Analyzing Lapchick

For my sports reporting and writing class I had to read Richard Lapchick's piece, 2006-07 Racial and Gender Report Card. Lapchick discusses how professional sports organizations, such as the NBA, MLB, NFL, MLS and WNBA, handle the employment of races and genders across the board -- meaning not just the athletes, but the coaches and the front office as well.

Lapchick opens the piece talking about Jackie Robinson and his historic beat down of the racial barrier in professional baseball. This part of the piece was the most interesting to me because I feel like baseball is second only to soccer on a global stage of popularity and thus, I figured it would have received the highest grade for racial equality. But then Lapchick gets into how the popularity of baseball continues to flounder in the African-American community. Baseball, as with all other sports, has its demographics. Fact of the matter is, inner-city kids can't play baseball because there is nowhere to play. It's not like they can just start a pick-up game in the middle of a busy Manhattan street like it was the 1920s.

As far as addressing gender equality in a league like the NFL, well, good luck. Dan Dierdorf said on NFL Network's countdown of the top 10 ex-NFL coaches who should have stayed in college, that the NFL, "is a league for men," which he said in reference to Southern California coach Pete Carroll. He went on to explain how Carroll wasn't a good NFL coach because NFL players don't like to get hugs coming off the field when they do something great, they don't like the rah-rah enthusiasm for which Carroll is known. They are brutes and respond only to brute-like behavior. Bill Cowher, Bill Parcells, and Mike Ditka were great NFL coaches just in the sense of imagery. They looked like leaders of men. Their scowls will be forever remembered by the men who played for them.

Lapchick also makes reference to Rooney Rule, which requires NFL teams to interview at least one African-American for a vacant head coaching position. It is a bit pretentious that The League has to require teams to interview African-Americans for head coaching jobs. They should just do it because of the quality of the candidates, not because of skin color and meeting guidelines. I like the Rooney Rule and so do the Pittsburgh Steelers. Props to you, Mike Tomlin and the entire Steeler organization. If I could choose one coach to play for in the NFL right now, it'd be Tomlin for sure.

Having said all of this, here is where I stand on the subject of racial and gender equality. Lapchick uses the phrase "players of color," in his opening few paragraphs when referring to racial equality in Major League Baseball. This sickens me. The fact that Lapchick, or any other person for that matter, even used the word color in reference to another human being is ridiculous.

I'm not being racist here. Quite the contrary, in fact. I'm saying I don't see an African-American or Hispanic-American as "a person of color." I see them as another person. The color of a person's skin is of the most feeble significance to me. The whole notion of white people and minorities leaves the door open to racism, which is what I feel Lapchick fails to address. I realize Lapchick is shooting for equality here, but aren't we all people equal in the sense of livelihood?

Caucasians are not a majority and minorities are not a minority. When will our nation learn to discard these labels?

We are all in this together. End of story.