NBA Player Lorenzen Wright: Body Found in the Woods
by Dr. Boyce Watkins
Unnamed sources in law enforcement are saying that the body of former Atlanta Hawks player Lorenzen Wright was found in the woods in Memphis. Wright was scheduled to drive back to Atlanta in July with his children when he disappeared in the middle of the night.
The 34-year old Wright was last seen at 2 a.m. on July 19. He was leaving his ex-wife’s home at the time.
Nigel Carr, Florida State and Felonies Galore
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Scholarship in Action Resident at the Institute for Black Public Policy
Nigel Carr was expected to start for the Florida State Seminoles at linebacker this season. Those plans are probably going to be altered, now that Carr faces a slew of felonies related to burglaries he allegedly committed this week.
According to Tallahassee police, Carr burglarized a parked SUV, stealing the victim’s book bag that contained her purse and other valuables. Carr allegedly dumped the items into a nearby trash can and police say they found the victim’s credit card on the floor board of a vehicle being driven by Carr.
Surprisingly, Carr is also a suspect in another car burglary on campus and faces charges from alleged marijuana possession. His career is in serious jeopardy and may likely be coming to an end.
I am not sure what the reasoning might be behind this alleged incident, assuming that the police version of the facts are accurate. Nearly any crime involving a college athlete on the weekend or at night makes me wonder if alcohol or drugs were involved. Carr’s charges for marijuana possession lead me to suspect that this is a strong possibility. For some reason, we’ve fed our young people a set of beliefs that create a culture of substance abuse as a fundamental part of college life. As my daughter prepares for college, I make it clear to her that she should be strong enough to not follow the crowd. I am not one to tell her to refrain from alcohol consumption, but I let her know that college can be a blast without risking rape, illness, incarceration or death, which occurs each year in alcohol-related incidents across the country. While we can’t say that substance abuse played a role in the Carr case, this point should be made nonetheless.
Nick Saban: Are You Really Calling SOMEONE ELSE a Pimp?
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, The Institute for Black Public Policy
University of Alabama coach Nick Saban has made a serious mistake in terminology. During a recent press conference, Saban was asked to respond to NCAA investigations involving one of his players, Marcell Dareus. Dareus allegedly attended a party that was sponsored by a sports agent, which would be an NCAA violation.
Saban then referred to sports agents as "pimps," complaining about how they are determined to undermine the sanctity of college sports by giving the athletes money or expensive gifts. In light of the fact that Saban felt the need to use such harsh language, I thought I might help him to assess what it truly means to be a pimp.
A pimp is someone who does the following:
Tiger Pays $25 million in endorsements for his cheating scandals
Tiger Woods Sex Scandals Cost Him $25 Million in Endorsements
- It’s being reported that the company which represents golf superstar Tiger Woods lost $4.6 million … Read More
- By Boyce Watkins, PhD on Jun 19th 2010 10:21PM | Comments (0)
A Case for NCAA Reform: Dr. Boyce Watkins, Billy Hawkins
Dr. Boyce Watkins - The Institute of Black Public Policy
I wrote about a new book regarding the NCAA’s alleged exploitation of black athletes, written by University of Georgia Professor Billy Hawkins. In his recently-released book, “The New Plantation,” Hawkins goes out of his way to help us understand that the method by which the NCAA does business is not much different from the mindset of plantation owners of the old south.
The analogies used by Professor Hawkins are thought-provoking and appear to be alarmist at first glance. After all, citizens are commonly comparing nearly every modern-day injustice to slavery in order to make a dramatic point. But in this case, the analogies are appropriate, in large part because slavery is not a dichotomy. Instead, it is actually a continuum, with complete freedom on one end and total servitude on the other. One could even argue that slaves themselves were not completely devoid of freedom, since they could have always chosen to run away, buy their freedom, maim themselves or even commit suicide as a way to escape their condition. The point of this very grim example is not to say that slavery was not entirely horrific; rather, it is to say that something does not have to be entirely horrific to be compared to slavery.
NBA Gets Good Marks on Diversity
To view the entire report card for the NBA on race and gender, Please click here
Highlights from the Report (released by the press representative for the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport):
· In the NBA, 82 percent of the players were people of color, remaining constant from last year’s totals. This ties the highest percentage of players of color since the 1994-95 season. The percentage of African-American players also remained constant from last year’s report at 77 percent. The percentage of Latinos and Asians remained constant, at three and one percent respectively. The percentage of international players stayed steady as well at 18 percent.
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Your News: NCAA Gets Another 11 billion off athletes’ families
The NCAA men’s basketball tournament is expanding, starting next season, but not on the large scale once expected.
The sport’s signature event will grow to 68 teams from 65 in conjunction with a new 14-year, nearly $11 billion television agreement with CBS and Turner Sports announced Thursday. That gives the NCAA a 41% hike in annual media and marketing rights connected to the tournament — and "financial stability through the first quarter of this century," interim President Jim Isch said — without the controversy of a more dramatic move to a 96-team bracket.
Negotiations with CBS/Turner, ESPN and Fox Sports initially had targeted a 96-team field, drawing concern and criticism from traditionalists and others over the impact on the tournament’s aesthetics, effect on college basketball’s regular season and conference tournaments and potential for further intrusion on players’ time and studies.
March Madness: The Billion Dollar Sweatshop
I was invited this week to speak to the Stanford University NAACP about whether or not college athletes should be paid. When I am asked whether I think college athletes should be compensated for their labor, I simply respond to the question with another question: “Why shouldn’t they get paid? Did they not earn the money? Is someone else earning money from their labor? Is the labor of the athlete essential to the revenue-generating process?” Answers to these questions help us to understand how insane it is that athletes earn billions of dollars for coaches, but aren’t entitled to any of that money for themselves. I’ve seen race horses get better deals than that.
Should College Athletes Be Paid?
From Your Black World, AOL Black Voices
Dr. Boyce Watkins, faculty affiliate at The College Sport Research Institute, is going to speak to the Stanford NAACP on Wednesday, March 3. The topic of the conversation will be “Does the NCAA Represent an Opportunity or Exploitation?”
Dr. Watkins is one of the leading authorities on NCAA compensation. He has advocated for college athletes to be paid, and founded the group ALARM: The Athlete Liberation and Academic Reform Movement. He is also the founder of the Your Black World Coalition, with 60,000 members nation-wide.
Is Tiger Woods Being Selfish by holding his press conference?
Tiger Woods is planning to have the press conference of the year tomorrow, during which he will talk about his past, present and future. He will be in the TPC Sawgrass clubhouse in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. He is not going to answer questions and the world will be watching. All three major networks are planning to tune in and for just 30 minutes, you may as well call him Tiger Obama, given that his speech is getting the same attention at the State of the Union Address.
