The Haters Cannt Handle The Truth
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The Haters Cannt Handle The Truth
By Jason Whitlock
Special to Page 2
I must've missed the memo -- the memo that went out to the red-blooded American sports public and explains exactly when it became OK to throw patriotism out the window and openly root against a U.S. Olympic team.
Yeah, I didn't get that memo. I'm wondering what was in it. Did it mention Allen Iverson by name? Did it have stipulations about the number of tattoos acceptable on an Olympian? Was there a cornrows clause? Or was the memo just straight and to the point?
What's the real reason why so many people are rooting against Iverson and co.?
Americans do not have to support a group of black American millionaires in any endeavor. Despite the hypocritical, rabid patriotism displayed immediately after 9/11, it's perfectly suitable for Americans to despise Team USA Basketball, Allen Iverson and all the other tattooed NBA players representing our country. Yes, these athletes are no more spoiled, whiny and rich than the golfers who fearlessly represent us in the Ryder Cup, but at least Tiger Woods has the good sense not to wear cornrows.
The memo must've read something like that. That's the only explanation for the near-universal hatred of our Olympic basketball team. Oh, you can hide behind a bunch of other excuses. You don't like the NBA style of play (which I don't). You're rooting for the underdogs. Shaq and Kidd and K.G. declined an invitation. The selection committee picked the wrong team.
There are a million excuses, some of which might legitimize a teeny bit of hostility toward USA Basketball. But there's no reasonable justification for the out-and-out hatred of Larry Brown's squad. There's no reasonable justification for the sheer delight that many red-blooded, patriotic Americans are taking from the USA's struggles.
In a poll on Page 2's Daily Quickie on Monday, 54.1 percent of the approximately 20,000 respondents said they wanted to see the USA team lose, and another 19.9 percent said they "kind of" would like to see it lose. I've sat on my radio show the past two weeks and listened to alleged patriot after patriot bitch about and shred Team USA and openly admit they want the team to lose. One guy, who identified himself as a former member of the American military, said he hates Team USA because the team doesn't "represent the America he fell in love with." I asked him to describe the America he fell in love with, and he said, "it was a country you could walk the streets without worrying about being mugged."
So there once was a time when a man or woman could walk the streets without worrying about a wild gang of NBA players whacking them over the head with a bottle and taking their wallet or purse? That must've been a glorious time, because you can hardly go anywhere these days without looking over your shoulder wondering whether Tim Duncan or Stephon Marbury is stalking you. I know it's dangerous to make too much of the sentiments expressed by talk-radio callers. But they speak for somebody. Monday evening I wore my Team USA jersey to the Rams-Chiefs game. As I walked to the stadium, people laughed at me and my jersey and several people made disparaging comments about our basketball team.
If this team doesn't win the gold medal (they beat Spain Thursday to advance to the semifinals), I half expect Americans to spit on Iverson, Duncan, LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony at the airport. We haven't fielded a team this unpopular at home since Johnson and Nixon sent Team USA into Vietnam.
This is ridiculous, and it hints at a much larger issue.
Someone call Johnnie Cochran and have him send over "The Card" -- the race one.
This team is being discussed unfairly in the media and being treated unfairly by American sports fans. There's a lot of convenient denial going on. No one wants to deal with the truth because they're having too much fun blasting a bunch of black millionaires for being lazy, unpatriotic and stupid. With the exception of adding the word "millionaires," this is a very familiar tune.
It's just more denial. The truth -- and what needs to be discussed -- is that African-American basketball players no longer have a lock on the game. The rest of the world has caught up, at warp speed. The game has been exported and redefined in superior fashion.
Europeans like Dirk Nowitzki are playing a new brand of basketball -- very successfully.
Go ask the folks up in Canada what the Soviets did to the game of hockey. Don Cherry can tell you all about the Red Army team whipping Canadian and NHL fanny on bigger rinks with faster, more creative skaters. It was 1972, and Team Canada -- the best Canadian-born NHL players formed into a Dream Team -- took on the Soviet Union team, which had pretty much dominated international play since 1954. It was called the Summit Series -- eight games between the world's two hockey powers.
