Appendix - Matrix - Michigan State University

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professional baseball as a result of what Flood charges is "the treatment and handling of professional baseball players as if they were chattel or slaves." Flood is contesting the trading policy-common in most professional team sports-under which a player can be summarily sold or traded to another team by team owners and managers without so much as notifying him, much less inquiring about his feelings on the matter. Many a professional athlete has been shocked while casually reading his morning paper to discover that he has been traded to another team. His life is disrupted, his family is uprooted, his children are pulled out of school. Flood is fighting this master-slave relationship that exists between baseball owners and baseball players. I have heard more than a few professional athletes say that they hope he is successful. And they were not all baseball players. If Flood wins his case, the decision undoubtedly will set a precedent for other professional team sports. Little wonder that professional team owners and league presidents are squirming at the thought. For if Flood is successful, he will have pulled off the greatest victory for justice in pro athletics since another black man turned a similar trick in the late 40s when Jackie Robinson entered professional baseball. But regardless of how Flood's case turns out, the revolt has already led to changes in professional athletics, not the least of which is the hiring of black coaches. The latest of these black coaching appointments is Al Attles, new head coach of the San Francisco Warriors basketball team, and Alan Webb, coach of the minor-league Long Island Bulls. However, there are still no black head football coaches in big-league professional football or black managers in professional baseball. As Johnny Sample, former all-pro defensive safetyman for the 1968 Super-Bowl Champion New York Jets recently stated: "Racism is still rampant on FE? T Preface to the Paperback Edition • xx many professional football teams when it comes to the appointment of head coaches. For instance, Alex Webster was appointed head coach of the New York Giants after Allie Sherman was fired. Webster had been an assistant coach with the Giants only 2 years. Two black assistant coaches, Em Tunnell and Rosie Brown, both had longer coaching records and more impressive records as players with the Giants but Webster was chosen. The only reason that I can figure is that the latter two are black!" Frank Robinson has stated unequivocally that he wants to manage a professional team at the major league level. Thus far, no takers, although many managers and even some owners admit that he has the potential to be a great manager. So final victory in this struggle is by no means at hand. The sports establishment is a long way from bowing to all protests and demands. In an article published in the November, 1969, issue of Ramparts Magazine, Jack Scott, author of a widely read book en-. titled A thletics for A thletes, and I published an article exposing attempts by certain parties in the United States to buy off black athletes. This was done in an attempt to insure that the Afro-American protests which racked the 1968 Olympics would not occur during the 1972 games. The attempt has failed miserably. Indications are that most black athletes have chosen dignity over money. The National Collegiate Athletic Association, one of the primary perpetuators of injustice in amateur athletics, has further hardened its line against changes in intercollegiate athletics. Not only has it passed and imposed on several occasions its rule of "manifest disobedience" (discussed in the text of this book) but it has sharpened its attack by sending out a monthly news letter. In the first such issue, which came out in January, 1970, the NCAA accused me of being in- Preface to the Paperback Edition • xxi
volved in a movement aimed at overthrowing the United States government by using athletics for their publicity value. It even stated that the movement was ultra-leftist and communist oriented and was led by people who advocate the Marxist-Leninist ideology. The allegations are ludicrous. The NCAA seems to be exploiting that old American phobia about communists being under every bed in the country and now, on every gym floor and football field throughout the land. Such tactics have been discredited before and in this case, probably will be again. San Jose State is now contesting the NCAA's action in excluding that school from championship intercollegiate competition on the grounds that the ban amounts to a selective reprisal for S.J.S.'s role in the athletic revolt. And even such an establishment-oriented sports publication as Sports Illustrated agrees. An editorial appearing in the January 26, 1970, issue of the magazine states that "If the NCAA wanted to support the argument of San Jose's President Dr. H. W. Bums that the banning of S.J.S. represents an act of selective reprisal, it could not have done it more effectively than by publishing the onesided, oversimplified editorial in its news letter accompanied by an abridged report on a speech by an FBI official ... and by banning S.J.S.... essentially under dubious circumstances." At the NCAA Coaches Association meeting in 1969, there was a resounding approval of motions aimed at bringing about greater discussion of problems in athletics, whether of an athletic nature or not. But there was also a widely prevalent sentiment that a harder line should be taken against protesters against athletic policies at colleges and universities. The two goals are obviously incompatible. If the NCAA thinks it can talk itself out of its present dilemma, it is sadly mistaken. Corrective action is the only recourse. Until Preface to the Paperback Edition • xxii such action is taken, the revolt will continue and will escalate. The United States Olympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee also have reactednot by moving to correct unjust conditions but by passing motions promising censure for any athlete engaging in protest activities during future events held under the auspices of either group. Perhaps the most positive indication of the longterm impact of the revolt of the black athlete in America have been the following developments: Since the first edition of this book came off the presses, no less than nine other authors, most of them sports figures or reporters, have written books which are similarly critical of the sports establishment in America. There is an increasing restlessness among white athletes as they realize more and more that it is not only the black athlete but whites, too, who are exploited by organized sports in America. An increasing number of sports reporters are assuming their true role as the moral and ethical guardians of athletics, men such as Stan Isaccs, Dave Burgen, as well as others mentioned in the text of this book. Moreover, academic courses are now being offered for the first time at some of America's major universities, courses aimed at exploring and analyzing the social psychology of sports. And finally, there is an obvious and fervent "new consciousness' among people, not only in America but throughout the world, about what sports is and what it should be. This book then is in part the story of the creation of that consciousness, of some of the people who started and who continue to press the revolt in athletics. It essentially details where we have been and where Preface to the Paperback Edition • xxiii
Page 2 and 3: The Revolt of the Black Athlete y N
Page 5 and 6: ... and to Kenneth Noel, who was a
Page 7: monster, a mere opportunist. He had
Page 10 and 11: left to play in the game, 10 black
Page 14 and 15: we are going. But most important, i
Page 16: after he retires. And all his clipp
Page 53 and 54: 4 Feeding the Flame Confrontation o
Page 55 and 56: for five bucks?" I asked the shot-t
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composed of active and former black
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Appendix A Olympic Project for Huma
Page 89 and 90:
Flanked by athletes who were suppor
Page 91 and 92:
Bob Beamon (center) and Ralph Bosto
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Vince Matthews, member of the recor
Page 95 and 96:
Two "saints" of the black athletes'
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Appendix B The Revolt on the Campus
Page 109 and 110:
University of Southern California "
Page 111:
General World Track and Field Recor
Page 126 and 127:
Olympic Committee for Human Rights
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Appendix - Matrix - Michigan State University

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