Ernie Els, one of Tiger’s arch rivals on the golf course (if Tiger has any rivals), is lining himself up to be one of the first men to attack Woods for his choices.
"It’s selfish," Els told Golfweek. "You can write that. I feel sorry for the sponsor. Mondays are a good day to make statements, not Friday. This takes a lot away from the golf tournament."
NCAA Anti-Trust Lawsuit Continues
A district court judge in San Francisco on Monday denied theN.C.A.A.’s motion for dismissal in a class-action lawsuit headed by the former U.C.L.A. basketball star Ed O’Bannon. The ruling leaves the N.C.A.A.’s licensing contracts open to discovery.
O’Bannon’s lawyers filed the antitrust suit in July, claiming that former athletes should be compensated for the use of their images and likenesses in television advertisements, video games and on apparel. They said Monday’s ruling was an important first step.
“This is a truly historic day — to our knowledge, no one has ever gotten behind the scenes to examine how student-athletes’ current and future rights in their images are divided up and sold,” said Jon T. King of Hausfeld LLP, one of the lead lawyers representing O’Bannon.
News: USC Bans Itself Over OJ Mayo
USC coach Kevin O’Neill assembled his players early Sunday morning to deliver the news that the Trojans’ eight-game win streak and their newfound status as a Pac-10 title contender won’t matter for an NCAA tournament berth.
The school had decided to self-impose penalties related to former player O.J. Mayo and his relationship with agent/runner/booster Rodney Guillory. But vacated wins from two seasons ago and a scholarship being taken away weren’t tangible to this crew. Having their season end March 7 was all the players heard.
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Lisa Blumenfeld/Getty Images
O.J. Mayo’s involvement with Rodney Guillory led to USC’s self-imposed sanctions, including a postseason ban.
"My heart sank for a second," said senior point guard Mike Gerrity, a two-time Division I transfer from Pepperdine to Charlotte to USC. "I was frustrated. That’s what you play college basketball for — to play in March."
The Trojans haven’t lost since Gerrity became eligible. Since beating Sacramento State and Idaho State before he was cleared to play Dec. 18, they’ve won six games with him as their lead guard. They beat Tennessee by 22 points, won the Diamond Head Classic with wins over Western Michigan, Saint Mary’s and UNLV, then earned a Pac-10 season-opening home sweep of Arizona and Arizona State. The Trojans are on a roll heading into a three-game road swing to Stanford, Cal and UCLA in the next 12 days.
NCAA is the Great Scam of the 21st Century
Read More: Education, Florida State University, Football, NCAA, Seminoles, Sports, Student, University
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- Florida State quarterback EJ Manuel. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
According to the ESPN Show "Outside the Lines," the Florida State Seminoles appear to be about everything except education.
In order to win games and make millions, football players are having their majors chosen for them, and many athletes are being conveniently misdiagnosed as learning disabled. One recent episode stated that one-half of all Florida State University football players and three-fourths of their African-American athletes are Social Science majors (indicative of major clustering). One of the academic counselors said that when she started her tenure, there were 15 football players tagged as learning disabled. That number has since spiked to 65.
When the allegations were released, Florida State University started backpedaling faster than an NFL defensive back. The NCAA has done its usual grandstanding, detaching itself from the Seminoles, as if this doesn’t also happen at nearly every other campus under its domain.
But the truth is that this behavior is not uncommon. If you think that Florida State University is the only NCAAschool to engage in such destructive and irresponsible behavior, then you need to be educated on how many campuses now do business. College athletes, many of them African-American, are brought to college as hired guns, under the guise of getting an education. The entire charade is sustained for the sake of helping the NCAAmaintain its multi-billion dollar professional sports league.
Yes, I said professional, not amateur. Any league that earns money on par with the NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB is a professional sports league. NCAA coaches, commentators and administrators - mostly white - earn six and seven figure salaries while simultaneously robbing athletes of their educations, their futures, and the money that they and their families have earned. In order to avoid paying taxes on their revenue, the NCAA spends millions on marketing to convince us that their multi-million dollar corporate extravaganzas are polite little weekend activities that students barely remember to keep on their schedules. All the while, Tyrone Smith attends four years of college and doesn’t even learn how to read.
For the NCAA, the educational mission of their professional sports league is one of the great scams of the 20th and 21st centuries, no different from the Ponzi schemes of Bernie Madoff. It is a convenient illusion, like Tiger’s wife using the golf club to "save him from a car accident."
Black Coaches Finally Getting NCAA Football Jobs
The executive director of the Black Coaches and Administrators, Floyd Keith, said Monday that he is encouraged by the quick hirings of three black head coaches in the Football Bowl Subdivision, increasing the number from seven to 10.
"Let’s keep it in perspective," Keith said. "But it’s a positive. Finally — as long as we’ve been involved — I don’t ever recall this early there being such a positive response. And I think that number may even increase in the next few days."
On Monday, Virginia hired Richmond’s Mike London. Recently, Western Kentucky hired Stanford running backs coach Willie Taggart and Memphis hired LSU running backs backs coach Larry Porter.
“
When coaches have had the opportunity, they’ve had success. In recent Super Bowls, there have been black head coaches and they have been winners.
”– Floyd Keith, executive director
of the Black Coaches & Administrators
Buffalo coach Turner Gill is interviewing with Kansas, a source close to the situation said Monday. And Florida defensive coordinator Charlie Strong has interviewed with Louisville.
"Maybe after years of there being talented individuals out there, there are some open-minded presidents and athletic directors who are saying, ‘Hey, I’m familiar with this guy. Maybe he’d be a good fit here,’" Keith said. "When coaches have had the opportunity, they’ve had success. In recent Super Bowls, there have been black head coaches and they have been winners."
NCAA May Select a Black President
By the end of this week, the NCAA may start the process of joining the rest of the country in making history. Nearly a year after American voters elected the nation’s first black president, the association that runs college sports may be poised to select the first black man to run one of the country’s major sports organizations.
The NCAA’s Executive Committee is slated to meet this Thursday at the organization’s headquarters in Indianapolis, and is expected to choose a firm to help in its search to find a successor to Myles Brand, the former president, who died last month.
Among the contenders is Dr. Bernard Franklin, a former president of four schools, most notably Virginia Union. Franklin, who was hired for the NCAA by Brand, currently serves as the organization’s executive vice president for membership and student-athlete affairs.
