50 years of black women in sports

Ebony, Nov, 1995 by Cheryl Miller

When I was asked to write this article, I wasn't sure that I would be able to capture the true essence of the journey that Black American women athletes have traveled in the last 50 years. But as I started to think about it, I that their journey is one of the reasons I am The courage and determination of great American women athletes like Althea Gibson, Earlene Brown and Wilma Rudolph, to name a few, helped not only Black women but also played an important part in breaking down color and gender barriers in society.

My father and mother, Saul Miller Sr. and Carrie Miller, both played sports when they were young, and they faced all lands of racial injustices. My mother played on an all-black basketball team, and was not allowed to play with White teams. My father had the size and talent to play in the National Basketball Association confined to the Negro Basketball leagues and never got a chance at the big prize. Like so many men and women of his generation, he was a few years too early, and when I asked him about that time in his life, I see a strange look in his eyes. Though he doesn't say it, I know that his struggles helped pave the way for many, including his own kids. He lives his dreams through ours all five of us.

Because my father lived through an age Of extreme prejudice, he developed interesting philosophy that I have come to live by.

He told us that if White coach had to choose between a Black athlete and a White athlete of similar skills, he would choose the White athlete. Every time. The moral therefore was that it was not enough for us to be good--we had to be flat out better. He instilled that in all of us from the beginning, and that attitude rubbed off on all of us. A lot of people look at my brother Reggie [Miller] and myself and think that we are cocky and arrogant, and maybe we are but only in the sense that we believe in ourselves and our talent.

Being a Black woman athlete, I have personally seen a lot of racial and gender bias. I was 13 years old, for example, when I tried out for an all-male basketball team. The coach, who was White, told me that if I could beat his son in a one-on-one game to 11 points, I could play on the team. I trounced him, 11 to 1 , and asked the coach when I should report to practice. He looked me straight in the eye and said, "Miller, the only court I'll see you in will be a court of law. No girl will ever play on my team.- I ran home crying and told my dad that I was quitting and that I never wanted to play basketball again. He sat me up straight and said: "I didn't raise any quitters. Tomorrow you will try out for the girls team and become the best who ever played."

This was a turning point in my life. From that moment on, I never accepted being second best.

It was during high school that I started getting interested in the struggles of Black women athletes who had persevered and triumphed over cruel hardships. I remember reading an article on Althea Gibson. I was impressed and inspired because she always maintained that she was a tennis player, not a Negro tennis player. Her triumphs as the first Black winner (male or female) of the U.S. Open and Wimbledon led many to compare her with Jackie Robinson. And what I remember today about her was that she refused to see herself as a Negro who made it in sports but as a human being whose talent, skill and determination were at the core of her athletic success. In the last 50 years, our society has changed in many ways. We still have racism, but we are breaking new barriers in all walks of life, including sports, which has always been a great barrier breaker, going all the way back to Jesse Owens uniting our nation, Blacks and Whites, against Hitler.

There have always been great Black athletes, but awareness of the Black female athlete has changed dramatically in the last 50 years, primarily because of television. I remember my senior year in high school and how excited everyone was when a local TV crew covered our games.

The 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, one of the media capitals of the world, did a lot for Black women athletes. The whole world was watching, and a number of Black women athletes gave them something to think about. When I won a gold medal as a member of the USA women's basketball team somebody wrapped an American flag around me. I must have seen myself with that flag around my shoulders at least a hundred times on TV and in magazines. Now that image is on an Upper Deck basketball card.

Wilma Rudolph dominated the 1960 Olympics, winning three gold medals. Can you imagine the attention she would have attracted had she achieved this in the media glare of the Barcelona Games of 1992? She probably could have had her own TV series.

Wilma Rudolph helped transform track, and a lot of great Black women helped make basketball what it is. When I was a kid, I admired Lusia Harris of Delta State University. As the first true big center in women's basketball, she dominated the 1976 Olympics and was later elected to the Hall of Fame. She is now a high school teacher in Mississippi. I wonder if her students know she is one of the reasons women's basketball has become so popular.