he was “less than enamored” with the trade. "I'm not convinced [new quarterback Kevin Kolb] has a strong enough arm to be very much more than...
•Charlotte Bobcats Ownership Transfers to Legend and Local Son Michael Jordan
Bob Johnson’s ownership of the Bobcats team was rocky from the beginning. Since he paid the NBA $300 million for the expansion franchise in 2003, the founder of Black Entertainment Television hasn't come close to turning a profit because of poor attendance, lagging sponsorship sales and a failed attempt to start a regional sports television network.
The team’s attendance averaged just over 14,000 per game and ranked 26th of 30 NBA teams last year.
There has also been some talk that the...
•Expos, Cubs Slugger Joins Baseball Hall of Fame
Andre Dawson’s rare combination of power and speed was recognized with Hall of Fame enshrinement by the Baseball Writers Association of America this past January when he was the only player to be named on more than 75 percent of ballots.
Willie Mays and Barry Bonds join Dawson as the only players in baseball history with both 400 homeruns and 300 stolen bases. Dawson is also the only player from a last place team to be voted National League Most Valuable Player, an award he won in 1987 as a...
•Stephen Curry Following Father Dell’s NBA Footsteps, May Surpass Them
At age 21, rookie Stephen Curry is half of one of the most dynamic backcourts in the NBA, with Monta Ellis, for the Golden State Warriors. With the team winning fewer than 30 percent of its games, the rise of Curry and comparisons with his father, former NBA star Dell Curry, are about all Warrior fans have to cheer about.
Both of Stephen’s parents were star athletes at Virginia Tech, Dell in basketball and his mother Sonya in volleyball. Despite his parentage, Stephen Curry was snubbed by the...
•Shani Davis Overcomes Long Odds to Become Olympic Speed Skating Champion
Olympic speed skating is often the province of Europeans and their North American descendants. African American Shani Davis, a product of Chicago’s Southside projects, has broken that mold and brought home multiple medals.
In 2006, Davis took home the Olympic gold in the men's 1,000 meters and a silver medal in the 1,500 meters long-track speed skating events. He is scheduled to participate in five individual events in Vancouver this month. Shani and his mother, Cherie Davis, who is often by...
•Jim Crow League For White Basketball Players
According to All American Basketball Alliance founder and commissioner Don “Moose” Lewis, what the sports landscape needs is a new professional league limited to White basketball players that emphasizes fundamentals and promotes White mainstream cultural values.
Lewis said he wants his White basketball players to emphasize fundamental basketball instead of “street-ball” played by “people of color.” He pointed out recent incidents in the NBA, including Gilbert Arenas’ indefinite suspension...
•When One Mistake is a Gun Mistake Sports Careers Can be Jeopardized
Violence in sports committed by athletes, especially when guns are involved, can affect and even end careers. Even an athlete’s freedom could be at risk.
Ask New York Giants receiver Plaxico Burress, who in 12 months went from Super Bowl hero to prison inmate without his gun leaving his pocket. Now, Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas is facing questions by authorities for bringing a gun into the locker room, ostensibly to impress a teammate who had lost money to Arenas in a card game on a...
•Chris Henry’s Personal Renewal Cut Short With Accidental Death
Two years ago Chris Henry was the poster boy for bad personal conduct in the NFL. A series of arrests led the Cincinnati Bengals to let him go in 2007. A few months later, over the objections of head coach Marvin Lewis, Bengals owner Mike Brown re-signed Henry to a two-year contract, insisting that Henry would turn his life around.
Chris Henry had stayed out of trouble since then, heeding warnings from Lewis that his next misstep would be his last as a member of the Bengals. He settled down...
•Reviving Baseball in Inner-Cities a Priority For MLB
In 1975, nearly one out of every four major league players was African American. From the 1950s to the 1970s, baseball tended to be the first choice for the best Black athletes. Baseball careers were longer and salaries were higher than those in other sports.
That began to change by the end of the 1970s. The NFL had surpassed baseball in popularity, and the Larry Bird/Magic Johnson NCAA final in 1979 led to an explosion of popularity and financial strength for the NBA and for basketball in...
•Black Football Players Speak Out Against Limbaugh
If one were to Google “lightning rod” a picture of conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh might appear. In 2003, Limbaugh may have made himself millions of enemies in the African American community by stating on ESPN that Philadelphia Eagles’ quarterback Donovan McNabb was overrated and playing largely because the media wanted to see a Black quarterback succeed. He was forced to resign his post as an NFL commentator on that network. Now, he may become the employer to dozens of Black football...
