Blacks Athletics

To the degree that it is a purely scientific debate, the evidence of black superiority in athletics is persuasive and decisively confirmed on the playing field. --Jon Entine in his book "Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We're Afraid to Talk About It." * Who is Jon Entine and why is he saying those things? "It opens the door for people to talk about a very complex subject," Entine said.

John Woodruff, the black American runner who won the 800 meters in the 1936 Berlin Olympics in the face of Adolf Hitler and his "master race" agenda, has died. He was 92. Woodruff, the last surviving gold medalist from that U.S. team that included the legendary runner Jesse Owens, died Tuesday at an assisted living center near Phoenix, said Rose Woodruff, his wife of 37 years.

Only months after South Africa's all-white team was banned from the Olympic Games, Xolile Yawa was born into a poor black township home with a natural gift that apartheid could not destroy--the ability to run fast. Now, at 28, Yawa is one of the top distance runners in his country and, probably, the world. He holds national records. His best 10,000-meter time of 27:39 would have placed him fourth in the 1988 Games at Seoul.

BACK in 1978, after graduating from high school, about 20 of my friends went off to be college athletes. Some went with full scholarships, some went as walk-ins. Almost all were black. That fall, I visited two of my best friends, who were playing football for a Riverside County junior college. They'd been recruited by a celebrated coach and promised that they would be part of a great team. It was cold the night they played and won.

Stand underneath a basketball hoop, a regulation 10-footer. Look up. Lift up an arm and hop once or twice to get a feel for how far away the rim is. Don't try a big leap. I don't want anyone ripping rib-cage muscles or wrenching spinal disks. This story is not that important. Now imagine yourself crouching a bit, like Superman, and springing high into the air. Imagine yourself lifting off the blacktop, up and up, until you can reach into the air far above the rim. There.

An embarrassed CBS fired a contrite Jimmy (The Greek) Snyder Saturday after the sports commentator said in a much-criticized television interview that blacks were "bred" to be better athletes than whites. Snyder, who outraged civil rights leaders with this and other remarks about blacks in sports, reiterated a "heart-felt apology" he made after the interview was televised Friday, but raised the possibility he may sue CBS for dropping him.

Everybody knows who Jackie Robinson was. Lots of people know who Kenny Washington was. Pioneers. Individuals who fought for African-American rights in a day when it was a fight in the dark, when the support system was not forthcoming. They ministered to group esteem on the field and battled for it off the field. They made their country a better place. For everybody. But what about Woodrow Wilson Woolwine Strode? Only a few know his name, his part in this story.

The windup hasn't changed, nor has the delivery. Don Newcombe still throws his pitches high and tight. But instead of trying to strike out the Bronx Bombers, the former Dodger pitcher now faces a more challenging group of heavy hitters. On Tuesday, Newcombe made his pitch to high school students from Dorsey, Verbum Dei and Pasadena Muir. He reminisced about his old playing days, and he also managed to sneak a few curves past an unsuspecting audience.

"Eenie, meenie, minie, moe. Catch a tiger by the toe." We all learned that children's rhyme, some differently than others. Some didn't, and maybe still don't, say tiger, employing an 'N' word with racist overtones instead. George Campanis remembered Sunday making that mistake in his youth and remembered the beating as well. "It was the only time my dad took a belt to me," said Campanis on the Father's Day that George and Jimmy lost their father.

While President Clinton urged America to pursue Jackie Robinson's dream of racial equality Tuesday night, baseball ensured that Robinson forever will be remembered. Robinson's uniform number, 42, was retired throughout major league baseball on the 50th anniversary of the breaking baseball's color barrier. "In honor of Jackie," acting Commissioner Bud Selig said, "Major League Baseball is taking the unprecedented step of retiring his uniform number in perpetuity.

