Not Black and White

The NFL draft dominated the sporting news media this past week, although for months before that as well. Every player available was discussed, debated, tested and critiqued. Some of it was interesting, but the vast majority of it was overkill. Far too many nights Sports Center was talking about the only sport not being played, while good baseball was being ignored.

One conversation, though, was far deeper reaching than simply the events of this weekend’s draft. The debatably top rated quarterback in the draft, Geno Smith, received many criticisms throughout the months leading up to the draft for his work ethic, his dedication, his football IQ, and, frankly, his quality as a draft prospect altogether. This would have been the end of my interest if it wasn’t for a conversation between ESPN analysts Steven A. Smith and Skip Bayless. The two were debating the place that race has in football. Stephen A. Smith was arguing that the criticism that Geno had received, saying that such comments, which couldn’t be quantified with his statistical performance, were clearly a factor of racism. The conversation focused on the overall lack of African-American quarterbacks in the league, and that these players received far greater critical analysis than their white counterparts.

It was especially disheartening to see that this conversation came in the same month as the release of the widely acclaimed movie “42,” the story of Jackie Robinson and his quest to break the color barrier in professional sports. Over 65 years after the man’s major league debut, the league all came together to wear his jersey number to honor the great man’s work at unifying the sports world.

One man, though, is not and will not be the answer. All athletes, coaches, and fans need to demonstrate the same strength that Robinson showed. Veiled racism, like criticizing a players athletic intellect when no real factors exist, must be brought to the light. This of course is not a conversation about Geno Smith. Frankly, I have heard more than enough about Geno Smith, whether he was black, white, or any other racial background. This is an issue that plays out on far too many fields across the sports world.

At the Indiana University baseball field yesterday, I took in the first three innings of a game between my Hoosiers and the visiting Michigan Wolverines. Having experienced the Sports Center conversation earlier that week, I happened to be a little more observant of the players taking the field. Of the 20 players starting the game, all but one player from either team was as white as the Hoosiers’ home jerseys. Of course, you can’t totally tell someone’s racial background simply based on the color of their skin, but from my front row seat right next to the dugout, it would be safe to say that there was little to no ethnic diversity going on in that dugout. Now I won’t claim to know anything about the demographics of my campus, and I strongly believe that both in the sports and academic worlds the best should get the chance to play/learn, no matter what their racial background. It just strikes me as odd that a team would have such strikingly homogenous backgrounds.

Racism has become more ambient, a little better hidden. In the environments where I live, people aren’t downright outspoken about their disdain or hatred of a particular individual based on the color of their skin. But that doesn’t mean the prejudices aren’t there. In fact, they have the power to be even more debilitating to our social structure if we are unable to see them and appreciate the difficulty that they cause to our world.

Sports have always been the places where we can see the social mindset of our nation. And while the sports world continues to discuss the next barrier, the sexual orientation barrier, we can’t forget that our work with race is not finished. It won’t be finished until we no longer talk about Geno Smith as any different from Matt Barkley, with the exception of their skills on the football field.

April 23rd: A Little Effort

I affectionately referred to my school last week as the collegiate Mecca. Any college student within a hundred mile radius was either heading to Indiana University, or at the very least wishing they were.

Known as the largest partying weekend in the college world, the Little 500 is, at least initially, a bike race. Fraternities and independent cycling teams compete in a 200 lap race, with the winner often receiving offers from international cycling teams.

I strongly believe that you would be hard pressed to find a student at Indiana University who is more proud of the IU on the front of his t-shirt. That pride, though, is mixed with a little bit of disappointment. While the Little 500 is a wonderful time for my peers to appreciate the excellence of our school, the partying has become debilitating. Parties start on Thursday night, a full ten days before the actual race. For that week (and then some), parties are endless, and responsibilities are non-existent. Or at least that is how they appear. Between the IU strike of two weeks ago and the Little 5 this past week, class has been downright optional.

College is all about learning how to live in the real world, and in that regard, we are failing for a week. Responsibilities are ignored with a reckless abandonment, left for the next week, which is an academic dead week in preparation for finals. The part where the academic world fails is in the teachers’ approach during that week. While the students take the week off, the teachers allow them to. There are no consequences, as a general rule, for the absences. There is a general understanding that students won’t show up, and teachers won’t grade them badly for it.

While I appreciate the need for a week of blowing off some steam amidst the intense pressure of the last month of the year, it is not acceptable for students to have the ability to screw around for a whole week without consequences.  That is ridiculous in the context of the real world. If my father decided to take off a week of work, he absolutely could do that. But he may have to take a lot more than a week afterward, because he may not be allowed to keep his job. If that’s the case, why is it acceptable for college students to be allowed to go AWOL for a week without their teachers keeping them in check?

This is not to say, of course, that all teachers leave their students loose to wreak havoc. Many do continue life as if it were any other week. In one of my classes, we had a test scheduled for Friday, the day before the big race. She was going to give that test no matter what week it was. It had been on the syllabus since day one. Yet she was demonized by her students. A mass complaint was filed, with students begging for a change of the test date. She was made out to be the cruelest woman in the whole world, simply because she was unwilling to change her academic plan, one which had been in place for almost as long as the Little 5 date had been scheduled. This was unacceptable on the part of her students. It is not her responsibility to maintain the party atmosphere. If she were to teach in the best interests of party life, she would be doing a disservice to the parents who are, in many cases, funding the education that these students are throwing away.

The point I am making is not that the Little 500 is bad and that students are not allowed to have fun on my watch. The point is, however, that the avoidance of responsibilities must come with an understanding: if I choose not to go to class, I will risk receiving a bad grade. I will miss attendance points; I will not be as prepared for the final exam next week; I will have to make up lost ground.  If a student is willing to say that, willing to take responsibility for their actions, than the Little 500 is not a problem at all. It is only when they choose to forsake that that the system falls apart.