The Soviets won the first game 7-3 and led the series 3-1-1 before the Canadians rallied to win the last three games -- all by one goal -- to win the series. Paul Henderson scored a goal with 34 seconds to play in Game 8, or the series would've ended in a tie. One of the reasons Team Canada eventually prevailed is that the bigger, stronger Canadians began to resort to cheap shots and thuggery on the ice. Several Canadian players later admitted they were embarrassed by what they had to do to sneak past the quicker Soviets. A Canadian newspaperman had to eat his entire newspaper because he'd promised to do it if Phil Esposito, Stan Mikita, Ken Dryden and Co. lost a single game in the series.
Canadians invented hockey in the late 1800s, and once dominated it the way African-Americans dominate basketball. Eastern Europeans reinvented the game and made up nearly 70 years of hockey experience on the Canadians in just two decades.
Sound anything like what we're witnessing on the basketball court?
Eastern Europeans introduced finesse, speed and creative passing to hockey. No longer could you just dump the puck into the zone and maul the guy in the corner. You had to play the game. The Canadians weren't stupid and lazy. They were just slow to adjust to a new, superior brand of hockey.
"Back then, we thought our way was the only way to play hockey; and we found out it wasn't," American Ken Morrow, one of the heroes on the 1980 Miracle on Ice Olympic team, told me Wednesday. "The NBA is kind of going through that right now. Hockey went through it in the 1970s and '80s. The NBA should look at what we went through and learn from it."
Morrow, the current director of pro scouting for the New York Islanders, played 10 years in the NHL. He vividly remembers the 1972 Summit Series.
"You talk to people in Canada, and they'll tell you the Summit Series was like a national emergency," Morrow said. "It really shook the heart and soul of the Canadians."
The similarities between hockey and basketball and the impact that international play is having on the games is indisputable. The high rounds of the NHL draft now favor European players. The NHL in the 1970s celebrated the Philadelphia Flyers' Broad Street Bullies approach, which included beating people up. The game was played at a slow, boring, defensive pace. Does that sound anything like today's NBA?
"The skill portion of the game [hockey] is viewed as being superior by the Europeans," Morrow said. "But when it comes to character and heart and competing, it's still the Canadians and the American players. Just look at the top scorers in the NHL the last few years -- seven or eight out of 10 are European."
Doesn't that sound like Dirk Nowitzki vs. Ben Wallace?
The international style of basketball play is superior to the American game, particularly the NBA game. The wide lane, shorter 3-pointer and prevalence of zone defenses limit the effectiveness of the NBA's two-man game. You can't have three guys stand on one side of the court and talk to Spike Lee while your two best players go two-on-two on the other side. It's boring, and it doesn't work in international play.
It's also foolish and arrogant to believe that we can throw a team together that can take on the world in two or three weeks. We can't do it. Even if we had Shaq and Kidd and K.G., our team would need time to prepare. We obviously need role players.
Would Michael Phelps have been this excited about the Olympics if he was making millions as a professional swimmer?
What bothers me most are the charges that Iverson and Co. aren't trying and don't care. First and foremost, they do care and they are trying. They're competitors. They know what's at stake. They don't want to be ripped at home.
But do they care about the Olympics the way Michael Phelps does? No. And we shouldn't expect them to. American basketball players don't spend their childhoods dreaming about playing in the Olympics. Their goal is the NBA. For swimmers and track athletes and gymnasts, on the other hand, the Olympics is the pinnacle.
If there was a professional swimming league that would make Phelps filthy rich, I guarantee he'd dream of making that league more than he dreamt of making the Olympic team. Phelps might even turn down a spot on the Olympic team, if it interfered with his professional swimming offseason.
