Diversity in Sports

Last week I was watching Outside the Lines on ESPN. Jeremy Schaap was doing an interview with Ted Koppel. They were talking about an interview that Koppel had done in the late 1980s. He had interviewed Al Campanis, the then Vice President and General Manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Koppel had asked why there were no black managers, general managers or owners in the MLB. Campanis responded with the fact “that blacks lack the "necessities" to become field managers and top-level club executives.” This obviously caused an uproar in the MLB. Within a few days Campanis was forced out of the Los Angeles Dodgers organization. Koppel said that he wasn’t expecting anything like this to come from this interview.

ABC news was trying to commemorate Jackie Robinsons 40th anniversary of his debut in the major leagues. Do African-Americans lack the necessities to be an effective and successful at skilled positions? No. Clearly everyone knows that there are black managers and white managers who are successful. As long as there are people there will be different races and ethnicities. And as long as there are sports or a platform for people to compete against, people will always say that one is better than the other.

The NFL implemented the Rooney Rule in 2003. This rule makes sure teams interview and consider minority candidates for head coaching and senior football operation positions. The NCAA also has taken steps to combat the typical stereotypes about “dumb jock” who are African-Americans.



Clearly race has been a hot topic for the NCAA in recent years. One issue people bring up is that there are such few black coaches at major college football programs.

In the Handbook of Sports and Media, Raney and Bryant found that black athletes received less coverage then there white counterparts. The study looked at Division I basketball programs and found that there were far fewer articles on black players even though they played just as much. The problem with this study was that it surveyed from 1954 to 1986. That is 30 years of analysis that is almost 30 years in the past. Today with the media players can create their own media with social media sites. Some good and some bad.

Players know are being paid more than ever and they are being scrutinized even more. The media today can control what they say and how they say it. Raney and Bryant also claim that minorities are underrepresented on television as well. A study from the 1992 Olympics found that there was not one feature piece on and Asian-American or a Native-American. Is this because there are less Asian and Native American athletes or is it media bias? The study also found that European-American athlete's features were much more in depth than the African-American pieces. Does this happen out of coincidence or does the media make the decision to do fewer in depth pieces on African-Americans?