| The Optimist wrote: |
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| Are there more seniors in college basketball that are white or black? Whatever the answer is to that question, Wooden is clearly racist towards them and was trying to get around the question with his answer. |
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WOW
Revisionist history to be sure. Wooden gives a cogent answer to the question and it is now interpreted as racist.
Many of us here have rejoiced in witnessing mind bending and earthshaking progress in racial and gender equality.
I carefully constructed a response when I originally saw Dragon's response but I pulled it down because I did not want that depth of discussion to consume the board.
YOu guys are missing a ton of appreciation of where we were and where we are. All the explaining in the world will not help you to see what I am talking about . Flippantly talking like you think it has always been the way it is today is disconcerting and diminishes what has been accomplished.
I recall the first space missions. YOu guys take them for granted, I remember no microwave, It is part of your life. I remember 3 channels and a dial with 13 numbers, you can;t imagine having to get up off the couch to cselect one of 182 channels. I remember getting yelled at by some old cracker for using the "colored" bathroom at the bus station when I was a kid, I remember our neighbor saying something to my pops because we had a black man over for dinner on a Sunday in our lilly white community. . I remember my friend and neighbor Timmy Green who was the only black kid in the Tecumseh school district and I was the only guy who hung with him for a reason I did not understand for many years to come.
You guys need to understand how far we have come and not assume the way he answered was racist but maybe based in something else. Wooden was an intellect that probably (i was not there) answered the question honestly from his experience as a coach. Perhaps he was diminishing the race question and moving the reproter to a more appropriate line of query. Wooden recruted and coached a huge number of men of color. Not sure how you ignore that fact and automatically assume he was racist. Perhaps you should look at the number of whites John, Ronny and JT3 have recruited and understand what real racism in coaching looks like. Read any analysis of what Branch McCracken told black recruits including Oscar Roberston and William Garrett and you will see racism. That would require you to use that OHIO education and not just repeat what the talking heads and media tell you. It would require comprehension, historcial reference and assimilation of facts, historical reference and understanding followed by logic and thought. You guys are better than that. Throwing out that card everytime a white man says something and you do not take the time to reflect on what he was really saying is just beneath us and is not fair to .
Now don;t go putting words in my mouth or trying to label me as racist but I am going to advance a theory advanced to me by a couple of black coaches I was sharing a beer with.....talking about coaching kids. SPecificaly black kids....
In today's society they would argue that the question may become legit not because of skin color but because of culture. An increasing rise in belligerent and angry parents within a subculture of black america may indeed make coaching blacks more difficult. That is not being racist but identifying a growing attitude within a group that is becoming more pervasive and reinforced by Pro athletes setting the example by demanding coaches be fired for them to stay.
To diminsh these things and misinterpret them makes that Ohio education seem a little cheaper. Makes it seem like the power of reason and cogent thinking with comprehension and analysis got lost along the way.
read any article about Wooden and you will find similar
trhoughts to the ones in here
"Coach Wooden's legacy extends far beyond his tremendous success on the basketball court," said Indiana State president Dan Bradley. "While at Indiana State, he helped break down racial barriers in national post-season basketball tournaments. Throughout his entire life, he instilled in his players and others the principles needed to succeed in all aspects of their lives."
READ THE DAMN ARTICLE DO THE RESEARCH ......... you are riight. I am pissed. WE are better than that. FOr any outside that comes here and reads.... I want us to be better represented. As you read remember that "colored" was the nicest and most appropriate way to refer to what we PC refer to as African Americans today. Blacks I know prefer I use :"black" in their presence if we even take a moment to see color and I always cock an eyebrow when they describe a player ad "the black kid".,,,,,Really? NOt the PG or the shooter? THe black kid?
I will give you a head start on Woodens OBviously racist demeanor from his first year as a head coach
His first season at ISU in 1946, he posted a record of 18-8 with a team made up of players such as Lenny Rzeszewski, Duane Klueh, and Bobby Royer. But that success came with a price. Forced to play in the NAIA tournament in Kansas City without one of his players, Wooden declined the tourney bid.
"They wouldn't permit a colored boy to play in the tournament and I had one on my team -- Clarence Walker out of East Chicago," he recalled. "While he wasn't one that got to play very much at all, he still was a member of my team and I wouldn't take the team without him."
