Wednesday, February 24, 1999
Winners never quit
SPORTS: UCLA, media should focus less on athletes who leave
college to pursue pro careers
By Scott Kurashige
For the past year, quarterback Cade McNown has been synonymous
with UCLA football and for many, maybe even UCLA itself. UCLA has
plastered McNown’s image on posters, billboards and banners all
across the city. Indeed, if the hundreds of young people wearing
the quarterback’s No. 18 jersey at home games is any indication,
McNown has become an icon unparalleled by any other UCLA football
figure in the past decade.
With all this in mind, what are we to make of the news from a
recent Los Angeles Times headline that McNown "quits classes at
UCLA to prepare full time for scouting combine and draft"? Although
McNown is already assured of a job with an NFL team next year, he
signed on with the International Management Group and hired a
private quarterback coach in order to become an even higher profile
draft pick.
As superagent Leigh Steinberg said in the Times, "If the
difference between a player being No. 27 instead of No. 2 (in the
draft) is a $10 million signing bonus, players reason they can
finish the quarter later."
Maybe there’s an economic justification for putting college on
the back burner, but I still have to ask, "What’s wrong with this
picture?" McNown is supposed to be the epitome of a "winner," and
we all know that "a winner never quits."
By contrast, a number of defensive players on UCLA have been
accused of quitting or at least not giving 100 percent … even by
their own teammates!
Junior offensive tackle Kris Farris told the Times after the
Rose Bowl, "I’m not naming names. But some guys can play harder." A
few days later, Farris announced he was leaving UCLA for the NFL.
Now who’s the real quitter?
In order to attract future football recruits, UCLA will be
tempted to hype up Farris and McNown’s NFL draft status. Given
UCLA’s educational mission, I believe this would be an extremely
irresponsible act. We should focus instead on upholding athletic
and academic excellence.
For instance, Brendan Ayanbadejo told the Times about his and
his fellow teammates’ commitment to promoting education for
inner-city youth: "The message we want to get across is athletics
isn’t going to be what gets you what you want in life, it’s your
academics. It’s OK to have your dreams – still aspire to be an
astronaut, or a football player or tennis player – but the first
and foremost thing that’s going to get that goal in your grasp is
academics."
It does not surprise me that the strongest voices on the
football team publicly advocating the importance of education are
people of color.
Throughout American history, people of color have always had to
struggle to obtain access to education, fighting against segregated
schools, tracking, Eurocentric curriculum and racial stereotypes.
As Berkeley sociologist Harry Edwards argued in "The Revolt of the
Black Athlete," even athletes with "full ride" scholarships face
this struggle, "for the black athlete in the predominantly white
school was and is first, foremost and sometimes only, an athletic
commodity. He is constantly reminded of this one fact."
William Banks, a professor of African American studies at
Berkeley, has called for African American and Latino athletes to
boycott the UC system.
He contends that the predominance of people of color on
basketball and football teams coupled with the precipitous drop in
underrepresented student admissions sends a message that the UC
system is interested only in exploiting black and brown bodies
rather than nurturing black and brown minds.
All athletes bear the burden of what Edwards calls the "dumb
jock" stereotypes that pervade society. In my opinion, comments
like the following from Chancellor Carnesale do not help the
situation. Carnesale told the New York Times (Nov. 28, 1997) that
even after Proposition 209, "We use affirmative action all the
time. It is not by looking at academic merits alone that we have a
football team with a 9-2 record, going to a bowl."
But in the case of McNown and select others, UCLA has worked
hard to dispel the notion that athletes are just a piece of meat.
For instance, head coach Bob Toledo told the Associated Press that
McNown "succeeds with his football intelligence, hard work and
heart." The Times ran feature stories on Farris, Larry Clements and
Danny Farmer showing that they have aspirations extending far
beyond football. The athletic department recognized center Shaun
Stuart’s good study skills by hiring him as academic coordinator
for the UCLA basketball team. In case you weren’t aware, McNown,
Farris, Clements, Farmer and Stuart are all white.
In my opinion, there is no evidence which suggests that any
similar effort has been made by UCLA or the mainstream media (with
the exception of African American sportswriter J.A. Adande) to
represent African American, Latino or Pacific Islander football
players in similar fashion. Instead, there is evidence, from
Lindy’s College Football Preview, that Toledo considers one of his
defensive backs to be "a real specimen and a talented athlete."
The problem of racial stereotyping is compounded when the
majority of the defense that has been attacked as "lacking heart"
is African American, including all of the defensive backs. The
struggle of athletes of color for education, dignity and equality –
for themselves and their communities – reached the world stage with
the raised fists of John Carlos and Tommy Smith at the 1968
Olympics and continues largely behind the scenes in 1999.
I believe that UCLA must take responsibility for fixing the
disparate messages which are sent to youth about sports and
education.
We need to hear less about stars like McNown and Farris, who
forsake UCLA for the NFL, and more about student-athletes like Eric
Scott. Scott was recruited out of Crenshaw High School and spent
five years on the football team, using the first four to get his
B.A. and the fifth to attend graduate school at UCLA.
In my opinion, we also need to correct admissions policies which
have the effect of shutting out inner-city youth.
Given that a high percentage (approaching 50 percent) of African
American male freshman at UCLA are athletes, an inner-city youth of
color is likely to believe he needs to play at the level of Larry
Atkins III or Baron Davis to have a future in Westwood. But there
aren’t enough athletic scholarships for more than a fraction of
those pursuing them.
UCLA has already blown a prime opportunity to help us move
beyond images of greed and selfishishness in sports and beyond
stereotypes and injustices.
As has been well-documented, many of the football players wanted
to wear black armbands as a sign of support for educational
equality. Toledo and Athletic Director Peter Dalis opposed this
public gesture.
UCLA had a chance to make college sports meaningful to youth,
not as a beckon of false hopes, but as a promise of educational
fulfillment. Toledo and Dalis could have chosen to let the bright
light emanating from this incredible group of student-athletes
shine all over America. Instead, they acted to snuff it out.
Society can only hope that the flame is still flickering.
Comments, feedback, problems?
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