Let me start off by saying that I almost didn't want to type this blog. It's really a labor of love. The reason I say this is because I love sports. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a diehard Green Bay Packers fan who bleeds Grade-A Wisconsin dairy when cut. I am also(to my own detriment) a Cleveland Cavaliers fan (please keep your jokes to a mininum). I love sports and the dynamic matchups they bring and the pure joy that bonding onto a team can bring, a joy that can never be truly diluted by shady boosters or scandalous megastars. I generally cringe with contempt when I hear elitist intellectual snobs mock sports fan for what they feel is irrelevent outside of it's debauchery and corruption. Yes I know books are great, and I'll read one after the 4th quarter, now go sip your $8 organic smoothie while you belittle people and leave me alone.
Of course, these snobby smarty pants have a point, corruption has long plagued our beloved past times, from drug abuse, exhortion, performance enhancers, violence, and most recently and most disturbing, pedophilia. Just as unavoidable as corruption in sports is the pervasiveness of race in every walk of life. Yes, race is still a factor post Obama, especially the treatment of black men and their perception as brute, primal beast whose physical prowess can easily morph from a slam dunk on the court to an attack on society.
Last month the country witnessed the despicable in-game brawl between NCAA Men's Basketball rivals Xavier and Cincinnati. The fight was brutal as 7 players total(3 for Xavier, 4 for Cincy) received suspensions. Making matters worse was senior guard Tu Holloway, who immediately said during the press conference that his team was not soft, and full of gangsters. Of course these comments were idiotic and just plain stupid. However, they were coming from a kid who was no more than 5 minutes removed from a fight with a bitter rival. Think of the dumb things you might say when your adrenaline is pumping after your round of fisticuffs from fighting the kid who kept stealing your lunch money in the 6th grade.
It was at that moment that these young men stopped being students and had transformed into dangerous criminals. Think I'm overexaggerating? The District Attorney was asked to review the case and decide if legal action was necessary. The Freaking DA! I'm sorry, but I think their are more criminals on the mean streets than on the tough hardwood, but that's just me.
Right on cue, Mike Cronin, UC head coach, stepped up and condemned his players in front of the media, and promised alumni that he would be tough on his players, because they were not above the program, and that they had brought shame to the great university that had givfen a degree to the guy who invented Benadryl. Yet anyone who saw the fight saw Mike and his staff watching dumbfounded as the fight broke out(just as much as Xavier's staff was). Really, no responsible adult stepped in, including refs and security, until well into the brawl.
But Cronin did his job. He ensured swift justice against tyrannical injustice. He was tough on wrongdoing, just like most Americans say they are toughon crime. Yet what does that statement mean? Aren't we all tough on crime? IS anyone, outside of Gucci Mane, advocating for us to run around shooting each other?(Sorry, Gucci) What most people subliminally, or maybe not so subliminally mean when they say they are tough on crime, is that they feel black and brown people need to be policed and made examples of if they can't tow the societal line because they have the greatest potential of being a threat to said society, even though staitsitically Black and Brown people have been proven to not commit crime at a higher rate than their White counterparts.
Shifting to professional athletics, since the integration of major league sports the policing of Black men has been evident, from dress codes to deter the NBA's 'ghetto' image, to NFL comissioner Roger Goodell's crack down on players when the media began labeling the NFL a 'league full of thugs' a few years ago. Pro sports have always sought to deal heavy penalties to it's Black atheletes. The most recent and famous incident involved quarterback who was suspended from the league and received 2 years in federal prison for his involvement in an illegal dogfighting ring, a sentence that many found egregious.
To be clear I am not saying that players should not be punished for their conduct. Michael Vick deserved to be convicted, although I don't see the punishment fitting the crime. Those players in that fight deserved to be suspended, and for longer than what they received, but of course because they are starters they were insured to be back once all important inter-league play starts. It seems that even rules will not stop Black players from being valuable commodities. Yet they can be used to make an example of what happens when we stop seeing a young kid who made a mistake and start seeing a black hoodlum ready to prey on surburban families. Black players deserve to be disciplined for misconduct, and don't deserve special treatment, but as fans and observers we must ask ourselves do we have to see players reprimanded or criminals charged.
Let me stop giving ammo to the smoothie drinkers and get back to checking Aaron Rodger's stat sheet.
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