Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Olympic-size questions

Friday, Oct. 20, 2000 | 10:21 a.m.

Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.

The Summer Olympics of 2000 has again sparked debate about a subject many people, both white and black, fear to discuss. The clumsy handling of the subject by the late Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder and former Dodger executive Al Campanis cost both of them jobs and prestige. The issue is any discussion of the superiority of blacks in the world of sports.

Three weeks ago, in the Strait Times newspaper of Singapore, writer Godfrey Robert, an Indian, wades into the subject. In an article headed "Why blacks have the golden sprint," Robert leads off writing:

"Since the sprint triumphs of Valery Borzov (Soviet Union) in 1972 and Alan Wells (Britain) in 1980, no white runner has won the Olympic title.

"In fact, since the Los Angeles Games in 1984, all eight finalists -- 40 in all -- for the century dash have been coloured Americans or of African origin.

"And the 10-second barrier for the 100m has never been broken by a white athlete, and the fastest 200 times for the distance are all held by black athletes -- all under 10 seconds."

The article by Robert goes on and names names and touches on several theories and includes those in author Jon Entine's new book "Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We Are Afraid to Talk About It." What is obvious is the superiority of blacks in several sports events, but more difficult is finding any specific reasons for these accomplishments.

Professor Harry Edwards, a black athlete, has always been very touchy about any statements identifying black athletes as being superior. Entine quotes Edwards as saying, "What really is being said in a kind of underhanded way is that blacks are closer to beasts and animals in terms of their genetic and physical and anatomical make up than they are to the rest of humanity. And that's where the indignity comes in."

I've usually found superior athletes to also have above-average mental ability. Mental ability can be displayed several different ways, both on and off the athletic fields. Despite the tendency for some people to identify others into separate extremes of athlete and nerd, they haven't been able to convince me that these are wise conclusions.

Gary Taubes, writing in the fall quarterly Scientific American magazine, goes back to Edwards to dispute the claim of black athletic superiority. Edwards points out that the "African American population arose from an admixture of European, American, Aboriginal and African stock. The issue emerges: how black does one have to be to make any sense of these things they are testing and talking about?"

Taubes doesn't spend all of his time on track and field. He does write, "The number of variables that go into creating great athletes is enormous, and making sense of those variables is beyond the scope of science. Blacks are overrepresented in professional basketball, but so, for instance, are people from the nations of the former Yugoslavia."

Despite all of the banter back and forth, the subject will not die as long as black faces are the first across the finish lines of Olympic track competition. When hearing all of the talk about blacks having fast-twitch fibers in their muscles that give them sprinting speed, we must come back to Edwards' question of "how black does one have to be" to be tested for these conclusions.

The days of picking a specific cause for the success of blacks in athletics are long gone. Intelligent people such as Edwards continue to ask more questions than researchers can answer. Unless environment and social aspects are considered, there remain loopholes in any theory. Never should we forget that a special work ethic and desire to succeed are contributing factors for accomplishment in any field. This is especially true when athletic success is viewed as an open door to opportunity often denied in other fields of endeavor.