Once every four years, Phelps and Carly Patterson and Justin Gatlin get an opportunity to strike it rich. They go all out. Don't romanticize it. They're chasing money -- endorsement opportunities -- just like the NBA players. Phelps, Patterson and Gatlin might be more cooperative and gracious with the media during the Olympics because they only have to deal with us once every four years. We don't know how they'd react if they were forced to talk to us every day almost year round.
The criticism of USA Basketball is borderline racist, is definitely unsophisticated and exposes a lot of super patriots as hypocrites. Allen Iverson is wearing our jersey -- our red, white and blue -- and playing the game the way we taught him to play it.
We owe Iverson support when he's representing us abroad. Save the hatred for when he's back home skipping Sixers practices and boring us to death playing a two-man game with Glenn Robinson.
Jason Whitlock is a columnist for the Kansas City Star and a regular contributor on ESPN The Magazine's Sunday morning edition of "The Sports Reporters." He also hosts an afternoon radio show, "The Doghouse," on Kansas City's 61 Sports KCSP. He can be reached at ballstate68@aol.com.
Special to Page 2
I must've missed the memo -- the memo that went out to the red-blooded American sports public and explains exactly when it became OK to throw patriotism out the window and openly root against a U.S. Olympic team.
Yeah, I didn't get that memo. I'm wondering what was in it. Did it mention Allen Iverson by name? Did it have stipulations about the number of tattoos acceptable on an Olympian? Was there a cornrows clause? Or was the memo just straight and to the point?
What's the real reason why so many people are rooting against Iverson and co.?
Americans do not have to support a group of black American millionaires in any endeavor. Despite the hypocritical, rabid patriotism displayed immediately after 9/11, it's perfectly suitable for Americans to despise Team USA Basketball, Allen Iverson and all the other tattooed NBA players representing our country. Yes, these athletes are no more spoiled, whiny and rich than the golfers who fearlessly represent us in the Ryder Cup, but at least Tiger Woods has the good sense not to wear cornrows.
The memo must've read something like that. That's the only explanation for the near-universal hatred of our Olympic basketball team. Oh, you can hide behind a bunch of other excuses. You don't like the NBA style of play (which I don't). You're rooting for the underdogs. Shaq and Kidd and K.G. declined an invitation. The selection committee picked the wrong team.
There are a million excuses, some of which might legitimize a teeny bit of hostility toward USA Basketball. But there's no reasonable justification for the out-and-out hatred of Larry Brown's squad. There's no reasonable justification for the sheer delight that many red-blooded, patriotic Americans are taking from the USA's struggles.
In a poll on Page 2's Daily Quickie on Monday, 54.1 percent of the approximately 20,000 respondents said they wanted to see the USA team lose, and another 19.9 percent said they "kind of" would like to see it lose. I've sat on my radio show the past two weeks and listened to alleged patriot after patriot bitch about and shred Team USA and openly admit they want the team to lose. One guy, who identified himself as a former member of the American military, said he hates Team USA because the team doesn't "represent the America he fell in love with." I asked him to describe the America he fell in love with, and he said, "it was a country you could walk the streets without worrying about being mugged."
So there once was a time when a man or woman could walk the streets without worrying about a wild gang of NBA players whacking them over the head with a bottle and taking their wallet or purse? That must've been a glorious time, because you can hardly go anywhere these days without looking over your shoulder wondering whether Tim Duncan or Stephon Marbury is stalking you. I know it's dangerous to make too much of the sentiments expressed by talk-radio callers. But they speak for somebody. Monday evening I wore my Team USA jersey to the Rams-Chiefs game. As I walked to the stadium, people laughed at me and my jersey and several people made disparaging comments about our basketball team.
If this team doesn't win the gold medal (they beat Spain Thursday to advance to the semifinals), I half expect Americans to spit on Iverson, Duncan, LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony at the airport. We haven't fielded a team this unpopular at home since Johnson and Nixon sent Team USA into Vietnam.
This is ridiculous, and it hints at a much larger issue.
Someone call Johnnie Cochran and have him send over "The Card" -- the race one.