Franklin’s ascendance would not only zoom the NCAA past the NFL, Major League Baseball and the NBA in terms of moving an African-American into a chief executive post, but would send a powerful message to university and college presidents, who could desperately use it. (It bears noting that African-American James Frank, of Lincoln University, previously served as the NCAA’s president. However, that title was given to elected officials from individual schools, while the post of executive director went to the full-time chief executive officer.)
You have a much better chance of finding subtlety in a Tyler Perry movie than you do of spotting an African-American football coach or athletic director - often two of the most powerful positions on a college campus - at the nation’s biggest colleges.
NCAA in a Legal Battle over Video Rights with NFL
The NFL’s college advisory committee may find it next to impossible to render informed opinions on the readiness of juniors who are potential 2010 draft prospects because the league has been locked in a multi-million dollar standoff with a Boston-area company that produces and disseminates digitized content of NCAA games for eight major conferences, league sources told SI.com.
According to those sources, XOS Technologies, based in Billerica, Mass., requested the NFL pay a rights fee between $20 million and $30 million for a multi-year commitment to electronically receive the coaches’ tape content for itself and its 32 teams. That content — which shows the entire alignment of both the offense and defense on each play, shot from the end zone — was formerly supplied free of charge in video tape form by schools as a mutually beneficial consideration between the NFL and NCAA. That’s changed now.
Contacted by SI.com on Friday, XOS chief executive officerRandy Ecckersaid his company made the rights fee request to the NFL in August on behalf of the conferences it represents, and that XOS is no longer involved in the discussions between the league and the eight conference commissioners. NFL officials reached by SI.com declined comment.
Read more:http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/football/nfl/10/23/xos.nfl/index.html#ixzz0UoWqx6Tn
Dr Boyce Watkins: University of Michigan’s “Optional” Football Practices
by Dr. Boyce Watkins , Syracuse University
MSNBC’s TheGrio.com , Your Black World
The University of Michigan football team has a storied tradition when it comes to winning. The program is equally storied when it comes to making money by putting athletes on the field no matter what. This football factory rivals the other bastion of athletic exploitation down the road: my alma mater, The Ohio State University.
It was recently unearthed that The University of Michigan has been using "optional" practices as a way to push athletes against their will. Players and their families have reported that any athlete who doesn’t attend the "optional" practices has a strong likelihood of being punished by the team.
I have just one question: why is anyone surprised? The only thing surprising to me about the University of Michigan case is that someone is actually willing to testify against the university. I am simply stunned that the players are bold enough to stand up for their rights in light of the fact that there are extreme penalties for athletes who have the audacity to think for themselves.
For college athletes, loyalty to the NCAA is not a choice. The officials who run college sports serve as the judge, jury and executioner in all cases related to athletic conduct. Like Michael Vick’s pit bulls, athletes within the NCAAsystem are domesticated, indoctrinated and brainwashed from the minute they set foot on a college campus.
The same way that many major retailers look the other way when five year olds are employed in third-world factories, the NCAA doesn’t do a very good job of enforcing the standards within its very own rulebooks. The only standards that seem to be applied strictly are those that keep the athletes and their families away from the multi-billion dollar revenue-generating machine that pays for the massive salaries of college football coaches. This is nothing less than a slap in the face to the players and their families, who give so much on the field.
Sports: Did Michael Jordan’s Speech Reveal His Insecurities?
The tears tumbled, flooding his face and Michael Jordan had yet to march to the microphone at Symphony Hall. He had listened to the genuine stories and speeches of a remarkable class. He had watched a “This is Your Life” video compilation of his basketball genius. Everything flashed before him, a legacy that he’s fought with body and soul to never, ever let go into yesterday.
Yes, Michael Jordan was still fighting it on Friday night, and maybe he always will. Mostly, he was crying over the passing of that old Jordan, and it wouldn’t be long until he climbed out of his suit and back into his uniform and shorts, back into an adolescent act that’s turned so tedious.
This wasn’t a Hall of Fame induction speech, but a bully tripping nerds with lunch trays in the school cafeteria. He had a responsibility to his standing in history, to players past and present, and he let everyone down. This was a night to leave behind the petty grievances and past slights – real and imagined. This was a night to be gracious, to be generous with praise and credit.
The Big Punch: Dr Boyce Watkins Speaks on LaGarette Blount Suspension
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Syracuse University
When I saw the video of the punch out by LeGarrette Blount of The University of Oregon, I was shocked and disappointed. This knock out blow that the athlete laid on Byron Hout of Boise State certainly has no place in the game of football - at least after the clock has struck zero. The University of Oregon acted immediately, suspending Blount for the entire season, effectively ending his career with the team. This incident is also going to likely hurt his chances of having an NFL career.
Here are some reasons that Oregon State was dead wrong in their decision.
1) The the university has no right to be judge and jury on this case. Where’s the union for college athletes? Oh yeah, they don’t have one. This incident is a reminder and sick reflection of the fact that college student athletes should have the same labor rights as the rest of us. Instead, they are subject to the harsh decisions of universities who care more about their revenues and reputations than the athletes themselves. Before you destroy a young man’s career, there should be hearings and a full investigation by a trustworthy panel of individuals who consider his well-being as part of the process. The idea that someone moved so quickly without knowing all the facts is absolutely ridiculous.
2) He is young. Since when can’t one 22-year old football player punch out another one and not pay for it for the rest of his life? Does it really make sense that the university feels that this man’s years of hard work are so disposable that they can simply throw them in the trash without consequence? Coaches are arrested for DWIs, commit crimes and do all kinds of egregious things, and are simply expected to go find another job. Blount, because of NCAA restrictions, can’t simply join the team at another university. His career is over.
The History of Black Athlete Protests
Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez College football’s centennial year, 1969, also happened to be my senior season at Notre Dame. I played against three teams that year—Georgia Tech, Tulane, and then Texas in the Cotton Bowl—that had not yet integrated their varsity football teams. This was actually a mark of progress. By 1969, the integration of the Southeastern Conference and the old Southwest Conference was finally well underway. It started in the SWC in 1966 at Baylor and SMU and in the SEC with Kentucky in 1967; it ended with Texas and Arkansas in 1970, then with Georgia, LSU, and Ole Miss in 1972.
