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stu2002
04-06-2010, 05:51 PM
CELEBRATE DIVERSITY

Butler defy racial stereotypes

By Jason King, Yahoo! Sports
Apr 5, 2:52 am EDT

INDIANAPOLIS – He’s been cursed by fans from North Carolina and taunted in road arenas throughout the ACC. Still, the chant that Duke guard Jon Scheyer remembers the most occurred during an AAU game back in high school.

Time and time again as Scheyer dribbled up the court, the opposing coach stood on the sideline and barked orders to his players.

“Get the white boy!” the coach said. “Get the white boy!”

Scheyer was the only non-African-American on his team.


“Obviously,” Scheyer said, “he was talking about me. I had a number and a name [on my jersey]. But instead it was ‘Get the white boy!’ “

No one, though, was ever able to stop Scheyer from reaching his potential.

Not at his Chicago-area high school, where he led his team to a state championship. Not at Duke, where he earned first-team all-ACC honors. And not in Indianapolis, where Monday’s NCAA title game between the Blue Devils and Butler has taken on an unfamiliar look.


Five white players could be on the court at tipoff. That’s the most since 1998, when six white players started in the Utah-Kentucky final.

Gordon Hayward and Matt Howard – two of Butler’s top players – are white. So are five of Duke’s top seven players.

Even though the race issue isn’t discussed in polite company, it’s been the subject of hushed conversations at the Final Four and will be obvious to anyone in attendance or tuning in at home. The subject is so taboo that even Larry Bird bristles when it’s brought up.

The Blue Devils, who have been described as “alarmingly unathletic,” powered past West Virginia by 21 points in Saturday’s national semifinal.

Hayward and Howard managed to lead small school Butler to victories over three Top 15 teams en route to a berth in the championship game.

Negative stereotypes about lack of speed, agility and leaping ability are being challenged.

“For me, it was always just about being a basketball player,” Hayward said. “I’d watch some of the great white players in the NBA and say, ‘Why can’t I do that?’ “

One of those players was Bird, the NBA Hall of Famer and Boston Celtics legend, who is now the president of basketball operations for the Indiana Pacers. Before his team’s game against Houston on Sunday, Bird became agitated when he was asked if he still thought negative stereotypes existed about white players.

“Who cares?” Bird said. “I mean, really … who cares? If you can play, you can play anywhere. It doesn’t matter what the stinking color of your skin is.”

Like many people, Bird doesn’t like to talk about the race factor in college basketball and the professional ranks. Last summer he was heavily criticized for selecting Tyler Hansbrough, who is white, with the 13th overall pick in the NBA draft.

Hansbrough was a three-time All-American, an NCAA champion and the leading scorer in the tradition-rich history of the Tar Heels’ program. But to some critics he was just another white player on a roster that already included former Duke standouts Josh McRoberts and Mike Dunleavy and ex-Notre Dame star Troy Murphy.

Hansbrough is out for the season because of health reasons, but McRoberts, Dunleavy and Murphy combined for 50 points in Sunday’s victory over Houston. The Rockets got a team-high 17 points from rookie Chase Budinger, a second-round draft pick from Arizona who is also white.

When he was in elementary school, Budinger said his friends laughed at him when he told them his goal was to become a professional basketball player.

“It was just because of the stereotype that’s out there,” he said. “It stuck with me. I told them, ‘I’m going to be a great player. You’re going to look back when I’m in the NBA and kick yourselves in the butt.’ “


For a time, Budinger was projected as a first-round pick in last summer’s draft, but he slipped into the second round. He thinks he knows why.

“I heard a lot leading up to the draft that I was soft and that I wasn’t athletic or quick enough to play in this league,” Budinger said. “That stereotype came from being white and from being kind of different.

“I grew up in a predominantly white suburb of San Diego and didn’t have the background some of these guys have, being from L.A. or Chicago.”

Players such as Duke’s Kyle Singler and Hayward are hoping the same thing doesn’t happen to them in the future. Both are potential first-round picks who will likely face similar questions about athleticism and speed.

“For me, growing up, it wasn’t about the color of anyone’s skin,” Singler said. “I just wanted to play against the best players, no matter if they were white or black. That’s how the game should be. People should respect the game and learn to appreciate the [individual] players.”

Butler guard Zach Hahn agrees.

“Everyone is born with an equal opportunity,” he said.

Duke’s Brian Zoubek, Brigham Young’s Jimmer Fredette and Syracuse’s Andy Rautins are white players who have flourished in this year’s NCAA tournament. St. Mary’s, Northern Iowa and Cornell reached the Sweet 16 with predominantly white rosters.

According to a University of Central Florida study released in 2008, 32.5 percent of Division I college basketball players were white during the 2006-07 season.

“I don’t like it when people make a big deal about me being white,” Scheyer said. “But that’s just the way it is. Ultimately, as long as you keep winning, how can people keep saying that?”


Copyright © 2010 Yahoo! All rights reserved

payme_rick
04-06-2010, 05:55 PM
You know, I actually thought last night while watching the game: "That's a lot of white boys!"...

stu2002
04-06-2010, 05:57 PM
You know, I actually thought last night while watching the game: "That's a lot of white boys!"...

Nice to see some diversity on the court

payme_rick
04-06-2010, 06:07 PM
Nice to see some diversity on the court

Well I wouldn't say that (seriously, 'I' wouldn't say that), it was just an observation...

