Before this year, I had never watched a NASCAR race from start
to finish and never caught portions unless channel surfing or ESPN showed
highlights. I certainly never tuned in for pre-race shows on the weekend or
racing news shows during the week. Football and basketball drew the lion’s
share of attention – personally and professionally – though three decades as a
sportswriter include a long stint covering baseball for a national publication.
But everything changed in February with the Daytona 500.
I was attracted to a black-and-gold
car that honored Grambling State University, royalty
among Historically Black Colleges and Universities. I was impressed by the
unprecedented number of Black owners (4) with cars in the race. And I was
reminded that Bubba Wallace remains the one and only Black driver in the Cup
Series.
Daytona led to deeper interest and increased knowledge, eventually
overpowering any disbelief: I had
become a Black NASCAR fan.
That’s great news for the industry and it’s not by accident.
Well before the flashpoint of George Floyd’s murder in May 2020
– and NASCAR two weeks later banning the Confederate flag at its racetrack – officials
realized the necessity of expanding geographically and demographically. That meant
putting new tracks in major markets outside the traditional Southeast base, and
increasing the number of minorities who engage with racing, whether as fans,
owners, drivers or employees.
Having watched multiple races this year (Cup, Xfinity, Truck and
ARCA!), I was pumped to visit a track for the first time. Fans told me TV doesn’t
convey the true sense of speed, power, and energy. You have to see it and hear
it in order to feel it. The trip to Richmond Raceway would be a welcome new
experience. That’s all I wanted from the second weekend of August, a Truck race
and a Cup race, up close and personal.
We need a scale to compare but we want less evidence to weigh. While the impact of offenses varies, there’s an overabundance of perpetrators, including police, politicians, preachers, and public figures. And that’s before we reach the ranks of random white folks.
A bunch of the latter gathered Friday for a women’s volleyball game at Brigham Young University, where Duke sophomore Rachel Richardson tweeted that “my fellow African American teammates and I were targeted and racially heckled throughout the entirety of the match. The slurs and comments grew into threats which caused us to feel unsafe.”
Her godmother, Texas-based attorney and judicial candidate Lesa Pamplin, tweeted that Richardson “was called a n— every time she served. She was threatened by a white male that told her to watch her back going to the team bus.” A police officer was placed near the bench after players complained. BYU officials, hosts of the doTERRA Classic tournament, moved Duke’s Saturday game to an off-campus site and banned a fan from the Cougars’ athletic venues.
On the grand scale of things, this incident isn’t close to a tipping point.
It’s not Derek Chauvin’s knee on George Floyd or 17 state legislatures’ passage of restrictive voting laws. It’s not the evangelical right’s racist zeal or Tucker Carlson’s nightly poison. It’s no match for the homicidal rage of Average Joes who might shoot up a Black church or supermarket.
But it’s also not just one ignorant bigot berating Black girls.
When’s the last time you changed your mind after reconsidering a controversial issue, re-examining unintended consequences and recalibrating the pros and cons? It happened to me this week regarding transgender athletes, and being on the other side of the debate feels weird.
But thanks to a conversation with my editor and the action of some sore-loser parents in Utah, I now see the blind spot of my previous stance. I understand the danger of banning transgender girls from competing in girls’ sports. The critics were right: Such measures will be weaponized and do more harm than good, especially against Black and brown girls.
In case you missed it, parents of girls in a state-level competition lodged a complaint with the Utah High School Activities Association. They questioned the winner’s gender after she “outclassed” the field. The UHSAA investigated her enrollment records and learned she’s been a girl in every grade since kindergarten. Neither the girl nor her family knew about the inquiry, sparing them unnecessary angst. But it shouldn’t be that easy to start some mess.
A UHSAA representative said the association has received other complaints, including the simplistic “that female athlete doesn’t look feminine enough.” We took “every one of those complaints seriously,” David Spatafore told state legislators. “We followed up on all of those complaints with the school and the school system.”
And that’s the problem right there, launching investigations whenever girls fall outside the preconceived notion of what they should look like. Black girls and women historically are treated cruelly under those standards.
Look at his face. That young Black
Little League player, suffering aggressions large and micro from white peers, was
all of us Sunday night. As his hair was littered
with cotton puffs (technically fake cotton, but whatever), his facial
expression varied, morphing between the pain of abuse and the numbness of acceptance.
That’s the emotional daily double
we must endure – attempting to fit in and play nice – while America continues
to mess us over and act like it’s not.
“That’s just Little Leaguers being
Little Leaguers right there,” ESPN announcer
Karl Ravech said as the incident unfolded in the stands during Sunday’s Orioles-Red
Sox game. A fellow announcer was equally clueless. “Right on, right?” he said.
“When in Rome.”
Christians were fed to lions in
Rome, so who’s who in this scenario? But don’t worry. Those little white boys didn’t
mean anything by sticking cotton in that black boy’s hair!
