University of Virginia Library

Sport: Chance For Recognition

By Paul Larsen

Grantland Rice, the most prolific
sportswriter of his decade, foresaw
the oncoming revolution in
sports when he wrote in his "Sportlight"
column on March 6, 1946,
"The true democracy of this country...is
only to be found in the
world of sport. There is no class
distinction in sport. Here you are
measured by what you are and what
you can do. Nothing else counts."

During the same year, young
Jackie Robinson signed a professional
baseball contract with the
Montreal Royals that signaled a
complete revamping of the sporting
world. The color line was
broken, and the Negro revolution
in sports had begun.

During the next twenty years
the Negro established himself as
an accepted fact in professional
sports. Before the war the focal
point of attention around the
Negro athlete centered on boxing.

The allure of boxing decreased
greatly during the fifties in the
eyes of colored youth. Yet at
the same time baseball was enjoying
some of its greatest years.
Following Robinson came the
names of Mays and Aaron and
Gilliam. At this time sports came
to represent more than just an
escape from the desperation of unending
poverty and a big check.
As Jackie Robinson once said,
"I discovered that in one sector
of life I was free to compete
with whites on equal terms-in
sports....Sports were the big breach
in the wall of segregation for me."
Several years later Jim Gilliam reflected,
"there were barriers-we
couldn't go to school or sit at
lunch counters with whites, but
on the ball fields we were equals."
So sport became the meeting
ground on which the Negro could
prove his equality, and often his
superiority, to the white man.

While professional athletics has
achieved integration fairly quickly
and relatively painlessly, college
sports still have much ground
to cross. Last year only 6% of
all the athletic scholarships granted
in predominantly white colleges
went to Negroes.

Professional sports list the percentage
of Negroes in the big
leagues as far above the 12 percent
of total black population in
the United States (28% in football,
33% in baseball, and over 50%
in basketball).

The great dichotomy between
professional and college sports
seems to center around money.
The pro coaches which have to
win have realised they must sign
Negroes. College coaches who put
their job of winning over archaic
prejudices also realize the fact
that the Negro athlete is almost a
necessity to a winning season.
Sports pages and record books
are filled with the names Alcindor,
Hayes, Simpson, McVea, Murphy.

And yet there are numerous colleges
which still either hold that
alumni sentiment is more important
than the win-loss record or
that have for years held a white-only
policy which now makes it
extremely difficult for them to
recruit the Negro.

There is little doubt that it is
virtually impossible to recruit a
Negro if he won't be socially,
as well as athletically, accepted.

The name in college basketball
today is Alcindor. The seven foot
giant received close to 200 college
offers, many of which were said
to step outside the bounds of
normal limitations. Why then,
UCLA? The answer is the simple
fact that alumni such as Ralph
Bunche, Jackie Robinson, Rafer
Johnson, and Willie Naulls impressed
upon him the fact that
UCLA has been consistently integrated
since the twenties by merely
showing the date on their diplomas.

Though the huge center is characteristically
quiet and shy
("I'm not here to be a social
butterfly, just to get an education")
the UCLA community is
so used to Negroes that the only
stares or remarks that Alcindor
receives are in reference to his
height, not his color.

The Ivy League, which offers
no athletic scholarships to anyone,
has long accepted Negroes. Out
of an entering class of 1040-1060
at Yale, there are roughly 25-30
Negroes. Captain of its soccer team
is Jamaica born Roy Austin.

At Harvard, Chris Ohiri, a
Kenyan, holds the Ivy League
scoring record in soccer, Paul
Jones, starting defensive halfback
on Yale's Ivy League championship
team is also Secretary of the
class of 1968-the first Negro to
hold the office.

Phelps T. Riley, former sports
editor of the Yale Daily News,
comments that not only are
Negroes socially accepted in the
Ivy League, but they are actively
sought. Problems of initial integration
have long been dispelled,
and as Riley says, "Yale's interest
in qualified Negroes has enabled
it to better diversify its classes
of late."

Closer to home, two years ago
the University of North Carolina
granted Negro Charlie Scott a
basketball scholarship. The 6′ 5″
star is regarded by many as one
the best players in the nation, and
in his sophomore year still has
much room for growth.

Like Alcindor, Scott received
over one hundred college bids
from schools such as UCLA,
Houston, Duke, and Davidson.
Valedictorian of his class at North
Carolina's Laurinburg Institute,
Scott explains his choice of UNC
by stating, "My final decision
was based on the atmosphere and
the friendliness of the student body
here."

After two years of living and
playing in the South, little of his
enthusiasm has been dampened.
'He says, "Since coming to school,
I must say that I am entirely
satisfied with my decision and have
had no difficulty at all."

When asked if he has ever encountered
any trouble while playing
on other Southern campuses,
Scott replied, "I must admit that
there have been places where the
crowd would try to arouse me, but
it has been done to the other
players on the team as well. I feel
that their remarks are not aimed
at me so much as a Negro, but at
me as part of the opposition."

Scott's coach, Dean Smith, says
of his star, "We do not think of
Charlie any differently than we do
of any other player. He is very
much a person, a student at the
University, and a member of our
basketball team." '

Although Negro players like Alcindor
and Scott have found their
place in college, there are still
many qualified student-athletes
who are barred from colleges because
they are Negro. As of now
colleges such as Alabama, Clemson,
South Carolina, LSU, and
Virginia have no Negroes on