This team is being discussed unfairly in the media and being treated unfairly by American sports fans. There's a lot of convenient denial going on. No one wants to deal with the truth because they're having too much fun blasting a bunch of black millionaires for being lazy, unpatriotic and stupid. With the exception of adding the word "millionaires," this is a very familiar tune.
It's just more denial. The truth -- and what needs to be discussed -- is that African-American basketball players no longer have a lock on the game. The rest of the world has caught up, at warp speed. The game has been exported and redefined in superior fashion.
Europeans like Dirk Nowitzki are playing a new brand of basketball -- very successfully.
Go ask the folks up in Canada what the Soviets did to the game of hockey. Don Cherry can tell you all about the Red Army team whipping Canadian and NHL fanny on bigger rinks with faster, more creative skaters. It was 1972, and Team Canada -- the best Canadian-born NHL players formed into a Dream Team -- took on the Soviet Union team, which had pretty much dominated international play since 1954. It was called the Summit Series -- eight games between the world's two hockey powers.
The Soviets won the first game 7-3 and led the series 3-1-1 before the Canadians rallied to win the last three games -- all by one goal -- to win the series. Paul Henderson scored a goal with 34 seconds to play in Game 8, or the series would've ended in a tie. One of the reasons Team Canada eventually prevailed is that the bigger, stronger Canadians began to resort to cheap shots and thuggery on the ice. Several Canadian players later admitted they were embarrassed by what they had to do to sneak past the quicker Soviets. A Canadian newspaperman had to eat his entire newspaper because he'd promised to do it if Phil Esposito, Stan Mikita, Ken Dryden and Co. lost a single game in the series.
Canadians invented hockey in the late 1800s, and once dominated it the way African-Americans dominate basketball. Eastern Europeans reinvented the game and made up nearly 70 years of hockey experience on the Canadians in just two decades.
Sound anything like what we're witnessing on the basketball court?
Eastern Europeans introduced finesse, speed and creative passing to hockey. No longer could you just dump the puck into the zone and maul the guy in the corner. You had to play the game. The Canadians weren't stupid and lazy. They were just slow to adjust to a new, superior brand of hockey.
"Back then, we thought our way was the only way to play hockey; and we found out it wasn't," American Ken Morrow, one of the heroes on the 1980 Miracle on Ice Olympic team, told me Wednesday. "The NBA is kind of going through that right now. Hockey went through it in the 1970s and '80s. The NBA should look at what we went through and learn from it."
Morrow, the current director of pro scouting for the New York Islanders, played 10 years in the NHL. He vividly remembers the 1972 Summit Series.
"You talk to people in Canada, and they'll tell you the Summit Series was like a national emergency," Morrow said. "It really shook the heart and soul of the Canadians."
The similarities between hockey and basketball and the impact that international play is having on the games is indisputable. The high rounds of the NHL draft now favor European players. The NHL in the 1970s celebrated the Philadelphia Flyers' Broad Street Bullies approach, which included beating people up. The game was played at a slow, boring, defensive pace. Does that sound anything like today's NBA?
"The skill portion of the game [hockey] is viewed as being superior by the Europeans," Morrow said. "But when it comes to character and heart and competing, it's still the Canadians and the American players. Just look at the top scorers in the NHL the last few years -- seven or eight out of 10 are European."
Doesn't that sound like Dirk Nowitzki vs. Ben Wallace?
The international style of basketball play is superior to the American game, particularly the NBA game. The wide lane, shorter 3-pointer and prevalence of zone defenses limit the effectiveness of the NBA's two-man game. You can't have three guys stand on one side of the court and talk to Spike Lee while your two best players go two-on-two on the other side. It's boring, and it doesn't work in international play.
It's also foolish and arrogant to believe that we can throw a team together that can take on the world in two or three weeks. We can't do it. Even if we had Shaq and Kidd and K.G., our team would need time to prepare. We obviously need role players.
Would Michael Phelps have been this excited about the Olympics if he was making millions as a professional swimmer?