That was college football’s quiet racial revolution. The noisy one took place on northern campuses. At Oregon State in February 1969, a black linebacker named Fred Milton was suspended from the team after an assistant coach spotted him on campus with a moustache and goatee, in violation of the team’s ban on facial hair. Black students on campus responded with a boycott of classes, many of them left the university, and both the football team and the institution struggled for years afterward against a reputation for racial intolerance. Two months later, 16 black players at the University of Iowa boycotted a spring practice and were suspended; seven were reinstated in August. That summer, John Underwood wrote a three-part series for Sports Illustrated titled "The Desperate Coach," describing the incidents at Oregon State and Iowa, along with dozens of lesser ones in athletic programs throughout the country, as a full-scale assault on coaches’ authority. "In the privacy of their offices," Underwood wrote, "over breakfast in strange towns, wherever two or three coaches get together, they talk about The Problem."
The Third Strike in Kentucky Basketball Shame
The video is out there, and we’ll see it someday. It’ll show Billy Gillispie, months removed from leading the famous Kentucky basketball program, in an orange jumpsuit — the kind worn by the prisoners picking up garbage on the highway. The video will show Gillispie in that jumpsuit, being arraigned last week on charges of driving while intoxicated.
Already the mug shot is out there, and it’s startling enough. It shows Gillispie with puffy, heavy eyes. He looks 10 years older. He looks 20 pounds heavier. He looks drunk.
Billy Gillispie’s mug shot from his most recent drunken driving arrest. (AP)
Still, I submit the following: I submit that Gillispie is one of the luckiest SOB’s around.
If he was going to get arrested for DUI — and this being Gillispie, he was going to get arrested for DUI eventually — last week was the best week possible. It came shortly after two enormous basketball stories had already broken in that state. Just one week earlier, the NCAA had taken away the 2008 Final Four banner from Memphis and the former Memphis coach who replaced Gillispie at Kentucky, John Calipari. And that came after the revelation that current Louisville (and former Kentucky) coach Rick Pitino had a one-dinner stand with a woman who accused him of raping her, impregnating her, marrying her off to his personal assistant and then paying for the abortion.
U. Michigan Football and “Voluntary” Workouts – The Whistle Gets Blown
Ask University of Michigan football coach Rich Rodriguez about Mike Barwis, and the superlatives will flow.
“He’s my guy,” Rodriguez told the Free Press in the summer of 2008. “I won’t go anywhere without him.”
Barwis has been Rodriguez’s strength and conditioning coach for six years — four at West Virginia University, two at Michigan. The 46-year-old Rodriguez, entering his second season at U-M, has said Barwis might be even more important than Rodriguez’s assistant coaches because of all the time Barwis spends working with players.
But how much time is too much?
The NCAA, which governs college athletics, has strict limits on how much time coaches can require players to spend on their sport. But Rodriguez’s team has routinely broken the rules since he took over in January 2008, people inside the program told the Free Press.
Dr Boyce Watkins: John Calipari’s Funny Relationship with Black People
Dr Boyce Watkins, Syracuse University
After reading about Kentucky Coach John Calipari being found guilty of cheating by the NCAA, I wasn’t surprised in the least. Calipari has never been known for producing the most highly educated athletes in the world (his graduation rate among African American athletes is 44 percent), and he seems to want to win above anything else. The idea that my alma mater, The University of Kentucky, would immediately step in to pay tens of millions of dollars to a coach that has been proven to be a cheater makes a powerful statement about the ethical disposition of this university. Kentucky is like many NCAA institutions in their mass pillage of African American athletes for the sake of their multi-million dollar fortunes.
John Calipari and his old school, The University of Memphis, have been charged with having an SAT exam taken for a player on the basketball team (believed by many to be Derrick Rose of the Chicago Bulls). According to several published sources, the SAT exam was falsified during the 2007 - 2008 season. The team has been required to give back 38 wins from that season, costing the school millions in revenue. These kinds of abuses don’t just occur at The University of Memphis. The University of Kentucky’s basketball program has nearly received the death penalty for its long list of violations in the past, so it is only fitting that they hire yet another arguably unethical coach to continue their storied tradition. Here are some quick thoughts about John Calipari and The University of Kentucky:
Dr Boyce and Wilmer Leon speak on the NCAA Lawsuit
Dr. Boyce Watkins of Syracuse University and Dr. Wilmer Leon of Howard University speak about the NCAA class action lawsuit. The NCAA is being sued for illegal use of player images. What do you think? Should the NCAA start paying players?
Tennessee Running Back Has Eligibility Questioned
Tennessee is trying to make one final plea on behalf of freshman running back Bryce Brown with the hope of keeping him from missing any games this season.
The NCAA has been investigating his amateur status dating back to his high school days in Wichita, Kan., and Tennessee athletic director Mike Hamilton said Wednesday that the NCAA has handed down its initial ruling.
Tennessee isn’t saying for sure what that ruling is, but it sounds like Brown could be suspended for a game or two and have to make restitution for any funds or extra benefits he might have received back in high school as part of his relationship with his adviser, Brian Butler.
Tennessee officials have gone out of their way to clarify that the Vols aren’t under investigation. This issue deals with Brown’s amateur status and goes back to before Tennessee was even recruiting him.
The whole thing has weighed heavily on Brown and angered Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin, who feels that Brown is being singled out.
Calipari Found Cheating – Kentucky Coach Must Give Back 38 wins
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP)—Memphis will be forced to vacate the record 38 victories from its Final Four season of 2007-08 under former coach John Calipari because of NCAA violations, The Commercial Appeal reported.
The newspaper, citing an unidentified source close to the situation, said on its Web site Wednesday night the NCAA will release findings of its investigation Thursday. The Commercial Appeal said it was unaware of any penalties beyond this season.
The NCAA investigated whether someone took the SAT exam for a player on that Final Four team. Memphis was notified of potential violations in January and met with the governing body in June.
The NCAA has said an unknown person took the college entrance exam for a player—with his knowledge—and that the player used it to get admitted. The governing body says the athlete played for the Tigers only in the 2007-08 season and the 2008 NCAA tournament. Just one person fits that description: Derrick Rose, the Chicago Bulls’ No. 1 overall draft pick in 2008 and its rookie of the year.
The latest from Dr Boyce Watkins on AOL Black Voices – 8/11/09
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Dr Boyce Money: Is the NCAA Racist or Just Getting Rich?
In a letter written to NCAA president Myles Brand, Chairman Bill Thomas of the House Ways and Means …
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Dr. Boyce Money: NCAA Finally Gets Sued
I’ve written extensively about the NCAA and what I perceive to be its consistent effort to exploit …
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Dr Boyce: Congressman Compares NBA Age Limit to Slavery
I was pleasantly surprised to hear that Congressman Steve Cohen has chosen to take on the NBA’s …
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Young B-Ball Star Takes European Money - Good for Him!