A study comparing the graduation rates of black college athletes at Division I colleges who began school in 1984 with those who enrolled in 1998 showed double-digit percentage increases among males and females. According to the study, released Thursday by the University of Central Florida's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, 52% of all black athletes who began school in 1998 graduated within six years, a 17% increase over the graduation rate of black athletes who enrolled in 1984.

The critics questioned Shani Davis' sense of patriotism. They questioned his loyalty to the other U.S. speedskaters after he skipped the team pursuit race last week to focus on individual events. Not one to do much talking to reporters, Davis answered his skeptics the best way he knew how. By skating fast. By skating into history. With a resounding victory in the 1,000 meters Saturday night, the 23-year-old from Chicago became the first black to earn individual gold at a Winter Olympics.

The pair of Olympic sprinters stood on the victory stand in Mexico City. As the U.S. national anthem played, each bowed his head and raised a black-gloved fist in protest of racial inequality in America. Gold medalist Tommie Smith cradled a boxed olive branch as an emblem of peace. John Carlos, third in the same 200-meter dash, wore love beads with his bronze medal. Their shoeless feet, clad in black socks, represented poverty among African Americans. The year was 1968.

Before the lunch bell rings each school day, I watch my students. Their eyes dance with excitement. Their bodies lean toward the door like sprinters awaiting the starter's gun. Their feet anxiously tap the floor. Then, at the sound of my voice, they are released from a fate worse than death -- history class. The girls run to various parts of the school, but the boys are off to the basketball courts. I was once one of these boys. As a youth, I loved basketball. I was faithful to my first love.

When Malcolm Wooldridge grew big and quick, when he became a high school football star, everyone said the same thing. Classmates and teachers told him. So did people around his Florida hometown. You've got it made, they said. You'll get a college scholarship. The recruiters who came to watch him play only reinforced this notion. Suddenly homework and grades seemed less important as the 6-foot-2, 300-pound teenager devoted himself to taking care of business on the football field.

It's no big surprise that Balzac died of caffeine poisoning. Considering that he wrote some 80 novels in 30 years, it may stand to reason he was hyped up on something. Somehow, in addition to that extraordinary outpouring of prose, Balzac also managed to write a handful of plays, among them, "Mercadet, the Napoleon of Finance." In Robert Cornthwaite's new translation at the Ivy Substation, Balzac's 150-year-old comedy spans the centuries with sprightliness intact. The Antaeus Company, highly praised for last year's revival--also at the Ivy Substation--of Arthur Miller's "The Man Who Had All the Luck," has had good luck itself digging into the archives for obscure classics.

Jeff Commings became the first black gold-medalist swimmer, and two records fell Sunday night as the swimming competition got off to a swift start in the U.S. Olympic Festival at Minneapolis. Commings, who lives in the St. Louis suburb of Black Jack, Mo., easily won the 100-meter breast- stroke in 1 minute 4.34 seconds--the second-fastest time in Festival history. The muscular 16-year-old swimmer beat silver medalist Eric Jones of Bedford, N.H.

Reggie Jackson was saying Monday that he didn't want to sell himself as "a folk hero," but that the best part of his election to the Hall of Fame has been the response of friends and strangers. "It's as if everyone from my generation feels a part of it and is sharing it with me," Jackson said. "It's as if everyone I've met feels as if they have a piece of it. I always thought I understood what the Hall of Fame means, but now I know I didn't."

To the degree that it is a purely scientific debate, the evidence of black superiority in athletics is persuasive and decisively confirmed on the playing field. --Jon Entine in his book "Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We're Afraid to Talk About It." * Who is Jon Entine and why is he saying those things? "It opens the door for people to talk about a very complex subject," Entine said.

Family members, friends and some of those who worked beside him. Those are the only people who might have other memories. For anyone else who learned about Al Campanis' death, the first thing that came to mind was that infamous appearance on "Nightline" in April 1987. No need to even see the clip again. How many of us can't vividly remember Campanis sitting in the Astrodome, a glassy look on his face, digging himself a deeper hole with every word he said?