What bothers me most are the charges that Iverson and Co. aren't trying and don't care. First and foremost, they do care and they are trying. They're competitors. They know what's at stake. They don't want to be ripped at home.
But do they care about the Olympics the way Michael Phelps does? No. And we shouldn't expect them to. American basketball players don't spend their childhoods dreaming about playing in the Olympics. Their goal is the NBA. For swimmers and track athletes and gymnasts, on the other hand, the Olympics is the pinnacle.
If there was a professional swimming league that would make Phelps filthy rich, I guarantee he'd dream of making that league more than he dreamt of making the Olympic team. Phelps might even turn down a spot on the Olympic team, if it interfered with his professional swimming offseason.
Once every four years, Phelps and Carly Patterson and Justin Gatlin get an opportunity to strike it rich. They go all out. Don't romanticize it. They're chasing money -- endorsement opportunities -- just like the NBA players. Phelps, Patterson and Gatlin might be more cooperative and gracious with the media during the Olympics because they only have to deal with us once every four years. We don't know how they'd react if they were forced to talk to us every day almost year round.
The criticism of USA Basketball is borderline racist, is definitely unsophisticated and exposes a lot of super patriots as hypocrites. Allen Iverson is wearing our jersey -- our red, white and blue -- and playing the game the way we taught him to play it.
We owe Iverson support when he's representing us abroad. Save the hatred for when he's back home skipping Sixers practices and boring us to death playing a two-man game with Glenn Robinson.
Jason Whitlock is a columnist for the Kansas City Star and a regular contributor on ESPN The Magazine's Sunday morning edition of "The Sports Reporters." He also hosts an afternoon radio show, "The Doghouse," on Kansas City's 61 Sports KCSP. He can be reached at ballstate68@aol.com.
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I read the whole artical... and honestly... i have to say... YAWN..... I mean where does one begin.... All that I have to do is read the thread title and you already have your mind made up that you agree with this guy 100% and there's not even a shot in the dark that i could show you this guy is the same old, blah, blah, blah, race card bs that we Americans (White/Black/Brown/Red/Yellow) have to deal with on a daily basis....
This guys basing American's opinion on 10,000 people in America.... how many millions of people live in America again???
what about the 10,000 that was in favor of them winning? Do they get a voice? Are we to assume those 10,000 are African-American and the Anti-USA Basketball 10,000 is white?? If you think that way... then there's no debating this then, because that is a closed minded way to to think. Because one Jar-Head made a stupid comment on a radio show about "past America" then this clown goes and riles "his troops" and we have another we're not being treated fairly event, blah, blah, blah... same ol, same old bs...
If you take opinions like his and insert them into your everyday beliefs, no matter what color you are, then i feel sorry for you... It's his smalled minded opinon and he just get's paid to express it. Unfortunatly, he used it in the wrong way in using the race card...
How does one expect to change/influence America with garbage like this? It's like saying, "Hey guy's, they play this game differently on an international level, and the NBA Players of today need more time to adjust... So back off you racist-crackers!"... Man, Throwing blame out on a society of another color black or white is just ignorant and solves nothing... just like this clown did... so tell me, what did he solve? or what problem did he fix?
This guys basing American's opinion on 10,000 people in America.... how many millions of people live in America again???
what about the 10,000 that was in favor of them winning? Do they get a voice? Are we to assume those 10,000 are African-American and the Anti-USA Basketball 10,000 is white?? If you think that way... then there's no debating this then, because that is a closed minded way to to think. Because one Jar-Head made a stupid comment on a radio show about "past America" then this clown goes and riles "his troops" and we have another we're not being treated fairly event, blah, blah, blah... same ol, same old bs...
If you take opinions like his and insert them into your everyday beliefs, no matter what color you are, then i feel sorry for you... It's his smalled minded opinon and he just get's paid to express it. Unfortunatly, he used it in the wrong way in using the race card...
