Drowning Out the Old Racist Rancor

I probably felt many of the same feelings watching Anthony Nesty win a goal medal in the Olympics two nights ago as my grandparents and other Blacks did watching Jesse Owens in the 1936 Olympics.

Or the same way they did watching Joe Louis be a "credit to his race" while winning the heavyweight championship in boxing during the 1950's.

But there was a different feeling for me. I was watching Nesty, a swimmer from Suriname, a country in South America, win the Gold medal in the Olympics in an event in which Blacks are not supposed to compete.

In what many termed an upset, Nesty defeated American swimmer Matt Biondi in the 100-meter butterfly. Nesty, a Florida University freshman who also won the 100-meter butterfly in the 1987 Pan Am Games, set a world record in the event.

Nesty was beating not only the best swimmers--including the best Anglo-Saxons--from around the world, but he was also beating Al Campanis.

In April of 1987, Campanis--then a baseball general manager--said that Blacks lacked the proper buoyancy to swim well.

Nesty was beating Jimmy "the Greek" Synder. In January of 1988, Synder, then working as an NFL forecaster, stereotyped Blacks when he said Blacks were "bred to be big."

He was beating all of those people who still try to make Blacks out to be sub-humans--physical specimens built and bred only to play football and basketball. Nesty has proven that Blacks can indeed excel in other sports if given the encouragement any athlete needs along with the proper facilities to hone budding skills.

Nesty had the proper encouragement from his environment and family--when he was eight, his father simply threw him into the water and told him to learn how to swim.

But just as important, he had the proper training facilities. There was a swimming pool his father could throw him into. Instead of having his parents tell him to go outside and play in the streets where drugs and other troubles lurk, he had a swimming pool in which to train.

If there is a problem with the swimming ability of Blacks, the limited availability of swimming pools is it. Blacks do not participate in sports such as swimming because of limited access to swimming pools. Up until the 1960s, and even later in some parts of the country, many swimming pools were not open to Blacks. The few pools in Black communities were packed, not a good training ground for a future Olympian.

It is much easier for a Black to grow up playing basketball or football. He is encouraged, as a matter of fact, because the only Blacks he sees on TV are slam-dunking or running for touchdowns. To play football, all that is needed is a field (any street will due) and a football. To play basketball, only a ball and a hoop are needed.

And footballs and basketballs are much more plentiful in Black communities, particularly in poor ones, around the country than are tennis courts, skating rinks and swimming pools.

Despite this, Blacks are beginning to participate in other sports. Besides Nesty, another Black who makes headlines nationally is figure skater Debi Thomas. She is liked and respected all over the world. But how many parents, particularly poor, working Black parents, are able to drive their daughter 40 miles to the nearest skating rink at four in the morning as her parents did?

There is Zina Garrison in tennis, who is ranked among America's top players. Garrison recently defeated Martina Navratilova in the U.S. Open.

Garrison is a Black who overcame long odds to get where she is today. She grew up on the wrong side of Houston, learning her tennis at dangerous Riverside Park, the wrong place for a young teen to learn anything.

In comparison, someone like Chris Evert, whose father belonged to a country club, is given significant advantages. She is able to play at an indoor tennis court, with good tennis rackets, new tennis balls, and other equipment.

There are other Blacks branching out to other sports. Lori McNeil, a childhood tennis partner of Garrison, is another tennis player on the way up.

Charles Lakes is the highest-ranked American gymnast in the Olympics.

These Blacks are proving that given access to the proper facilities, Blacks can compete in any sport just as easily as anyone else.