In light of Jeremy Tyler’s decision to skip his senior year of high school in order to play …
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Dr Boyce Watkins: Should College Athletes Be Paid? A Black Perspective
Dr Boyce Watkins appears on the Madison Square Garden Channel after a New York Knick’s game and asks …
Suing the NCAA: Why It should be done
I’ve written extensively about the NCAA and what I perceive to be their consistent efforts to exploit the black community. They spend millions on public service announcements to protect their deception, but eventually the athletes and the public are going to wise up to what they are doing. The truth is that college athletes should be paid for the same reasons that any actor in a Hollywood blockbuster film would expect to receive compensation. The problem is that the families of athletes don’t quite know how to organize and fight for their power. So, when I read about the recentlawsuit against the NCAA for allegedly misusing the images of athletes for videogames, I was a very happy man.
Let me break it down for you:
Based on my 16-years of experience as a college professor (I currently teach atSyracuse University, a school that earns millions off black families every year), collegiate athletics is not, in my opinion, about amateurism and it’s not about education. It’s about making money. Period. Many athletes are admitted to college every year and they would not be granted admission were it not for their ability to play sports and make money for the campus. Making money is not a problem, but the problem comes with the fact that universities do not share this revenue with the families of the players.
NCAA Being Sued Over Use of Player Likenesses
LAS VEGAS — Lawyers for the former U.C.L.A. basketball star Ed O’Bannon filed a class-action lawsuit against the N.C.A.A. on Tuesday, claiming former athletes should be compensated for the use of their images and likenesses in television advertisements, video games and apparel.
The lawsuit, which did not include a dollar amount sought, will bring into focus how the N.C.A.A. handles player images, especially after players leave college and are no longer bound by N.C.A.A. rules, and its vast licensing deals, which are estimated at about $4 billion. None of that money goes to the former players whose images, jersey numbers and likenesses are used.
“We really couldn’t believe that these compensation practices still existed in any kind of industry,” said Jon T. King, a partner at Hausfeld, a Washington-based law firm that is representing O’Bannon. “We do antitrust cases in all sorts of industries, and when we learned about this disparity, it was literally shocking to us.”
The Great Jim Brown Goes After Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan
For years different people have always grumbled about the lack of activism and social change involvement of professional athletes. Specifically our most successful athletes like Michael Jordan, LeBron James, and Tiger Woods. In a recent interview with HBO’s Real Sports, former NFL great Jim Brown went in on the lack of activism for social change from both Tiger and Jordan in recent years.
"There are one or two individuals in this country that are black that have been put in front of us as an example," Brown told Real Sports host Bryant Gumbel. "But they’re basically under a system that says, ‘Hey, they’re not gonna do a certain thing.’ Yes, that
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“Chosen One” Leaves High School at 16 – Only Because he doesn’t play football or Basketball
Read below about Bryce Harper, the 16 year old who is going to college next year only so he can be eligible for the 2010 MLB draft. If he were a basketball or football player, he would not be able to do this. So, not only does this story make a mockery of our educational system, it also points out the hypocrisy which exists in the way basketball and football operate relative to sports dominated by non-black athletes.
When big Bryce Harper made the cover of Sports Illustrated two weeks ago, I knew we’d soon again be hearing from the 16-year-old ‘chosen one.’
But not quite this soon.
On Sunday, the sophomore from Las Vegas found his way into national headlines again when his father announced that Bryce will forgo his final two years of high school and use a GED to enroll in a community college this August. Though it more or less makes a mockery of our education system, the Harpers’ plan would make Bryce eligible for the 2010 draft, where he could conceivably be the Nationals’ No. 1 pick and eventually join forces with Stephen Strasburg to save Washington baseball from itself.
Congressman Compares NBA Age Limit to Slavery
Steve Cohen, Democrat of Tennessee, wrote that the four-year-old rule, which requires that players be 19 years old and one year removed from their high school graduation, is of “deep concern.”
“It’s a vestige of slavery,” Cohen said Wednesday in a phone interview, noting that most of the players affected by the rule are African-American. “Not like the slavery of 150 years ago, but it’s a restraint on a person’s freedoms and liberties.”
Cohen said he was dismayed to hear that N.B.A. Commissioner David Stern was hoping to extend the age limit to 20. He added that his office was in the process of looking into the legalities of the limit and that a hearing and legislation were possible. He said the issue would fall under the jurisdiction of the House’s Judiciary Committee.
“Hopefully, they’ll just do the right thing,” he said.
NCAA to Investigate Memphis for Violations Under Calipari
The University of Memphis is responding to an NCAA notice of allegations accusing the men’s basketball program of major violations during the 2007-08 season under John Calipari, a newspaper reported Wednesday.
The allegations include "knowing fraudulence or misconduct" on an SAT exam by a player on that season’s team, which finished runner-up in the NCAA tournament, The Commercial Appealreported on its Web site.
Lamar Chance, spokesman for the basketball program, declined comment Wednesday night when contacted by The Associated Press.
Because of privacy laws, the player’s name was redacted in the report, which was obtained by the newspaper through the Freedom of Information Act.
Memphis, which received the notice on Jan. 16, is scheduled to appear before the NCAA Committee on Infractions on June 6.
Calipari, who left Memphis for Kentucky on March 31, is not named in the report, the newspaper said.
DeWayne Peevy, sports information director for Kentucky, said Calipari had no immediate comment.
The Government Increases Scrutiny of NCAA Revenues
Between 60 and 80 percent of athletic departments’ revenue in Division IA of the National Collegiate Athletic Association comes from "activities that can be described as commercial," according to a studyissued Tuesday by the Congressional Budget Office.
While athletic officials have long tried to describe their activities as fundamentally similar to the rest of their institutions, the Congressional report suggests otherwise. It finds that the proportion of commercial revenue is seven to eight times that for the rest of the institutions’ activities. As a result, athletics programs may have "crossed the line from educational to commercial endeavors," the Congressional review found. (Outside of the NCAA’s top division, it found significant, but much reduced commercial revenue — 20 to 30 percent in the rest of Division I).
Some critics of big-time college athletics have hoped that this study would prompt challenges to the tax-exempt status enjoyed by college athletics, but the report suggests otherwise.
"Removing the major tax preferences currently available to university athletic departments would be unlikely to significantly alter the nature of those programs or garner much tax revenue even if the sports programs were classified, for tax purposes, as engaging in unrelated commercial activity," the report says. "As long as athletic departments remained a part of the larger nonprofit or public university, schools would have considerable opportunity to shift revenue, costs, or both between their taxed and untaxed sectors, rendering efforts to tax that unrelated income largely ineffective. Changing the tax treatment of income from certain sources, such as corporate sponsorships or royalties from sales of branded merchandise, would be more likely to affect only the most commercial teams; it would also create less opportunity for shifting revenue or costs."
