Are we putting too much emphasis on sports? - Blacks in Sports: The Next 45 Years

Ebony, August, 1992 by Harry Edwards

Leading authority examines the pros and cons of a hotly debated issue

THIS question is rooted in a long-standing debate over the reasons for disproportionately high Black athletic representation in advanced levels of basketball, football, baseball, boxing and track. There is, on the one hand, the still prevalent, ill-informed and substantially racist argument that African-Americans are biogenetically different, distinct and uniquely endowed with some presumed gene-based, race-linked capacity for sports achievement. Sports participation is therefore perceived as a "natural" and immutable Black calling.

In point of fact, there has never been a scientific study linking any supposed physical or genetic characteristics of race to athletic competence. Secondly, "race"--particularly in America--is fundamentally a socially and culturally ascribed status, not a biogenetically determined reality.

In truth, at the foundation of Black domination and disproportionately high representation in major sports is an exaggerated and inordinate social and cultural emphasis upon sports achievement as a social and economic mobility vehicle. This overemphasis has been generated, abetted and sustained by a broad range of interrelated societal, institutional and African-American influences.

When the Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson to a major league baseball contract in 1946, followed in the 1950s by the signing of increasing numbers of Black athletes to professional contracts in football and basketball as well as in baseball, a door was thrown open in what had been virtually a solid wall of discrimination obstructing Black access and participation across the spectrum of national American institutional life.

Since the 1950s, with the exception of the military and the penal system--both of which have serious downside risks and/or consequences relative to involvement--no institution has provided access proportionate to the representation of African-Americans in major sports.

The almost universal perception that sport, among All American institutions, offers African-Americans unique socioeconomic and career advancement opportunities has prompted Black parents to be four times more likely than White parents to view their children's participation in sport not as mere recreation, but as a start down the road to a professional sports career. Similarly, Black parents are more likely than White parents to see their children's sports participation as a potential economic mobility vehicle for the entire family.

The exaggerated emphasis upon athletic achievement in the Black family is further intensified by the disproportionate coverage given Black athletes, their athletic accomplishments, rewards and lifestyles by the print and broadcast media. The deference paid by the educational system to Black sports achievement further compounds the already exaggerated Black sports emphasis. National Collegiate Athletic Association data indicate that in 1991, virtually every major Division I traditionally White university had higher proportions of Blacks in its football and basketball programs than in its general student populations. (At the University of California at Berkeley, for instance, NCAA figures show that while only 6.9 percent of all students enrolled were Black, 53.3 percent of the basketball players where Black as were 43.5 percent of the football players. Further, many of the athletes enrolled were admitted with test scores and high school grade-point averages that were lower than the test scores and grade-point averages of non-athlete Black students whose admission applications were rejected.)

Because high proportions of Black youths with star athlete potential are channeled toward sports careers. Black athletes dominate all sports to which they have access in numbers. But there have also been other outcomes that, at least in part, are the result of this over-emphasis.

First, critical areas of the Black athlete's personal and cultural development have been so overshadowed by the demands and consequences of sports participation that many emerge from the athletic experience seriously impaired relative to their abilities to compete or to make their way as responsible, productive adults in the broader society.

Secondly, to some degree in consequence of so many of its most competitive youths being channeled toward sports, Black society is diminished in its ability to motivate and move requisite numbers of capable Black youths to fulfill extremely important roles in institutions outside of sports--in medicine, education, law, the media, public service, and so forth.

The combination of continuing racist discrimination against Blacks throughout America's high prestige occupational structure, the malignant neglect of Black poor and urban disadvantaged populations by successive federal administrations over most of the last two and a half decades, the abandonment of the Black community by significant segments of the Black middle class, and deficiencies in broad spectrum career aspirations and preparation by African-American youth portend crises of unprecedented proportions for both Black society and this nation--crises that are already well this side of the horizon.