By some estimates 72 percent of Black children are raised in single parent households, with the vast majority of such parents female. Consequently, for many young Black males, their coaches can become surrogate fathers. As Regal has already documented, most Division 1 and professional coaches are White. As Father’s Day approaches we asked ourselves about […]

American Blacks are used to dealing with racism. We’re subject to selective law enforcement if we’re driving a luxury car in a White neighborhood; we often have to lap the field when competing for a job; and we usually have quite a mountain to climb when we’re brought home to meet our future White in-laws. […]

Bracketed by two gigantic oceans, many Americans have a provincial view of the world, including racism. We tend to look at racism through red, white and blue tinted glasses and ignore what goes on in the rest of the world. It should not be surprising to discover that racism exists in many heterogeneous cultures and, […]

Baseball’s steroid era has no doubt cast a shadow on the game and its records. Are the achievements of Roger Clemens and the records set by Barry Bonds legitimate? Now that a stronger testing program is in place, is it a coincidence that scoring is down? How does this period affect who should be elected […]

The powers that be in college football are once again tinkering with the format for choosing a national champion. Originally, the national champion was selected by newspaper polls. The Associated Press, United Press International, and various other institutions of experts and sportswriters would vote all season after each game and the final poll at the […]

By any measure, football is the most popular sport in the United States. It generates the highest television ratings, the most revenue, inspires breathtaking levels of legal and illegal gambling, and has by itself created quasi national holidays every Super Bowl Sunday and BCS Championship Game. Unfortunately, none of that is making football-related news right […]

Going back to the days of Jack Johnson, Joe Louis and Jackie Robinson, through Jim Brown, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, the African American community has a history of enthusiastically supporting just about any sport when we’ve had the best player. Discounting the steroid-tainted and disagreeable Barry Bonds, for the first time in at least […]

For the first time since the Colts and Chargers were choosing between Ryan Leaf and Peyton Manning, two quarterback prospects are the consensus number one and number two choices in the NFL draft. What is different this year is that one of the choices, Robert Griffin III, is African American. The team choosing first, the […]

So the manager of the Miami Marlins, the city with the largest Cuban American population in the United States, says he “loves” Fidel Castro and “admires” his ability to stay in power for 60 years. This is akin to a coach or manager in New York, with its large Jewish population, saying that Adolf Hitler […]

Once upon a time, American athletes displayed a social conscience. Tommy Smith and John Carlos called attention to the Black man’s plight in 1960s America with their actions on the victory stand in Mexico City. Muhammad Ali famously refused induction into the military because he felt the U.S. presence in Vietnam was illegal under Muslim […]