Tim Brown Says Al Davis Hates Black Men Who Use Education Over Sports
We’ll go ahead and file that one under "headlines I didn’t anticipate typing today."
It’s a bizarre statement. It’s a bizarre subset of people to hate, even if you insist on hating a group of people. And it’s a bizarre thing to say to an African-American athlete from Notre Dame when meeting him for the first time.
But according to Tim Brown(notes), that’s exactly what Al Davis did. Brown was interviewed on WCNN in Atlanta, and here’s what he had to say about the first time he met Al. From SportsRadioInterviews.com (audio is available at the link):
“Meeting Al [Davis] was pretty unique. I found out five or ten minutes after my first practice there that he hated African-American athletes from Notre Dame. And they literally told me that. They literally told me that because we’re known for using our education more than our athletic ability that he thought that I would be one of these guys that would basically take the money and run. I don’t know if that was a ploy to get me amped up, but it certainly worked.”
Dr Boyce: Why I applaud Jeremy Tyler
In light of Jeremy Tyler’s decision to skip his senior year of high school in order to play basketball in Europe, I thought I would provide some perspective.
You see, I’ve taught at 5 major universities over the past 16 years, nearly all of whom have big time athletics programs. I have long been confused regarding why the NCAA is allowed to restrict the labor rights of college athletes and keep many Black families away from the multi-billion dollar revenue stream that they themselves enjoy. What is even more interesting is how they seem just so downright offended when young players decide to head out into the world to earn some of this money for their own families.
I am proud of Tyler, especially since he appears to want to get his education, in addition to earning a living from his talent. He will likely get a better education by being home schooled in Europe than he would get from the farce of an education he is likely to receive from a university that is using him for his basketball talent. I’ve seen this system up close for many years, and it is my greatest dream that Black men will wake up and realize who is actually getting the money from all of this.
Some people don’t understand how the system works, so I thought I would explain it all in a poem. I call it "The Big Brown Baller." Read on …
Continue reading Young B-Ball Star Takes European Money - Good for Him!
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Former Player Sues NCAA Over Use of Likeness in Video Games
Electronic Arts Inc. and the National Collegiate Athletic Association were sued by a former college football player who claims athletes’ images are used in video games without their permission and in violation of NCAA rules.
Electronic Arts, the second-largest video-game publisher, circumvents the rules by allowing customers to upload player names directly into games and creating images that closely resemble student athletes to increase sales and NCCA royalties, according to the complaint filed by Sam Keller, a former quarterback for Arizona State University.
The practice is sanctioned by the NCAA and a licensing company for the association, Keller said in his complaint filed yesterday in federal court in Oakland, California. Keller seeks to represent all NCCA football and basketball players featured in Electronic Arts’ NCAA video games.
“Electronic Arts is not permitted to use player names and likeness,” Keller said. Yet the company “with the knowledge, participation and approval of the NCAA and Collegiate Licensing Co. extensively utilizes actual player names and likeness.”
NCAA rules prohibits the commercial licensing of current NCAA athletes’ names, pictures or likeness, the lawsuit says. Electronic Arts markets NCAA Basketball, NCAA Football and NCAA March Madness games. It sold 2.5 million NCAA Football games last year, said Robert Carey, an attorney for Keller.
Violating Rights
Frank Deford Argues that Players Should go to Europe
Sweetness And Light
by Frank Deford
Why Play Free For The NCAA When Europe Pays?
Listen Now [3 min 32 sec] add to playlist
EnlargeSrdjan Ilic
Brandon Jennings of Lottomatica Roma, right, tries to stop Aleksandar Rasic of Partizan, during their Group G Euroleague basketball match Feb. 4 in Belgrade, Serbia AP
Morning Edition, April 29, 2009 ·Since the Olympics freed its athletes from the serfdom of amateurism, the only place on the face of the earth where sports are still big-time, big-money, but where the athletes are forced to play without pay is right here at home, in American college football and basketball.
Everywhere else, if there’s real money involved, the athletes get their fair share — just like the coaches and promoters and television networks and the guys who sell peanuts and popcorn.
But in the United States, not only are our young football and basketball players forced to play without pay, but the NCAA cartel is also in cahoots with the pro leagues, so that a star athlete has to donate his time to some college for at least a year. This is not only a bonanza for the lucky college but also for the NBA or the NFL — because the pros profit from the publicity the star earned, when he had to play for free while his coach pocketed millions.
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Study Shows NCAA Scholarship is Deceptively Underfunded
‘Full scholarship’ can leave college athletes with as much as $30,000 in expenses
With the 2009 NCAA men’s basketball tournament heating up, the National College Players Association (NCPA), formerly known as the Collegiate Athletes Coalition (CAC), released results of another significant study revealing the estimated shortfall between college athletes’ full scholarships and the actual cost of attendance at each Division I university.
The NCPA asserts that, by and large, universities have been deceiving recruits, many of whom are under the age of 18 and from disadvantaged backgrounds, into unknowingly being responsible for paying thousands of dollars while on “full” athletic scholarship.
“The fact is, coaches fill high school recruits’ heads with promises of free rides and full scholarships, when in fact no such things exist. The NCAA designs full scholarships to fall short of the advertised price tag of a school, leaving recruits scrambling to make ends meet,” stated United Steelworkers International President Leo W. Gerard.
NCAA rules prohibit universities from providing athletic scholarships that equal the cost of attendance. That means that a full scholarship athlete is expected to pay out of pocket for expenses that are not covered by a full scholarship.
SI Writer Andy Staples Points to Racial Overtones of Prep Player Criticism
The reaction to the news of California high schooler Jeremy Tyler’s plan was as predictable as it was tired. The New York Times reported Thursday that Tyler, a 6-foot-11 junior at San Diego High, plans to skip his senior year in high school to play professionally in Europe. In two years, when his high school class is one year past graduation, he’ll return to the U.S. and enter the NBA draft.
The tongue-clucking was deafening. You’d think the Book of Revelation had been revised to include skipping a year of high school to play pro basketball right between the sun turning black and the moon turning red. This will kill college basketball, some said. This kid is throwing away his future, others said.
Since no European newspaper sports editor offered me a six-figure salary to skip my senior year of high school, I don’t feel qualified to rip Tyler’s choice. I’ve never walked in his high-tops. But I do have a few questions for the folks who consider Tyler’s move an abomination.
If he played golf, would you feel differently?
If he played tennis, would you feel differently?
