African Americans In Football

The theme of this book is about the legendary coach Paul Bryant and how he helped Joe Namath overcome the struggle of segregation on and off the football field. Considering the relationship of the athlete and coach during golden era of the game, it addresses the losses, the commitment, and the determination in becoming one of the nation 's elite.

Racism is prevalent in today’s society and is exposed in the sports industry as well. Various athletes in different sports field experience racism and face it everyday. Social media is a big platform for people to criticize athletes for their failures and success. On the other hand more times than not, racism can be found within the head of organizations of major sports, most noticeably football. The NFL has condoned an abundance of racist actions towards players of Hispanic and African American descent; therefore, the NFL should stop these problems by supporting athletes that take a stand, holding the NFL owners accountable for their actions, and finally, not stereotyping young black athletes into a position based off of racial factors.

With most college football players in the 20th century being indigent athletes, coaches had to find a way to get the best of the best players for their team. Even if they had to pull a

Over three decades after quitting professional football, Hall-of-Famer Jim Brown still remains one of the best running backs in the history of the NFL. He was a player of the Cleveland Browns between 1957 and 1966 during which he literally ran the show in the NFL. He made a mockery of his opponents with his pace and power, scoring an impressive 126 touchdowns and being the leader in the league for yards gained in the eight out of the nine seasons he played. Brown’s 15 National Football League (NFL) records were attributed to his combination of sheer strength, intelligence, and speed. Most of the people who witnessed Brown’s performance on the pitch attested that had he continued playing, he would have set high standards that other athletes

In 2010, the United States Secretary of Education Mr. Arne Duncan demanded that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) clean-up their act due to the declining graduation rate for athletes, particularly African-American males. According to the Harper’s study, at 50 of the most prominent colleges, on the average, African-American males made-up approximately 2.8% of the undergraduate class overall (Harper 4). However, they made-up approximately 57.1% of the football players and approximately 64.3% of the basketball players (Harper 4) with an average completion rate of six-years (Harper 4). As a result, many college coaches and academic administrators started to encourage African-American male athlete-students to major in less demanding degree

Vince Lombardi quoted “Football is like life it requires perseverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication and respect for authority.”. Statistically speaking, the average African-American male going to college makes up just 5.5% of the overall college students. However, a young man by the name of Titus McFarland has found a dream of his, latched onto it and found it led him to prosper in college while doing the sport he loves. Finding a balance in the specifics of college, sports, and social life has empowered him to be able to look forward to the future and all the positive fortunes it holds.

One problem that black athletes had to deal was their salaries. Their pay rate was lower compare to their white teammates. The dean of American sports writers, Sam Lacy, sports editor of the Baltimore Afro-American, noted in 1967 that "the African American player was much quicker to sign a contract than white players, and in comparison, was woefully under paid. During the 1980s and 1990s, the situation changed dramatically.. Now, in 1996, Michael Jordan of basketball's Chicago Bulls and sports' highest paid athlete is expected to earn 90% of his $40 million through endorsements. While this situation does not characterize the majority of Black athletes, it does include a significant number, and is in happy contrast to the 1960s and before. Financial stress, plays a big role in the fact that there are black athletes in specific fields of sports, but not many in others.

In today’s modern society, it’s quite hard to imagine watching professional sports without black athletes. Imagine NBA without Michael Jordan or LeBron James. However, in the older days, black athletes were not given an opportunity to compete in professional sports and were often segregated from the white athletes.

Cowhisperer 3On the flip side, an important point to understand about the game of football is that it, like allprofessional crafts, do not just begin their first day on the job. Like most every other job, people spend agood portion of their lives working to achieve their goals, working to be the best, but that takes time!For many players, football begins as young as seven or eight years old, and continues every fall until theygraduate from high school. After that period, the pool of players narrows significantly to only those whoare talented enough to play for a university. Finally, once a player leaves college to enter into the NFLdraft to potentially begin his pay-for-play career, only then has he reached his goal. Following the mostcommon format (given above), it would

My choice is the National Football League (NFL) which was founded on 20 August 1920. The NFL is made up of 32 teams across the United States; each team has 53 players on the team at the start of the regular season. The 32 teams are broken into two divisions; the American Football Conference (AFC) and National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL original name was the American Football League and the name was change on 22 August 1922 to the National Football League. The NFL is the only major sport that does not have any teams outside of the United States. Each team has one majority owner and the

When African Americans involuntarily arrived in the United Sates, they were sold as slaves, deprived of their heritage, and were separated from their families. The dehumanization of slavery over four hundred years, strategically kept the African American at the bottom of both the social and economic realm. The historical ramifications over this period in United States history would prove to be detrimental to the institution of education in the United States for African Americans and would create an achievement gap that would be almost impossible to close.

The African American journey has been one of trials and tribulations which they suffered greatly to achieve freedom and success. The battle has led the citizens of this nation to have witnessed the first African American President of the United States. The journey that has brought African Americans to the present situation has seen intermittent successes and numerous setbacks. Perseverance from many generations has brought about a gradual but progressive change. The journey begun in a state of slavery, through the act of slavery racism was seen in

People do not acknowledge the struggles that African Americans had to endure for them to be treated equally, the way a true American is supposed to be treated. One of the ways they were not treated equally was by not being able to participate in sports with whites. From the beginning of our nation, colored people were highly disrespected and treated as if they were some type of animals, which have no say in what happens to them. They were not given any opportunities and were treated harshly because their skin color was different. Whites were able to practically do anything they wanted, unlike blacks, who were racially discriminated or beaten for no apparent reason. African Americans were among the worst treated races in the US; however,

Throughout the NFL’s life, race has influenced many changes to the way it is structured. Race has affected many important topics in the NFL, one of them being treatment of different colored people. This will change, however, because of the development of equality in the 1900s. This also means that policies, rules etc. are subject to change in the NFL.Colored people in the NFL had lowered salaries and bad treatment, policies that went against them, and personnel that had different

Since the introduction of organized team sports into American culture, numerous sports have stepped into the limelight for certain periods of time but none have stuck around as long as football has. Just as with everything else in life, football has had it’s fair share of drawbacks since its invention in the mid-19th century. Despite the drawbacks and criticism football has faced, its role and influence on American culture between the 1890’s and 1930’s far outweigh the negative aspects of its past.