April 14: Striking Out

Two of my classes were canceled this week, due to a strike that many students chose to coordinate at Indiana University. The strike was advertised for weeks, leading up to a two day event that would be a demonstration by the students.

The issue at hand was tuition costs. Indiana University, as a state funded school, has seen increases in funding from the state of Indiana in recent years, yet tuition has also been rising every few years at a fairly regular and steep rate. While an oversimplification, this was what was at the center of the protest, and was the reason that the academic world was turned on its ear last week.

When I arrived at one of my classes, I was made aware that the central headquarters for the protestors was the academic building where I was going to have to take my Media Life class. They were using my classroom as a meeting room, until my professor told them that we had to begin class. At that point, I got to take a very good look at the individuals who were, for lack of a better word, orchestrating this event.

My first impression of the group that was protesting was that it appeared as though they were also boycotting the plumbing and barbering industries, as it looked as though none had received a bath or haircut in many moons. While a goofy thing to notice, it speaks volumes about their credibility. A group that is attempting to catch the ears of the administrators and board of governors of the University is first catching their noses. While you don’t need to be a professional to make a change in your school, it sure as hell would help if you acted in a mildly professional way.

As I thought more critically of the strike, I came to two conclusions. The first was that a strike from classes is a quite useless form of demonstration in this particular case. The complaint is that students are paying too high a price for a particular product (in this case, their education). As a form of protest, they decided that they would stop taking advantage of the product, i.e. not going to class. The problem with this type of protest is that they have already paid. The money has already exchanged hands. They are, in most basic terms, wasting their money even further than they claim. My half-joking solution to the problem was that the protestors should be going to more classes, not less. In a week where a student paid to go to 15 credit hours, a real protest would be to sit in on 45 credits worth of class. This would be effective from the protestor’s perspective, because it would allow them to get more for their money, and it wouldn’t hurt that the potential havoc that comes from a surplus of students in a class would disturb the gentle rhythm of academia.

My second conclusion was much more startling, and a little sadder. I came to realize that this group was interested in protesting for the sake of protesting. While the cause does have its merits, it was clear from their reactions to their obstacles (being sent away from a board meeting, not being able to demonstrate publically because it was raining) that it was more important to be demonstrating against SOMETHING, rather than against THIS particular thing. It was clear that the group was the kind who was angry, looking to be upset, looking to play the victim. While the group can’t be summarized as a collective, it would be fair to say that once the large demonstration was gathered, there was a sincere lack of leadership to drive the mass of protestors toward any particular goal. That indicated, to me at least, that this was a protest without a passion. It was a demonstration without a drive.

Now it is Little 500 week, and everyone will forget about the reason they missed class last week. They will go to the next excitement, and we will continue to pay an extraordinary amount of money for school, and we will plod along until someone else says, “son of a gun, this sucks.” As someone who greatly believes in doing what it takes to change the world, this particular protest just proved that unless there is a true burning desire to change, we are just spinning our wheels.

April 7: America's pastime

The first of April marked the first day of the 2013 baseball season, which left fans everywhere begging to be in front of their televisions instead of sitting at school or at work. After the sports heaven that was March Madness, it is time for the nation’s pastime to return to center stage.

I am as avid a baseball fan as they come, which is why I made the two and a half hour drive to Cincinnati the first chance I got to go see the Cincinnati Reds play the Washington Nationals. It was my first time seeing the Great American Ballpark, and I was not disappointed; there is no better feeling than walking out from the concourse and watching the field stretch out before you.

The day was sunny and bright, a perfect day for baseball. Cincinnati’s ballpark is right next to the Ohio River, so from our seats along the first base line, we could look out and see for miles along the river and into the city.

A few minutes before game time, we heard those famous words. “Ladies and Gentlemen, please rise and remove your caps for the singing of the National Anthem.” As one mass, the entire stadium stood and honored our nation, some singing along, all cheering as the final notes were played and the game was ready to begin.

There was only one problem. There weren’t any baseball players.

On both the Reds’ and Nationals’ side of the field, no more than a dozen players were standing along the baseline stretching, pausing for the Star Spangled Banner. A vast majority of both teams were nowhere to be seen, in the clubhouse.

Having the chance to play the sport you love is not a right, but rather the privilege of a lifetime. That privilege comes with a few hurdles through which a ballplayer must jump. One of those things most definitely should be paying his respects to the country in which he is given his vast blessings.

There are plenty of baseball players from around the world, who may not call America home for four months of the year. They may think that the song means nothing more to them than does the song that the starting pitcher warms up to. But the bottom line is that they will be paid in American dollars at the end of the month, and they better be ready to be respectful.

If a ballgame were to feature the Toronto Blue Jays, you could be damn sure that the same expectations would be had for “Oh Canada.” Respect is an international thing. This is well beyond the ballpark. This is a source of pride for each nation of the world.

The fact that it was the Washington Nationals who brought this issue to my attention is insulting, appalling, and, frankly, embarrassing. The name on the front of their jersey means even more than any mere mascot. They will be, and should be held to a higher standard. If you are the National Pastime’s team in the Nation’s capital, you better be ready to bring honor to your city.

If I were a manager, I would implement a very simple policy. If you are not standing on the baseline, hat in hand, standing quietly and respectfully, if not proudly, during the National Anthem, you will not see the playing field for any purpose either.

As a fan, I love taking in a baseball game, and part of the baseball experience is the pomp and circumstance of it all. If a baseball player is doing anything to take away from that, he is letting down his fans, and therefore not doing his job.