If he had gotten his own show on the Disney Channel, would you feel differently?
Set aside the obvious racial overtones for a moment and consider only the sport-specific double standards. We celebrate individual athletes when they turn pro at a young age. Maria Sharapova was the darling of the tennis world at 17. Joey Logano is tearing up tracks and getting paid at 18. We celebrate entertainers when they turn pro at a young age. Nick Jonas, 16, is an actor, a musician and a paparazzi magnet. Miley Cyrus, 16, just might control the universe.
March Has Become Monopoly Madness – New York Times
Every March, college basketball fans have been primed to experience one of the world’s most powerful monopolies — the N.C.A.A. tournament. This event, which is enjoying a $6 billion, 11-year agreement with CBS, has become the poster child for commercialism in college sports and all of its adverse consequences on student athletes. What most fans don’t realize, however, is that the N.C.A.A. tournament did not acquire, and does not maintain, its monopoly fairly. It does so through a set of anticompetitive rules that force all invited schools, under pain of severe penalty, to participate only in the N.C.A.A. tournament and to boycott any competing events. This was not always the case.
Once upon a time, the National Invitation Tournament, which is older than the N.C.A.A. tournament and culminates every year in Madison Square Garden, provided strong competition to the N.C.A.A. tournament and attracted many of the top teams in the country. In 1950, for example, City College of New York played in and won both tournaments.
In 1962, Loyola, Mississippi State, Dayton, the University of Houston and St. John’s all chose to participate in the N.I.T. rather than accept invitations to the N.C.A.A. tournament. In 1970, Marquette, one of the best teams in the nation that year, chose to go to the N.I.T. over the N.C.A.A. tournament, which provoked an outcry by the powers that ran the N.C.A.A. tournament.
NCAA Clamps Down on Facebook Use by Athletes
College sports fans, be careful of the company you keep on Facebook.
You might get yourself — and the program you support — in trouble.
That was the lesson this week for Taylor Moseley, a North Carolina State freshman who expressed a common-enough opinion on campus when he started the Facebook group called "John Wall PLEASE come to NC STATE!!!!"
More than 700 people signed up for the group encouraging Wall — a local standout and the nation’s No. 1 basketball recruit — to pick the Wolfpack by national signing day next week.
But the NCAA says such sites, and dozens more like them wooing Wall and other top recruits, violate its rules. More than just cheerleading boards, the NCAA says the sites are an attempt to influence the college choice of a recruit.
Moseley got a cease and desist letter from N.C. State’s compliance director, Michelle Lee, warning of "further action" if he failed to comply. In an interview Friday, Lee said that people who act as boosters but fail to follow recruiting guidelines could face penalties such as being denied tickets or even being formally "disassociated" from the athletic program.
Dr Boyce Explains athlete compensation, graduation rate issues to BBC World News
Dr Boyce Watkins, Finance Professor at Syracuse University, tells BBC World News that the NCAA has done a terrible job of seeing to it that African American players graduate. He also explains the massive multi-billion dollar wealth extraction taking place via college sports. Finally, Watkins mentions that the NCAA does a poor job of allowing Black coaches the chance to coach the sport to which Black males give so much. Click the image to listen!
Dr. Thabiti Lewis Book Excerpt: Ballers of the New School – Race and Sport in America
Look at the money we make off predominately poor black kids. We’re the whoremasters.
—Dale Brown (former coach at LSU)
Maybe the NCAA can keep a straight face as it gorges on its new $6 billion TV deal, then belches out the same old claims that college players don’t deserve to get the money they generate.
—Peter Keating, ESPN: The Magazine
In December 2002 a group of Harvard economists named the NCAA “the best monopoly in America” (Keating 56). The only remedy is for someone to launch an antitrust challenge against the NCAA, because it is a contradiction to sell television rights to the highest bidder, yet forbid amateur athletes from earning one penny of what the market will pay them. The spoils of war go to coaches and administrators, who get raises, perks, commercials, and endorsement contracts totaling in the millions, while athletes are pimped and punished if caught accepting payment beyond tuition, room and board, and small stipends. “Education” and “protection from exploitation” are a smoke screen for exploitation. In American culture, college athletics has become wholly commercialized. It shamelessly exploits amateur athletes, especially youth of color in high-revenue-producing sports like football and basketball where their graduation rates lag. While the graduation rates for all college athletics are slightly alarming, a fire alarm needs to be sounded regarding football and basketball athletes, where the numbers tend to slip, particularly among Black athletes.
Currently roughly 42 percent African American football players in Division IA graduate compared to 55 percent of White football players. In basketball among the African American players on the sixty-four teams in the 2001 NCAA men’s basketball tournament close to half the teams graduated less than 35 percent of these players! Few are willing to broach how Black bodies fuel the growth of institutions of higher learning then are discarded. These bodies just happen to be concentrated in the highest revenue-producing collegiate sports. Perhaps more than race, few care because the money at stake in these sports is too great. Football and basketball are the cash cows for many colleges and athletic departments. These sports draw huge alumni revenue streams, publicity, and hundreds of millions of dollars from BCS bowl games, NCAA basketball tournament appearances, and television contracts. And the majority of the cows producing the most milk in the highest profile programs are often black and brown. While it is old news that college athletics has veered down the wrong path, what is not discussed enough is the exploitation of the young Black men that heavily populate the highest revenue producing sports (football and basketball), yet consistently have the lowest graduation rates.
Beginning in the 1960s, predominately White colleges actively began to recruit Black players and enjoyed great success. Schools like Kentucky and Alabama reluctantly joined the fray because they were forced to change to stay competitive. Moreover, before the 1970s most colleges in the South did not have integrated football teams—or any teams for that matter. A famous turning point was when USC beat the University of Alabama, 42–21. The star performer of that game was a Black running back named Sam Cunningham. He dominated so thoroughly that at the end of the game, the Alabama fans were chanting, “Get us one.” Hall of Fame coach Paul “Bear” Bryant acquiesced in order to win, not to make social strides. To remain competitive Bryant got himself a Black running back the following year, and soon many other colleges followed. Today, if you look at the top schools in football and basketball you will notice that they are usually represented by a starting lineup that is 70 percent players of color. Sadly, the graduation rates for these same athletes are often among the lowest on the team and athletic department (there are schools that are exceptions but are in the minority). Given this horrible sate of affairs, it is only right to call for collegiate sport to be drastically altered. Either it adheres to its original intent or is treated as the for-profit business that it has become.