•Kimbo Takes a Slice of Ultimate Fighting Championships
Americans are suckers for Horatio Alger stories. In a typical Alger tale a young boy, often an immigrant, grows up on the mean streets and overcomes seemingly insurmountable obstacles to grab his slice of the American Dream.
Even Alger could not imagine the obstacles faced by Kimbo Slice as he rose from birth to a disadvantaged family in the Bahamas, to a severely underprivileged childhood in Miami where he honed his street-fighting skills, to ultimately become one of America’s most feared and...
•Matt Kemp, A Hit For Los Angeles Dodgers
Nicknamed “The Bison” because of his long strides, great strength, and animal-like intensity, Matt Kemp, 25, of the Los Angeles Dodgers is an African American baseball star who seems ready to make his mark on the national stage in October.
The 6-2, 230 pound Kemp will be responsible for anchoring the Dodger outfield during what the team hopes will be a deep run in the playoffs. The Dodgers have had the best record in the National League for most of the season.
Matt Kemp plays centerfield...
•Where Are All the Black College Football Coaches?
The on-field workforce is about 50 percent African American.
Middle management is about 30 percent African American.
Of those one-step from the top rung, 20 percent are African American.
Yet at the very top; where the apparel contracts, TV shows, courtesy cars, and alumni influence mean big, life changing money, Black college football coaches make up about three percent of the total amount of head coaches in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), which until 2008 was known as NCAA Division...
•Legal Sports Betting: The Risk Vs. The Reward
Four states had legal sports betting on their books in 1992 when the federal government banned states from the bookmaking business, and grandfathered in existing legal sports gambling in Nevada, Montana, Oregon, and Delaware.
Of those states, Nevada has a thriving sports book business while the other three had various forms of lottery games that involved sports. In May, Delaware attempted to join Nevada and get a piece of the estimated $400 billion that is wagered annually, legally and...
•African Americans in Sports and the Absent Father
Much has been made recently of the dearth or decline of African Americans in sports like baseball, lacrosse, golf, soccer, swimming, and hockey and the dominance of African Americans in sports like basketball, football, and track.
There have been nearly as many theories and explanations as there are pundits. It has been said that African Americans concentrate on sports that can be played in densely populated urban areas, that don’t require large initial investments, and that are largely...
•James Stewart Breaks Barriers In Extreme Sport, Super Motocross
Born in 1985, James “Bubba” Stewart has been called the “Tiger Woods of super motocross” because of his domination of a sport as an African American with mostly Caucasian competitors. A better term for Stewart might be the “Jackie Robinson of super motocross.”
Like Robinson, and unlike Woods, Stewart is the first African American in the big leagues of his sport, and like Robinson, Stewart came from humble beginnings and has had to withstand racial slurs and bigotry while winning events.
The...
•Mike Grier, First American Born Black NHL Player
It is well known that Willie O’Ree of the 1958 Boston Bruins was the first National Hockey League player of African descent. But, except for seven games that Val James played for Buffalo in 1981, it wasn’t until Mike Grier played for Edmonton, Washington and San Jose from 1996 through today that an African American player was able to have a meaningful career in the NHL.
Grier came from a football family. His father, Bobby Grier is a former NFL running back coach and current Associate Director...
•Derek Jeter Shines as the Yankees' Captain
Fifty years ago, more than a decade after Jackie Robinson’s debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers, no one would have guessed that the Yankees captain could someday be African American.
The man who ran the franchise, Hall-of-Famer George Weiss, felt that African Americans on the field and in the stands would offend wealthy White patrons from nearby Westchester County.
The man who ran the team, Hall of Famer Casey Stengel, publicly referred to Elston Howard, his first African American player, as...
•African Americans in Sports Still Not Pursuing Golf
The phrase African Americans in sports conjures up many images, including soaring dunks in basketball, broken field runs in football, majestic homeruns in baseball and world records in track and field.
Thanks to Tiger Woods, one of those images is clutch play in the world’s most important golf tournaments featuring mental toughness and ruthless exploitation of the game and its best players. Yes, Tiger has brought golf into the forefront of African Americans in sports imagery, but so far that...
•The Lack of African Americans in Baseball
The number of African Americans in baseball had been shrinking for more than 30 years, from a high of 27 percent of major leaguers in 1975 to an all time low of 8.2 percent in 2007. That 8.2 percent figure held steady in 2008 before Major League Baseball saw an uptick for the first time since 1975 this year when African Americans in baseball made up 10.2 percent of major league rosters.
While no one knows for sure why there was such a steep decline in African Americans in baseball for nearly...
|
|