#318. Sportsmanship

Sports. The final frontier for Black people. Sports offer "a way out" for Black people who live in broken home without fathers, or in the ghetto surrounded by misery, and the possibility of riches and fame comes with this promise.

In 21st century America, professional and collegiate athletes enjoy not only vast quantities of fiat money, but also fame, endorsement money and the adulation of millions, if not billions of people.

Black people are on the top of the list of highest paid athletes (in numerous sports) and best compensated in terms of endorsement dollars as 60 percent of the top 10 earners in 2008 are Black people.

Sports Illustrated, the most widely-read magazine devoted to sports in the world, routinely puts Black people on their cover:

Athlete	Number of covers
Michael Jordan	56
Muhammad Ali	38
Tiger Woods	30
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar	22
Magic Johnson	22
Jack Nicklaus	22

The adulation and notoriety that follows being on a Sport Illustrated cover is immense and solidifies in the general publics mind the superstar status of these athletic Black people.

Even though obscene amounts of money and fame are bestowed upon Black people who have the uncanny ability to entertain the masses through the cognitively difficult task of shooting a ball through a hoop or running with the football, an aura of bitterness surrounds them.

Take Tiger Woods, the highest paid athlete in the world and arguably the biggest Grouch in the world this side of Sesame Street:

"Tiger Woods has outgrown those Urkel glasses he had as a kid. Outgrown the crazy hair. Outgrown a body that was mostly neck.

When will he outgrow his temper?

"The man is 33 years old, married, the father of two. He is paid nearly $100 million a year to be the representative for some monstrously huge companies, from Nike to Accenture. He is the world's most famous and beloved athlete.

If there were no six-second delay, Tiger Woods would be the reason to invent it. Every network has been burned by having the on-course microphone open when he blocks one right into the cabbage and starts with the F-bombs. Once, at Doral, he unleashed a string of swear words at a photographer that would've made Artie Lange blush, and then snarled, "'The next time a photographer shoots a [expletive] picture, I'm going to break his [expletive] neck!

It's disrespectful to the game, disrespectful to those he plays with and disrespectful to the great players who built the game before him. Ever remember Jack Nicklaus doing it? Arnold Palmer? When Tom Watson was getting guillotined in that playoff to Stewart Cink, did you see him so much as spit?

Despite his pension for using profanity, Tiger Woods was recently rated America's favorite athlete:

Harris surveyed 2,177 U.S. adults online June 8-15. The Harris top five:1. Tiger Woods
2. Michael Jordan
3. LeBron James
4. Kobe Bryant
5. Derek Jeter

LeBron James, one of the worlds best tippers, also is one of the worlds worst sportsman, as he failed to shake the hands of the team that beat him in the NBA Playoffs in 2009:

"All athletes are taught from a young age to be good sports and shake the other team's hands, even if you lose.

LeBron must have skipped that part.

Professional athletes are supposed to be role models for young athletes all over the world. What is a young, aspiring LeBron fan suppose to think when he sees his idol storm off the court without shaking anyone's hand after losing?"

Serena Williams, who looks like the sister/brother of disgraced South African hermaphrodite Caster Semenya, is a superstar tennis player. She was famously disqualified in the 2009 US Open for threatening the judge with bodily harm after the judge awarded a point to her opponent:

"Williams’ subsequent outburst -- during which she glared at the linesperson and reportedly said, among other things, “If I could, I would take this fucking ball and shove it down your fucking throat” -- represented a regrettable loss of composure, but one that, under the circumstances, was somewhat understandable."

Here at SBPDL we have recently discussed the Boise State-Oregon football game, when a Black player- Lagarrette Blount - punched a white player after his team lost 19-8; the Miami-Florida International college football riot; the 2008 Montgomery Riot at a high school basketball game, and we will continue to discuss events that highlight Black people in situations that fit a clear behavioral pattern.

After all, who can forget the infamous incident between Latrell Spreweell (Black player) and his white coach PJ Carlesimo, when the basketball player went UFC and tried to choke his coach out?

A cursory glance at ESPN provides a cornucopia of highlights for the masses to indulge in and also provides the masses with incredible examples of Black people acting like the kid whose parents refuse to buy him a new toy:

"Brandon Marshall, openly unhappy with the Denver Broncos, was suspended by the team through Sept. 5 for what coach Josh McDaniels called "detrimental" conduct."

Black people have a profound ability to display selfishness, unsportsmanlike conduct and fascinating indifference to the rules and we must always remember young people believe that sports and the athletes who participate in these games set a wonderful example for young people to emulate.

Charles Barkley, a former professional basketball player turned perennial DUI suspect, had this to say about athletes being deemed role models:

"I'm not a role model... Just because I dunk a basketball doesn't mean I should raise your kids."

Barkley is wrong. Kids (and adults sadly) are greatly influenced by what they see on television and Black people know this very well. Perhaps that is why COPS, a long running television show about real-life police officers, has aided Black people in helping them craft their criminal vocations?

Sportsmanship is defined as:

"conformance to the rules, spirit, and etiquette of sport. More grandly, it may be considered the ethos of sport. It is interesting that the motivation for sport is often an elusive element. Sportsmanship expresses an aspiration or ethos that the activity will be enjoyed for its own sake, with proper consideration for fairness, ethics, respect, and a sense of fellowship with one's competitors. Being a "good sport" involves being a "good winner" as well as being a "good loser"."

Stuff Black People Don't Like includes sportsmanship, for only Serena Williams would threaten a judge with a tennis ball being shoved down her throat; Tiger Woods can enthrall millions with precise shoots, but cause everyone to wince when in earshot of his famous profanity-laced tirades that would make even George Carlin blush.

And to think, we didn't even mention Michael Vick in this post. Oops.