How does one expect to change/influence America with garbage like this? It's like saying, "Hey guy's, they play this game differently on an international level, and the NBA Players of today need more time to adjust... So back off you racist-crackers!"... Man, Throwing blame out on a society of another color black or white is just ignorant and solves nothing... just like this clown did... so tell me, what did he solve? or what problem did he fix?
**SPECIAL EDITION**
CurveBall - "It might be YOUR biggest game of the year but it really doesn't seem to be as big a deal for Dallas fans anymore."
Oopsies! What's that taste like?
CurveBall - "It might be YOUR biggest game of the year but it really doesn't seem to be as big a deal for Dallas fans anymore."
Oopsies! What's that taste like?
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But do they care about the Olympics the way Michael Phelps does? No. And we shouldn't expect them to. American basketball players don't spend their childhoods dreaming about playing in the Olympics. Their goal is the NBA. For swimmers and track athletes and gymnasts, on the other hand, the Olympics is the pinnacle.
I agree with this statement.
As a black inner city youth, the Olympics was never something that I or any of my friends really ever sought out to seek. It was always the NBA, MLB, or NFL. There really isn't a clear inlet into the Olympics that I ever saw growing up. Maybe I'm wrong but you have to be a member one of this swim clubs out in the county. There aren't any Olympic sized pools here in the inner city. So I can see where he's coming from as far as saying that black youth don't even really think of the Olympics nearly as much as the NFL etc.
As far as the fate of the US team. I believe that the world has caught up to us. Also a lot of guys simply didn't want to play for the team. The US doesn't seem to put as much as a degree of seriousness in the Olympics as other nations. What do our atheletes get from competing, I've been told that other nations really take care of their athletes. Our players have carreers that could be ended in injury if they participate. So to say that the ones who are playing don't love the US is crazy. The ones who sat out, there reasons are understanable. We went in with 2nd stringers, this isin't the team that the coach really wanted.
The road to the number 1 pick gaining speed!
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Chris Luva Luva wrote:As far as the fate of the US team. I believe that the world has caught up to us. Also a lot of guys simply didn't want to play for the team. The US doesn't seem to put as much as a degree of seriousness in the Olympics as other nations. What do our atheletes get from competing, I've been told that other nations really take care of their athletes. Our players have carreers that could be ended in injury if they participate. So to say that the ones who are playing don't love the US is crazy. The ones who sat out, there reasons are understanable. We went in with 2nd stringers, this isin't the team that the coach really wanted.
1.The International game and the NBA are to completly different games.... Zone Defense and lots of outside shooting vs slashing to the basket and dunks
2.This National teams are just that teams that play together year round (for 4 years between the Olympics) with the exception of the few taht play in the NBA our "National" team is made up of mostly NBA players that play together
once a year (the All-Star game).
3.The coach doesn't have a say in who is on the team and who isn't, so he is at a disadvantage also.The selection committee seems to select players based on name reconition rather than who will be the best for the type of game played on the international level.
People who didn't know these things are and have been learning this over the pass 10 days or so. Those following the Olympics (I'm assuming here because I only see whats shown on the news if it right before or right after the NFL new

a. We have no outside game..how could we with 12 guys that are use to going to the hole and making the ESPN highlights
b. We don't play defense our player are use to some other teammate taking care of that part of the game ...they are use to being the score for their NBA teams
c. We don't pass to the open man.....we've got 12 guys who have always looked at themselfs as THE guy on their team
d. We need a National Coach, not someone that gets 12 guys that haven played together (ever) for a few weeks and take on the world.
What I'm saying is it isn't a lack of support for OUR team from the American public (black or white) but that it is a lack of supprt from the USOC because of the system that is in place.
I still think the players are upset with the press they are receiving as a group that along will produce a medal hopfully Gold
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Chris Luva Luva wrote:Is it true that other nations pay for their atheletes to train and live between the olympics? I was that was true. Also I don't think thats true for the US, or am I wrong?
