Back in the day, I was a sports reporter for the Bucks County Courier Times, just outside Philadelphia—and across the Delaware River from Trenton, N.J. It was only part time, but it was enough time to get quality experience–quick post-game interviews and unforgiving deadlines–usually covering high schools, but on occasion, pinch-hitting for the full-timers who also covered professional and college sports. So, on occasion, I got to cover a 76er’s or an Eagles–pronounced “Iggles” in Philly–game.
I also became privy to how sports coverage was regarded–and demeaned–by the real “news journalists.” Sports was referred to as the “toy department.” Ouch. But I got it. In the scheme of things, sports wasn’t, well, very important. Especially in a society reeling with racial upheaval, anti-war demonstrations and the usual nuclear scenarios.
But then came Muhammad Ali’s bouts over the military draft and the 1968 Mexico City Olympics where black American track athletes used their forum for Black Power awareness. Those upraised, black-gloved fists became iconic images thanks to the print and electronic media. But these were still anomalies. And mainstream America went back to its racist ways, while its media reported on the games Americans play. Who won? Who lost? Who didn’t need a diversion from all the things worth diverting from?
Fast forward to now, with allowances for the occasional professional sports strike, some steroid scandals and several high-profile, NCAA recruiting violations. But those were largely in-house. Not like today where elite athletes, many of them black, identify with racial injustice manifesting itself as a perverse complement to police brutality that is still—STILL—going on. Today’s black athletes have actually walked in the shoes of black victims. And their non-black teammates are increasingly standing in unison against entrenched, sometimes lethal, racism–the 21st century version of America’s Emmett Till infamy.
No longer can we isolate sports from racism. When it’s systemic, it’s everybody’s issue.
It’s always important to take a stand, whether it involves kneeling or postponing. Not just the National Basketball Association or the National Football League, whose players are majority black. But also the nearly lily-white National Hockey League and Major League Baseball, which has plenty of players of color—but most are not African-American. And it includes the Women’s NBA and Major League Soccer. And then there’s big-time college sports. If anyone should have an accountable societal conscience–social justice and athletic exploitation–it’s universities.
It’s no longer just individual athletes, such as Olympian Tommy Smith or ex-NFL QB Colin Kaepernick, making symbolic gestures or wearing BLM messaging. Now it’s franchises and leagues acting in unison with players to make maximum use of their impactful, high-profile forums. Hell, we even saw a TNT sports commentator, Kenny Smith, walk off the set in solidarity. The Bucs launched a Social Justice Initiative to promote voting—including among players. And, yes, we now have a Hockey Diversity Alliance.
No, sports are no longer the societal diversion they used to be. And those who chronicle them no longer work in the toy department, even if nostalgia periodically beckons. When you can help make a meaningful difference—by virtue of your forum and your following—you have to use it. Justice demands no less. When it’s a matter of life and death, it’s not a game.