Non-Sports Related Black Excellence

So I’m not doing a good job finding the thread where this comment was made - maybe a link would be helpful.

Two young men from my hometown are rags-to-riches NFL players. It is an exceptional achievement for them to be sure, but I hesitate to say that it raised the status of young black men in my hometown where 80% live below the poverty line.

The rarity of such stories, the short career of most pro athletes, and the disheartening long term statistics on former pro athletes and bankruptcy combine to make that a weak argument in my estimation. Were it a broader opportunity with better long term success - maybe. I’m not sold that pro sports really sticks it to the man.

I disagree that professional athletics has been helpful overall to black males. I think the “glitter” of the NFL, NBA, and MLB outshines the many opportunities for education that is available to a gifted athlete.

How many college athletes choose a less-challenging major just to stay eligible so they can showcase their skills for the pros? And then fall short of the big professional paycheck and now have to figure out how to make a living with a degree in communications and no internship experience that would lead to career opportunities (because there was no time for an internship between practice and training schedules). I’m not knocking a comm degree as being less of an academic challenge. It’s just easier to stay eligible in a degree with few hard and fast core requirements that can be met in multiple semesters vs an engineering or business or chemistry degree that must follow a specific sequence of courses, making it much harder to take enough degree-pursuant courses to stay eligible.

College athletics can be a great opportunity to earn a degree, but too many athletes are pushed into degrees solely for the purpose of remaining eligible. There is nothing wrong with a liberal arts degree, but job placement can be difficult without a plan to get the required experience starting your freshman year. If your job placement plans are the NFL draft, you are fighting an uphill battle unless you are among the elite.

The problem starts even in junior high when parents steer the boys into less rigorous classes to maintain eligibility instead of the more rigorous ones that would prepare them for college. This problem applies across all races, but it is more pronounced for those in low-income households because athletics looks like a way out. It used to break my heart when my very smart African American fifth grade boys would list professional sports when talking about what they wanted to do when they grew up. Boys who were awesome at math and science and could follow a STEM path to academic achievement we’re encouraged to spend time after school pursuing a sport instead of their studies (and it continued on into high school).

The worst cases were those who caught the attention of unscrupulous AAY programs. They filled the parents heads with promises NCAA glory—a scholarship to Duke, Kansas, Kentucky!—followed by an NBA lottery pick. When you are struggling to put food on the table and a roof over your family’s head, it’s hard to ignore that sales person pitch.