Sports World Closest To MLK’s Dream
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By DERON SNYDER
The Los Angeles Lakers and Dallas Mavericks capped an 11-game schedule on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which has become a sacred day on the NBA calendar.
Home teams prepare special MLK tributes to be played in their arenas. The Indiana Pacers did a collaborative reading of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. The Washington Wizards went with a couple of players sharing their thoughts — as Steve Wonder played in the background — interspersed with clips from the March on Washington.
ESPN got into the spirit with a weeklong series of orginal programming entitled Content of Character. It included a roundtable of journalists, scholars and former athletes discussing the King’s legacy and how it affects sports. Among the stories examined were the familiar — former home run king Hank Aaron’s rise from Mobile, Ala., to the Hall of Fame — and the unfamilia: Kareem Rosser’s rise from inner-city Philadelphia to a national polo championship and scholarship to Cornell.