With the help of their Black studs, top ranked universities and coaches reap the economic benefits of the harvest (a winning season). Their spoils are endorsement deals with sports apparel companies, commercials, million-dollar contracts and video game revenues to Bowl Game money and publicity that ramp up admissions along with school profiles. Coaches enjoy bonuses, endorsement deals and television shows, while athletes get room, board, books, tuition, and perhaps illegal payments on the side. What gets glossed over is the enormous revenue surrounding high-profile college athletic programs. The entities profiting most from college athletics escape scrutiny for exploitation, while athletes asking to be compensated for their lucrative labor are criticized. The universities and NCAA (like a pimp) enjoys the bulk of the profit from the labor and product the players bring to these spectacles. If pimping is about control, universities and the NCAA have mastery over players, rules, and a system that allows them to generate enormous capital, manage all the money and makes all decisions, while declaring a tax-exempt status. Even their mission is similar to that of a pimp. The NCAA and universities claim to provide athletes with: protection and management. Like a pimp their rap is also similar: if left to their own devices athletes (prostitutes) would make the wrong decisions and be exploited by those unconcerned with what is best for them.
Indeed, they are vulnerable to exploitation because high-profile collegiate amateur sports are big business, which explains why universities, coaches, and the NCAA are “big pimpin’.” So why should athletes participate for the honor of the game, or accept as their only reward an “education” when everyone around them gets rich from their efforts? This is the same “education” some claimed New School Baller LeBron James was missing out on by declaring himself for the NBA draft right out of high school. The same people who criticized him for taking his enormous talent directly to the NBA ignored the specious morality of his high school, which profited from selling the rights to televise several of his games on ESPN. The bottom line in American culture is cold, hard cash—dead presidents. And, those who produce must be paid.
Academics and education is a myth, a lie. In fact, academic often compete against athletics for the time of athletes involved in revenue-producing athletics like football and basketball. Unfortunately school often comes second because the stakes are high. Football teams receiving a BCS bid in 2009 earned their conference $18 million—win, lose or draw. If a second team from a conference qualifies, the conference shares an additional $4.5 million. In 2006-07, the thirty-four of schools entered into the NCAA basketball tournament from major conferences on average earned revenues of $9.4 million and an average profit of $4.4 million—an amazing 47 percent profit margin! (But basketball players did not receive a salary) However, the NCAA Presidents’ Commission is hesitant to make any sustained or comprehensive reform of intercollegiate athletics. Why? Too much money is on the line. So with that in mind, it is evident that “big pimpin’” will be hard to stop. It is now time for athletes to either get paid or remove the nonprofit status of the collegiate sport. It cannot continue to exist both ways. If University of Connecticut head basketball coach Jim Calhoun feels he is justified in earning several million annually because his program produced a multi-million dollar profit, then why is it wrong for his players, who earned this money, to get paid as well?
Personal Fouls in the College Game
Unfortunately colleges, universities, and even the NCAA are a sort of mafia that shakes down student-athletes for all their talent and sweat equity in exchange for “illegal” booster payments, “free tuition,” and an “education” (that there is scant time to achieve between preseason, summer and spring workouts and practices, film sessions, weight training, and travel). The pimps are the NCAA, coaches, and colleges that receive outrageous performance bonuses and revenues because of players’ performances. For the most part, a college “education” is a joke at most Division I universities. California state senator Kevin Murray, D-Culver City, compared athletes to sharecroppers, where the post-slavery, post-Reconstruction vocation left many forever in the debt of the White landowners whose fields they worked. Like sharecroppers who rarely left with a profit because of their debt to landowners, modern athletes are in a similar state. They have everything to lose. If they receive money, they are expelled; there is no health insurance for athletes participating in “voluntary” summer workouts—which are “strongly urged” if one is interested in renewing his scholarship. These sports-croppers are annually in debt to a coach who has the power to renew (or rescind) scholarships.
Sports have changed drastically, particularly on the collegiate level, where everyone “legally” profits from players’ sweat and toil, except them! Even AAU and high school coaches receive money, sneaker and sports apparel deals from the sweat of their players’ performances and to guide them toward certain schools. The college game is even worse. Coaches’ careers hinge on the signing of top-notch recruits. So much money is at stake that middle-aged White men will walk into the toughest housing project or neighborhood to get the recruit who will bring him conference titles, bowl bids, appearances in the Sweet Sixteen or Final Four, and, oh yeah, more money. Modern slaves (who receive food, shelter, and basic “education”) fill stadiums, draw television contracts, and bring exposure to programs along with pay raises, perks, and bonuses for coaches and athletic. BNS are angered that they do not see one “legal” cent from revenues generated, and that if caught with “extras” they stand to lose everything. This is unacceptable. How can every entity involved in sports from junior high school to college sports profit except the field hands? Such inequities must be challenged. It is time for exploitation to end and for revenues to be shared with players.
Dr Billy Hawkins: Black Athletes are Driving Ms. Daisy
Dr. Billy Hawkins, University of Georgia
Excerpts from the forthcoming book – The New Plantation: The Internal Colonization of Black Male Athletes
It should not take a long stretch of the imagination to see how Black male athletes contribute significantly to the athletic labor class at predominantly White National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I Institutions (PWI’s); thus, to the overall bottom-line of the revenue generated. Their presence as starters and their representation on the top football and basketball programs in the country speak volumes to PWI’s need for Black male athletes. Tables 1 &2 illustrate the contribution Black male athletes make for some of the top athletic programs in the nation.
Within this current economic configuration, another area to consider is the contribution Black male athletes are making towards “Title IX sports”[1]: those sports that are added to meet gender equity requirements, which undoubtedly are played mostly by White women (e.g. rifle, golf, equestrian, rowing, bowling, and lacrosse). According to Welch Suggs:
…Only 2.7 percent of women receiving scholarships to play all other sports at predominantly white colleges in Division I are black. Yet those are precisely the sports – golf, lacrosse, and soccer, as well as rowing – that colleges have been adding to comply with Title IX.[2]
Therefore, since Title IX has provided very limited opportunity for Black females but additional opportunities for White women to compete and Black male athletes make-up the greater percentage of the revenue generating sports that contribute to athletic departments’ revenue, and thus their ability to support these additional sports, a reoccurring historical relationship between the White female and Black male has been resurrected. I refer to this contribution and connection as the “Driving Miss Daisy” syndrome.
Technorati Tags: billy hawkins,black scholars,black athletes,black male athletes,african american scholars
Dr. Boyce Watkins Discusses Athlete compensation on NPR
In this interview, Dr Boyce Watkins of Syracuse University explains why athletes should be paid. The audience is quite hostile, but he sticks to the point.
Click the image to listen!
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Paying College Athletes
