Ethnicity in Sports
This paper asks two main questions: Is sport relatively free of prejudice and discrimination found in other aspects of society? Is it a way toward upward mobility for underrepresented groups? The common belief these days is that the sporting world is integrated very well, and that athletes and people that work with them have put their prejudice aside. When African-Americans of a lower social class see the success of black athletes they think of it as a way of self-improvement and upward mobility in society. However, a closer look at the sports world shows that these beliefs may be false. Historically, there are many examples of prejudice and discrimination in sport. There were very few non-whites in the major sport organizations before 1950. Blacks played sports but they played on their own teams, and in their own baseball and basketball leagues. When they did excel in sports, it was either ignored, minimized, or attributed to their "animal cunning." According to experts, "seeing blacks as subhuman made it easier for whites to explain how and why blacks could defeat whites in contests of physical skill. After all, the argument went, blacks were mo
Even when blacks are over represented in sports there is a practice called stacking that is actually a form of segregation. Stacking interferes with the elimination of racial prejudice in sports. What is stacking? It is the practice of placing players in certain positions based on their ethnicity. In baseball very few black players pitch mostly they play in the outfield. In football blacks are more likely to play receiver, safety, and corner back because mostly whites play quarter back and offensive line. In soccer blacks tend to play at the forward position were the white players play goalie and mid-field. (Coakley, 2000) One of the reasons that teams stack players is that they think people from different racial backgrounds have certain physical or mental qualities that make them good at their positions. Some researchers think that blacks were built for speed and quickness and whites are more intelligent and show better leadership. " It is obvious that the achievements of top level athletes are at least based on inherited physical characteristics but no research has shown that these characteristics are systematically related to race and ethnicity. In fact, most positions require a variety of skills making this explanation, at best, overly simplistic." (Figler and Whitaker, 1994: 301) Another explanation for stacking is sociological. Coaches make decisions about putting players in different positions based on their experiences and opinions. Sometimes these opinions are prejudiced. For example a coach may not think that a black player may be smart enough to play quaterback. Opinions like this influence who is even recruited for the position. As an illustration of the practice of stacking, Coakley offers the following statistics that show the percentages of players at different positions in the NFL.
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Approximate Word count = 1714
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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