I will say it was "interesting" only because it was out of the norm for basketball in America... I'll go ahead and say it: I'm a racist in the sense that I believe blacks are more athletically gifted via genetics when it comes to basketball/football/track-running than me and my fellow whities...

Another observation: Damn fine ball game... a lot better game than the one my tied-for-favorite team (UNC, Duke's rival) won last year... and they didn't even make the tourney this year... had to roll with my other tied-for favotire team (UT) this year, but they went from #1 to 1 and done...

stu2002
04-06-2010, 06:09 PM
I'm a racist in the sense that I believe blacks are more athletically gifted via genetics when it comes to basketball/football/track-running than me and my fellow whities.

So, if someone thinks that whites are more scientifically gifted via genetics than blacks would that be racist?

Light
04-06-2010, 06:11 PM
So, if someone thinks that whites are more scientifically gifted via genetics than blacks would that be racist?

Of course it would be racist since racism is a one-way street.

stu2002
04-06-2010, 06:15 PM
Of course it would be racist since racism is a one-way street.

Precisely. Since racism is never a two-way street, allegations of racism are pure B.S.

payme_rick
04-06-2010, 06:20 PM
So, if someone thinks that whites are more scientifically gifted via genetics than blacks would that be racist?

I dunno, why are you asking me? I just made a comment about basketball and football :D

Johsin'....... My belief is that racism is when one race is believed to be genetically better than the other, PERIOD!... I do not believe that whites are better than blacks genetically, and I do not believe that blacks are better than whites genetically, which is why in my comment I said "racist in the sense"...

RM918
04-06-2010, 06:23 PM
Now, if people could be mature enough for 'white' and 'Caucasian' in that article to be changed to 'black' and 'African' and treat it just as harmlessly, we'd have made a lot of progress.

stu2002
04-06-2010, 06:31 PM
I dunno, why are you asking me? I just made a comment about basketball and football :D

Johsin'....... My belief is that racism is when one race is believed to be genetically better than the other, PERIOD!... I do not believe that whites are better than blacks genetically, and I do not believe that blacks are better than whites genetically, which is why in my comment I said "racist in the sense"...

Cannot argue with that

BlackTerrel
04-06-2010, 07:46 PM
There are plenty of white NBA players - most of them from Europe.

A lot of black kids grow up in the hood thinking the only occupation they could be was actor/athlete/rapper. Hence you have a lot of blacks in sports.

Blacks are also over represented among actors, and musicians (8 out of 10 on the billboard top downloaded songs are usually black artists).

Are blacks also more genetically gifted when it comes to acting and music than whites? Or is it something else?

revolutionisnow
04-06-2010, 08:45 PM
There are plenty of white NBA players - most of them from Europe.

A lot of black kids grow up in the hood thinking the only occupation they could be was actor/athlete/rapper. Hence you have a lot of blacks in sports.

Blacks are also over represented among actors, and musicians (8 out of 10 on the billboard top downloaded songs are usually black artists).

Are blacks also more genetically gifted when it comes to acting and music than whites? Or is it something else?

Hollywood isn't an industry that is based on talent or skill, and to a lesser extent neither is the music industry.

payme_rick
04-06-2010, 08:46 PM
Are blacks also more genetically gifted when it comes to acting and music than whites? Or is it something else?

I don't believe they are...

My belief that blacks are more genetically gifted athletically at football and basketball is just that, my belief... I don't really have any numbers to back it up... sure, I could say "look at the number of blacks compared to whites in the american population... there being less blacks in the country yet more on the professional rosters of basketball and football teams leads me to believe that blacks are genetically more gifted athletically when it comes to playing these sports!", but that seems to be a tad too shallow of an observation...

my belief in great part comes from another observation of mine (even though I lack the numbers): the number of whites and blacks that play both basketball and football on the high school level... in my observation, just as many whites play high school basketball as blacks, the same can be said when it comes to football, but who's getting the scholorship offers? Sure, some could make the arguement that "blacks grow up in the hood, they think sports is one of the only ways to make something of themselves, whereas whites that don't live in the hood know they can just go to college, or enter the worforce and be successful without sports"... that makes sense, but also a shallow observation IMO...

Go to a high school recruiting site (rivals.com maybe) and look at the top recruits rankings in the two sports... these players are being rated for how good they are on the field and court, not how likely it is that the players view sports as the only door to future success... with the belief in mind that just as many whites compete in basketball and football as blacks, why are most of the faces you see black? Because, IMO, blacks are just better overall at playing football and basketball...

Someone may also ask me, based on my observation, "do whites make better football coaches?"... that I cannot answer... sure, you see more white coaches than black coaches, but there's another shallow observation... there are more whites than blacks in this country... my belief is there are less black coaches because A.) there are less blacks; and B.) they're still playing football :D

Anyway, it's not that big of a deal to me if you think I'm wrong, I can understand... just my belief and really, it's not a big deal... just an interesting discussion and I have enjoyed sharing my views on it...

BlackTerrel
04-06-2010, 11:15 PM
Rick,

I think what I'd ask is those white kids that play basketball what else are they doing? They may also be focusing on their studies, and looking at alternatives. For the blacks (for many) they see it as their only shot. I've been to both black and whites school and seen the difference.

Take a look at boxing - in the 20's and 30's it was dominated by Jews, Irish, and Italians - were they genetically better at boxing than White Protestants - or did they simply want it more?

silus
04-07-2010, 12:41 AM
You know, I actually thought last night while watching the game: "That's a lot of white boys!"...
lol...exactly what I was thinking. It was a pleasant surprise.