Sports: The All-American Addiction

8. Sport and Upward Mobility

SPORT AND UPWARD MOBILITY During the 1997 season, Major League baseball celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking its color barrier . In virtually every account of this event, sport was credited as one of the most progressive and discrimination-free enterprises in our society. Advocates have long claimed that sport is a unique entity in this regard because in athletics, your worth is determined by one factor; performance on the fields of play. Sport has been hailed as our country’s only enterprise where everyone—black, white, red, or green—can compete on equal footing. “Sports represents pure meritocracy, where people earn what they get under conditions of perfect equality. There are no slaves and masters in baseball, no peasants and lords or gentlemen and commoners, just .200 and .300 hitters” (Gorn and Goldstein 1993, 111). As we were told repeatedly during the coverage of this milestone baseball and civil rights event, Robinson’s achievement lead to doors of opportunity being opened in many other organizations and industries . While the significance of this accomplishment should never – 171 – An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come. —Victor Hugo be diminished, the days of mere participation in sports by blacks as being symbolic of some greater racial tolerance and progress are long gone. While everyone may be competing on equal footing on the fields of play, beyond them, sport is no more effective at promoting equal opportunity than any other American institution. Onto the Fields, But out of the Boardrooms It is likely that the popular notion of sports as a powerful vehicle for promoting racial tolerance and upward social mobility in other fields is more a product of sports’ visibility within our culture than from any overwhelming evidence. The fact is, Colleges and professional teams were notoriously slow in opening up their rosters. It wasn’t until July, 1959, when the Boston Red Sox brought up Pumpsi Green from the minors after protests from the NAACP, that every team in baseball had at least one black player. The National Hockey League did not integrate until 1957, with the debut of Canadian Willie O’Ree. The Professional Golfers Association kept a written “Caucasian clause” in its bylaws until 1961. It wasn’t until 1962, when the all-white Washington Redskins traded for Bobby Mitchell that every team in all of the major sports had at least one black player. (Entine 2000, 223) Consider the sports establishment itself. Minority advancement and opportunity has occurred almost exclusively on the fields and courts. Meanwhile, the white athletic establishment maintains its vice-like grip of power off them, from the manufacture and sale of sporting goods to the coaching, administration , and ownership of teams. It is ironic that sports is sold as being effective in promoting equality, opportunity, and upward mobility, yet meaningful “upward mobility” hasn’t occurred within the athletic establishment itself. For example, according to the NCAA Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee’s Two-Year Study of Race Demographics of Member Institutions, 172 Sport and Upward Mobility excluding the historically black colleges and universities, in 1999–2000, less than 3 percent (2.9) of NCAA directors of athletics and only 4.4 percent of NCAA men’s and 4.4 percent of women’s head coaches were black. In the revenue-producing sports of football and men’s basketball, only 8.6 percent of head coaches were black, and that number rose to only 13.7 percent in Division I (NCAA 1994). These shortfalls are particularly damning considering the high percentage of minority student-athletes participating in athletics, particularly in the revenue-generating sports of basketball and football. According to the 2000 NCAA Division I Graduation Rate Report, 25 percent of scholarship student-athletes entering Division I athletics programs from the 1990–1991 through the 1993–1994 academic years were African Americans. The numbers are particularly high in football (50 percent), men’s basketball (59 percent) and women’s basketball (37 percent) (NCAA 2000–2001). While our sports teams are one of the most-integrated entities in our society, the integration or upward mobility promised through athletic participation hasn’t been upward at all. Minority representation in decision-making front-office positions in college programs and professional sports teams is dismal. The number of minority owners of professional sports teams is nonexistent in the NFL, the NHL, the MLB, or the NBA. According to...