Let’s begin with a reminder that the NFL draft is patently unfair to players entering the league. Yes, the draft has been an institution since 1936, and only a few individuals have challenged its authority. But that doesn’t make the process right.
You shouldn’t be obligated to work
in, say, Green Bay just because the Packers selected you. Barring any personal ties
to a city like Buffalo or Jacksonville, many young men wouldn’t start their
careers with the Bills or Jaguars if given a choice.
Players go where they’re sent because the system offers a nice bag while disregarding their personal desires. Bucking the time-honored tradition is almost inconceivable, requiring copious amounts of gall, ego and nerve from whoever might dare.
The public nature of a pro athlete’s
career path allows us to watch and wonder how we’d react under similar
circumstances.
Notwithstanding ginormous paychecks
that make change easier to swallow, athletes are subject to the same laws of human
nature we all face. Moving from one employer to another, adjusting to life in a
new city with a new boss and new co-workers, can unleash a flood of mixed
emotions. Especially at quarterback, the most glamourous position in sports.
One day you’re cut, tossed out like spoiled leftovers, but the next day you join a storied franchise to restore your reputation. That was Russell Wilson’s story last week when he signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was gonna smile no matter where he landed – the Denver Broncos owe him around $38 million and he still has Ciara – but now he’ll play under Mike Tomlin, whose 173 career wins ranks second among active NFL coaches and 13th on the all-time list.
In case you forgot what type of person she is,
LSU coach Kim Mulkey sent a reminder over the weekend.
It proved once again that she’s far from being
in South Carolina coach Dawn Staley’s neighborhood.
Maybe you saw clips of Sunday’s basketball game between undefeated South Carolina and bitter rival LSU, foes who have captured the last two national titles. The Gamecocks won – giving Staley four straight (second this season) against Mulkey – solidifying their No. 1 ranking in the Associated Press poll while leaving LSU unchanged at No. 8.
South Carolina survived Tennessee on
Saturday and outlasted LSU on Sunday to win the Southeastern Conference women’s
basketball tournament and remain undefeated this season. No other NCAA Division
I team has a perfect record.
Only seven other teams have
unblemished conference
records, including Jackson State (23-6 overall, 18-0 in the Southwestern
Athletic Conference).
The Tigers open play Wednesday in the SWAC tournament after winning their fifth consecutive regular-season title under head coach Tomekia Reed. She’s trying to reach the NCAA tournament for the third time in four years but already notched an unprecedented feat. The program received its first-ever vote in the Associated Press Top 25 poll.
MLK wasn’t the only person with a dream. At least he shouldn’t
be the only one.
Black Thought has visions of “Nat Turner holding his master’s
head – like Yorick and Horatio in Hamlet – smacking it like a tennis racket, underhanded.” Others among us invent less-violent
scenarios, maybe just building something to leave as a legacy for our offspring,
maybe locking arms with our white cousins and singing Kumbaya.
Marcus Garvey fantasized about a back-to-Africa movement where we’d pack our shit and be out. Segregationists like George Wallace and Strom Thurmond didn’t actually want us ALL the way gone (too many missing service workers); they craved returning to their notion of good ol’ days, when more Black folks were forced to “stay in their place.”
There are 21 conferences in the National Association of
Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). Only one is led by a Black woman
commissioner.
Effective July 1, that league will have a new name that
embraces its mission and membership: the HBCU Athletic Conference (HBCUAC),
with the tagline, “Where Winners Thrive.”
After serving for three years in an interim capacity, Kiki Baker Barnes was installed as permanent commissioner of the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference (GCAC) in June 2022. She said her leadership team worked with Black-owned marketing firm Ten35 for two years before choosing the new name.
Another youth sports event, another brawl amongst adults.
At least shots weren’t fired, which isn’t always said when similar
scenes unfold around the country. Thankfully, it appears no one was
seriously hurt Sunday during an incident that went viral. But the fight between former NFL star
Cam Newton and a couple football coaches at a 7-on-7 tournament in Atlanta was nonetheless
disturbing, raising a series of questions.
Why were they beefing? Who got physical first? Where was security?
Howard
recently became the only HBCU among more than 100 schools with a collegiate program under U.S. Figure Skating, the national
governing body for the sport. The Bison made history Saturday when they
competed in the Blue Hen Ice Classic at the University of Delaware.
Princeton, North Carolina State, Maryland and South Florida were
among schools that participated in the event. “It was our inaugural competition
and all of our kids skated amazingly,” Howard skating coach Joel Savary told
theGrio. “It was just an absolutely wonderful event.”
Savary said the Bison took nine skaters and they demonstrated specific skills in team maneuvers. He said junior Maya James competed and placed fifth in a solo competition that featured 11 schools. “That was really great, especially coming in as a brand new school,” Savary said. “We are really proud of them because there were a lot of schools participating. It was a great starting point for Howard University.”
When
you’re a #GirlDad like me, you want daughters like Coco Gauff. Sure, she’s a world-class
athlete and champion tennis player, but that’s not the part I’m talking about.
We
want our girls and young women to grow adept at social self-defense, prepared
for the seemingly inevitable moments when they’re publicly disrespected in a majority
white space. Maybe it’s in a corporate office that has few colored faces. Maybe
it’s on campus at a predominately white institution.
Or maybe it’s in Dubai during a recorded match with a scene that goes viral.
Sometimes the old geezer sitting on his porch and hollering
about the young’uns has a point. Generations often throw shade on their descendants,
suggesting they lack this or have an excess of that. But in the case of Pops vs.
Sunday’s NBA All-Star Game, the evidence is overwhelming:
Today’s players couldn’t care less about the exhibition that once
meant something to everyone.
“Back in my day” fans never saw an All-Star team surpass 200 points. They never saw the teams combine for 397 points. They never saw one team sink 42 three-pointers. You know another record set in the East’s 211-186 blowout against the West?
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