I don't know if they get "paid" but they get tax breaks ... live rent free and all kinds of perks for being on the National Team or Jr National Team (the better they do the better the perks)
The players we send are already making millions but when we were sending Collegate Players I don't think they got anything either
..__..
{o,o}
|)__)
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When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hold on....
If the world didn't suck we'd all fall off
{o,o}
|)__)
-"-"-
When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hold on....
If the world didn't suck we'd all fall off
Chris Luva Luva wrote:Is it true that other nations pay for their atheletes to train and live between the olympics? I was that was true. Also I don't think thats true for the US, or am I wrong?
Chris Luva it is true in other countries there living is paid for by governments. There guys just got together 3 weeks before the olympics.
You never here the main stream media talking about how much baseball players and hockey players make and there careers are relatively long. But in football and basketball where the sport is dominated by african americans they are always potrayed negativly in the media.
Right now there is a hockey player in trouble for conspiracy for murder but we hardly hear about him, the media is to busy trying to see when T.O. will blow up or something negative.
I have always felt like this, does anyone question why all the owners of sports franchises need billions of dollars. NO...they just question why the atheletes need millions of dollars, when the length of their careers pail in comparison to owners careers.
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gambit187 wrote:You never here the main stream media talking about how much baseball players and hockey players make and there careers are relatively long. But in football and basketball where the sport is dominated by african americans they are always potrayed negativly in the media.
Right now there is a hockey player in trouble for conspiracy for murder but we hardly hear about him, the media is to busy trying to see when T.O. will blow up or something negative.
I have always felt like this, does anyone question why all the owners of sports franchises need billions of dollars. NO...they just question why the atheletes need millions of dollars, when the length of their careers pail in comparison to owners careers.
So how are you gonna fix it... If you truely see things in this point of view.... how are you gonna fix it? I'd love to tell you how your gonna fix it, but i'd probably offend you before you even start listening to me... so i'm not gonna go there... but I would like to here how somebody who is so bothered by the "overwhelming white rasicm"

**SPECIAL EDITION**
CurveBall - "It might be YOUR biggest game of the year but it really doesn't seem to be as big a deal for Dallas fans anymore."
Oopsies! What's that taste like?
CurveBall - "It might be YOUR biggest game of the year but it really doesn't seem to be as big a deal for Dallas fans anymore."
Oopsies! What's that taste like?
This will probably get this moved to the Smack section, but I've had enough of this.
I get tired of someone making Cowboys fans look like idiots up one thread and down the other, then he has to play the race card every chance he gets.
It just sickens me.
Some people's dislike has nothing to due with race, but rather the lack of fundamentals.
Blame it on the Sportscenter generation of athletes, blame it on the lack of players spending four years in college honing their craft, heck, blame it on the lunar tables, but to imply that American's are racist as a whole is a joke.
Maybe the people of America just appreciate winners who do what it takes to succeed and other than Duncan, that label doesn't apply to this team.
I get tired of someone making Cowboys fans look like idiots up one thread and down the other, then he has to play the race card every chance he gets.
It just sickens me.
Some people's dislike has nothing to due with race, but rather the lack of fundamentals.
Blame it on the Sportscenter generation of athletes, blame it on the lack of players spending four years in college honing their craft, heck, blame it on the lunar tables, but to imply that American's are racist as a whole is a joke.
Maybe the people of America just appreciate winners who do what it takes to succeed and other than Duncan, that label doesn't apply to this team.
This space reserved for BTP......If he ever wins it.
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gambit187 wrote:Right now there is a hockey player in trouble for conspiracy for murder but we hardly hear about him, the media is to busy trying to see when T.O. will blow up or something negative.
He plead guilty it's a non story, when it happen it was covered just as much as any other Jock in trouble it's not news and it's not just the media waiting to to see when T.O. blows up it's you, me and 90% of the football watching fans in the world
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{o,o}
|)__)
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When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hold on....
If the world didn't suck we'd all fall off
{o,o}
|)__)
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When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hold on....