“We have spoken with the player’s
mother and the coaches, who have assured us that there was no ill-intent behind
the action shown during the broadcast,” Little League International said
Monday in a statement. LLI, hosting the Little League Series where the scene
occurred, said multiple members of the Midwest Region team (mostly from around
Davenport, Iowa) took part in the activity “while enjoying the game. As only
one player appeared on the broadcast, (we) understand that the actions shown
could be perceived as racially insensitive.”
Perceived as? My ass.
Everyone involved – including parents and coaches who should know better – is guilty of massive insensitivity and gross offense. Whether it’s done out of ignorance or hate, playing with cotton and Black hair is like lighting dynamite along racial fault lines; major fissures grow deeper and spread.
Rajah Caruth’s devotion to world-class athletic pursuits started with multiple sports. He shot hoops, played soccer, and ran track growing up. He explored a common childhood interest in transportation with his father, visiting airports and rail yards to watch planes and trains come and go.
Caruth’s normal veered sharply and accelerated into a narrower lane of sports and interests several years ago. And he’s speeding through it.
The junior at Winston-Salem State University has quickly become a standout in auto racing, not just for his uncharacteristic success but also for his limited experience and unprecedented path from a Washington high school to racetracks around the country.
His next step toward establishing himself will be this weekend at Richmond Raceway in Virginia when he competes for the second time in NASCAR’s Camping World Truck Series (kind of like Double-A baseball).
Caruth races full time with Rev Racing in the ARCA Menards Series (a feeder circuit for NASCAR’s three national series), leading that circuit virtually all season until Aug. 8, when he dropped to second in the standings. In April at Richmond – where he attended his first NASCAR race at age 12 – Caruth debuted in the Xfinity Series (considered the second-highest level of competition in NASCAR). He started 22nd and finished 24th, perfectly respectable and arguably excellent for a driver’s first spin in those cars.
His initial foray in the Truck Series in June was outright impressive, finishing 11th after starting 19th in the lineup. Following that race, Spire Motorsports signed Caruth to drive more this season. By year’s end, 20 ARCA races, four Truck races, and seven Xfinity races should be in his rearview mirror.
Lining up a bunch and smashing
each one until they’re flattened into dust, whack-a-mole style, is better.
Serena Williams is like that. So
is her older sister, Venus. Half of every tribute to either applies to both. But
we’re here to sing praises for the little sister, who on Tuesday announced
she’s retiring from tennis following the U.S. Open. Just as her father predicted
and loudly told anyone who’d listen, Serena goes
down as the greatest.
Take away the 23 Grand Slam singles
championships, a feat that leaves her one shy of Margaret Court’s all-time record.
Volumes can be written on Williams’ tennis accomplishments alone. But for a
moment, simply consider all the boxes that she didn’t fit. The narratives she
shattered could fill a shelf of self-help books.
She was the wrong color and
the wrong size. She was from the wrong neighborhood and the wrong background.
She had the wrong type of father who followed his
own wrong path.
Williams didn’t just play with a chip on her shoulder; she became a chip on the establishment. The more it tried to brush her off, the bigger she grew.
You ever read a
16-page ruling from a retired federal judge who was jointly appointed by
the NFL and the players’ union to discipline a quarterback who cyber-hunted dozens
of massage therapists on Instagram to harass them with unwanted sexual contact?
Me either, until Monday.
That’s when we got the ruling on Cleveland
Browns QB Deshaun Watson. The NFL had recommended an indefinite suspension,
with conditions attached to his reinstatement. But disciplinary officer Sue
Robinson said, nah,
six games is sufficient – plus Watson must refrain from freelance hires and
stick to team-approved, team-directed massage therapists for the duration of
his career.
Sounds like a win for Watson.
Until you actually read the report.
Before Robinson released her
ruling, the NFL Players Association stated
it wouldn’t appeal and it urged the NFL to do likewise. That seemed oddly bold,
considering the general consensus and public outcry that Watson deserved a lengthy
hiatus. But, yes, that sounded right: Both parties should accept the decision, no
matter what, and move on. I still feel that way.
If a half-dozen games seems
inadequate, blame the NFL – not Robinson.
The majority of folks in any field
and in their daily lives settle comfortably, somewhere around the middle. Far
from inadequate and short of incredible, most of us are solidly common. Nothing
unusual and perfectly fine.
Others develop and mature over
time until brushing the outskirts of extraordinary and perhaps breaking through.
Maybe they spoke and performed and understood as a child for longer than
desirable, but ultimately grew and put away childish things.
Right from the jump, he took his life
and his livelihood to a whole other level, atop a peak that no one has matched.
Reasonable minds can disagree and
some conclude that Russell is the true GOAT, not any of the three players typically
above him in rankings like ESPN’s
Top 100 or The
Athletic’s Top 100. Michael Jordan, LeBron James and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar all
have sound cases for their respective positions. But there’s a strong defense (fitting
considering the center’s revolutionary shot-blocking) for listing Russell second
to none.
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