User:Jrue34/CES308

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Extreme_Sports

Learning Portfolio

Self Assessment 1

• • Joel Rue (Oct. 10th ). Annotation done on race in college sports. Retrieved October 10, 2005.
  • Joel Rue (Oct. 10th ). NFL coaches . Retrieved October 10, 2005.

Reflective Summary 1

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On this paper I worked together with Troy Griffith. Our topic was Segregation.

Segregation

The topic that was chosen for this paper was Segregation in Sports. This occurred to mainly African Americans and to the Hispanic groups. This was more of an issue between the thirties to seventies. There are many names that pop into my head when thinking of these brave pioneers that sacrificed themselves, loved ones and sometimes there career. The whole world was against them and they had enough courage and respect to stand up for what they believed in and their people. These people are Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X. These were the people that help start the fight back and helped support the break through in sports. The people that did this were athletes like Muhammad Ali, Jack Johnson and Jackie Robinson. All of these men were the first to stand up and pave the road to equality for all races in sports.

The first person that I will be talking about is very well known for what he has done. People that don’t know one boxers name know his and what he has done for the sport. His name was Cassius Clay. This unforgettable man changed his name to Muhammad Ali because Cassius Clay was his slave name and he is free and could do that. People thought that this was arrogant and not right for him to do this. With that move he is already breaking the mold for people and for their family’s history. In the early 60’s the boxing world was mainly run by the mobsters. He was stereotyped very early in his career as not the ideal boxer. The experts said that he had not much boxing skills and on his habit of swaying back and bending his wrists. This was after he won a gold medal in the Olympics. They also didn’t like him for his personal behaviors that he promoted very loudly. These consisted of his self promotion of being the greatest. There were many other reasons that they didn’t like him, they just didn’t like his race. They were mad that he changed his name to a Muslim name. He was also defying them by saying that it was his slave name and promoting that it was wrong. Ali received threats and hatred toward him and his supporters throughout his career and he kind of like it. I feel that it made him become that much stronger in and out of the ring. They where just adding fuel to a fire.

Jack Johnson is another boxer that had to deal with similar obstacles in his career like Ali. Johnson was a fighter with great speed, strength, and tremendous style. Nobody could compare to his picking punches, blocking, and his tremendous counter punching. He was the first black American boxer to win the heavyweight title. During his thirty years of boxing, he fought one-hundred and thirteen bouts. This is an impressive amount of fights for a man to have fought throughout his career, but back then it was more common. Jack Johnson was a leader of the African-American community, but was looked down upon by many white citizens. He was looked down upon because he was the first black champion and they didn’t want or expect him to win. The next five years the community held a tournament to find a white boxer to win back their belt, this was called “The Great White Hope.” All the contenders they found where beat by Johnson. They even pulled out an ex-heavyweight who was never knocked out to fight and he was beat to. Another reason that the white community didn’t like Johnson was for his ways out of the ring. He was a partier and flashy with his money and cloths. Things became its worst when he decided to marry a high class white woman in 1911. The community was very upset and let the couple know it. This didn’t bother Johnson to much, but his wife ended up committing suicide in 1912. It was enough pressure and threats that it made a women kill her self.

       I feel that there was a difference between the two boxers Ali and Johnson in how they treated the white community and how the community treated them. Both of these men were treated very badly by these terrible people. It was in how they reacted to the threats, letters, and everything else they went through. Johnson took more of the high road in that he didn’t let it get to him and he just boxed, beat them up and didn’t say much to the people that hated him. He would talk to the black community and show support there. Ali had a different approach at a different time. I don’t know which is better, but they are different. Ali was the flashiest, loud trash talking, arrogant man in the world. That was his way of getting to his opponents and to all the people that criticized him in the ring. Things that he did out side of the ring like change his name to a Muslim name made people mad. He also refused to go to the draft for war, which was a big controversy. They had different ways of expressing themselves and both had different outcomes. Both also treated unfairly. 

       The next man that opened a lot of eyes down the road was Jackie Robinson who was one of the first black Major League Baseball players. He was the first to fight against the public and to help open the door for other African American ball players. Before many games Jackie would talk to what ever black fans he could about the segregation within the MLB. This was a time where there was still a line down the middle of the street and where black schools and white schools. There where separate everything, drinking fountains, restaurants and a separation of baseball leagues. There was a league for African Americans called the Negro league that was nothing compared to the MLB. Jackie had to fight through many obstacles to accomplish what he did. Once in the MLB there was a petition from his own teammates to try and kick him off the ball club. There was also all the pitches that threw at him when he was at bat and the base runners that slid into him with there metal cleats pointing up. That was just his teammates and other ball players, and for the fans that yelled at his every time he touched the ball and holler at him to carry all the team supplies and to shine there shoes. Then there were the death threats that he received at home. He had to deal with all this and still kept an amazing .311 life time batting average, was one of the most feared base runners of his time, and helped his team in the infield to six national league pennants. Robinson had to the worst time of any of these other players due to the time that he was making an entry in to the MLB. 

        The Negro League was formed to keep black ballplayers form playing with the so called civilized ballplayers. Black ballplayers were excluded from the league by the National Association of Baseball Players on December 11, 1868 when the governing body voted unanimously to bar, "any club which may be composed of one or more colored persons." This was the first appearance of an official "color line" in baseball. However, African Americans kept on playing baseball. They decided to play on all black teams and eventually in all black leagues. The first black professional team was the Cuban Giants in 1885, but the teams played as independent ball clubs until the first black league was organized in 1920. That year Rube Foster, the father of black baseball, founded the Negro National League. Later on the league came to an end with financial problems.--Jrue34 20:54, 12 Dec 2005 (Pacific Standard Time)