If the world didn't suck we'd all fall off
I cant speak for other countries, but here in Australia we do support our atheletes between Olympics. There are scholarships through the Australian Institute of Sport who also provide coaches and medical/nutritional support for all promising young athletes.
The govenment provides sufficient money to hire a national coach and extra funding is done based on results at Olymics and world championship.
Australian athletes do not attract anywhere near as much sponsorship/endorsement contracts as the US athletes do (our population is just on 20 million) so they have to rely on government support
The govenment provides sufficient money to hire a national coach and extra funding is done based on results at Olymics and world championship.
Australian athletes do not attract anywhere near as much sponsorship/endorsement contracts as the US athletes do (our population is just on 20 million) so they have to rely on government support
I am Grey: I stand between the candle and the star.
We are Grey: We stand between the darkness and the light
We are Grey: We stand between the darkness and the light
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- Pursuer of Justice
- Posts: 5809
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- Location: Newark, Delaware
Do I hate Team USA basketball?
Yes, I do....ever since they changed from college players to pro players.
I know the arguments: Other countries play "professional players" so we should, too.
That's crap.
I long for the day when we return to our college players playing for Team USA.
Has nothing to do with race....or anything else.
Oh...and Curveball....I salute you! Great post!
Yes, I do....ever since they changed from college players to pro players.
I know the arguments: Other countries play "professional players" so we should, too.
That's crap.
I long for the day when we return to our college players playing for Team USA.
Has nothing to do with race....or anything else.
Oh...and Curveball....I salute you! Great post!
Fran Farren
"Justice Hog"
Newark, DE
“God didn't give us a spirit that is timid but one that is powerful, loving and controlled.” 2 Timothy 1:7
"Justice Hog"
Newark, DE
“God didn't give us a spirit that is timid but one that is powerful, loving and controlled.” 2 Timothy 1:7
- Texas Hog
- ... deep in TX
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curveball wrote:This will probably get this moved to the Smack section, but I've had enough of this.
I get tired of someone making Cowboys fans look like idiots up one thread and down the other, then he has to play the race card every chance he gets.
It just sickens me.
Some people's dislike has nothing to due with race, but rather the lack of fundamentals.
Blame it on the Sportscenter generation of athletes, blame it on the lack of players spending four years in college honing their craft, heck, blame it on the lunar tables, but to imply that American's are racist as a whole is a joke.
Maybe the people of America just appreciate winners who do what it takes to succeed and other than Duncan, that label doesn't apply to this team.
Couldn't agree more....great post!
God bless our troops and Joe Gibbs.
We'll miss you, Joe.
#21 gone, but never forgotten.
We'll miss you, Joe.
#21 gone, but never forgotten.
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- Hog
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I'm still waiting for some inspirational answers........ Seems like somebody invited us to a ball game, stepped up to the plate... but they won't swing.... 

**SPECIAL EDITION**
CurveBall - "It might be YOUR biggest game of the year but it really doesn't seem to be as big a deal for Dallas fans anymore."
Oopsies! What's that taste like?
CurveBall - "It might be YOUR biggest game of the year but it really doesn't seem to be as big a deal for Dallas fans anymore."
Oopsies! What's that taste like?
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- Brown in the Hall
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So who do get to play now that the international players are kicking our butts.
I say we let the NCAA Champion of the Olympic year play as the National team. At least they would be a team and not a group of players who aren't used to playing together.
I say we let the NCAA Champion of the Olympic year play as the National team. At least they would be a team and not a group of players who aren't used to playing together.
"Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son." - Dean Wormer
- REDEEMEDSKIN
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- Brown in the Hall
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REDEEMEDSKIN wrote:NC43Hog wrote:So who do get to play now that the international players are kicking our butts.
Perhaps we should start recruiting foreign players to play on our national squad, like we do in Soccer.
It's helped improve US Soccer; it may work for b-ball.
It is getting pretty ridiculous, athletes for hire.
"Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son." - Dean Wormer