Justice always deserves a second look

Sporting News, The, Feb 19, 1996 by Richard Lapchick

We frequently read about athletes and coaches who are in trouble with the law. Stories assume their circumstances tell us things about the destructive nature of sport on some human psyches. There is an assumption that such stories may be about athletes as a whole. There are few denials of that image. Many seem ready to believe the worst, especially as African American athletes have come to dominate our most popular sports.

Over the past decade, several misconceptions have developed, among them equating:

* Low graduation rates with athletes being "dumb."

* Drug use by some with athletes being drug users as a pack.

* The cases of a notable -- but not extraordinary -- number of football and basketball players who have assaulted women with the dangerous assumption that playing those sports makes them more inclined to battering women.

My point? We are ready to stereotype athletes, especially in sports African Americans play in most, as being on the edge of the criminal world. As with all stereotypes, these are hazardous, powerful and extremely harmful.

There are athletes and coaches who are bad people -- some are even evil. But I have not seen anything that convinces me there is something about playing or coaching sports that made them bad and evil. There are bad and evil policemen, but I don't believe that being a cop made them that way. I am convinced that perceptions of race are a factor.

It is easier to be in denial than to accept the reality that many have learned to hate on the basis of skin color or religion.

When an African American church is destroyed by fire, white police and fire officials frequently assume it was accidental; when a black man is killed by police, most whites accept that the Eves of the officers were at risk; when Jewish people cringe after seeing anti-Semitic graffiti, some may think them to be paranoid; when an all-white jury sees an incontrovertible videotape of a black man being beaten by white men, it can somehow equate the attack with a defense against a menacing black male.

You can go through history an(i see such patterns. But you still can be in denial. However, some recent stories about bigger than-life sports figures have made us look twice.

When the Packers played the Cowboys and the Steelers battled the Colts in the NFI's conference championship, the Packers' Reggie White and the Steelers' Ray Seals were the focus of major stories.

White was as admired as any player in either game. Five weeks earlier, White was supposed to have year-ending surgery. On the day of the scheduled surgery, White announced he would continue to play. He said his god gave him a miracle.

There were no miracles the Monday before the game, however, when 18 incendiary devices were set off and racist graffiti was found on the walls at the Inner City Community Church in Knoxville, Tenn., where White is co-pastor.

Original reports indicated it was an accident, with no word of graffiti. It received national attention only because it was White's church. Me three other predominantly black churches in Tennessee that were fire-bombed in 1995 received no national attention. Our eyes were forced open because it was an athlete's church.

Many people in the North would like to believe such an incident is a "Southern thing." These people must confront the case of Seals and his cousin and business partner, Johnny Gammage. Seals, a defensive end, lent his jaguar with Florida plates to damage, who was stopped by the police, handcuffed, and forced to the ground in the prone position. The police insist lie was a threat to them.

Eight minutes after being stopped, Gammage's pulse stopped and he died of asphyxiation from compression to his neck and upper chest. Three policemen are now charged with involuntary manslaughter. If it was simply another black man in Pittsburgh or any other city, would they have been charged? But this was Ray Scals' cousin, so we found out more than the usual police denial to a brutality charge.

Then there was the following case: On January 22, the long Beach State men's basketball team played New Mexico State in Las Cruces. There were anti-Semitic slurs written in the visiting dressing room aimed at Long Beach Coach Seth Greenberg, who is Jewish. Neil McCarthy, the New Mexico State coach said, "If it happened, I'm sorry." If it happened? The university's president implied Greenberg overreacted, apparently thinking the coach should have simply swallowed the poisonous pill.

These cases unfortunately demonstrate the depth of prejudice in America and how hard it is for African Americans to obtain justice without personal public prominence to force a second look. Once again, sports teaches us lessons on life. It should also teach us not to stereotype all athletes when some -- or even quite a few -- commit criminal acts.

Richard Lapehick is director Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society and a regular columnist for The Sporting News.