I don’t think anyone who knows me would ever accuse me of being a bigot, a racist, a redneck. However, I, like almost everyone else who watches a lot of sports, wonder why so many college and NFL football players are black. Are they more athletically gifted than white players? Are they racially equipped with physical and mental abilities not found in white athletes? Or are they simply more motivated than white players? The most recent census shows our nation to be 67% white to 13% black. NFL stats show 68% black to 28% white. Whew! Sixty-eight percent of NFL players come from only 13% of the population. That’s a huge difference. It’s about the same in the NBA—75% black, 23% white. What accounts for that disparity? Discounting the argument that blacks are better athletes as silly, I’m left with desire, motivation, and expectation as the only reasonable explanation. Black kids often come from lower income families and see athletic success as a way to achieve financial success, to climb higher on the social ladder than that of their parents or grandparents. They also view successful black athletes and simply expect that they too might be athletically better than white athletes. Or maybe this is all hogwash and they really do have an extra tendon in their calves that allows them to run faster and jump higher than their white counterparts. Nah! That last reason is just plain silly and was discounted years ago.
Last night I had an odd thought somewhere in that 3:00 a.m. wasteland: If I’m fonder of cats than dogs, how could I change my blog title from Doggy-Dog World to something similar about cats? I thought of Cataclysmic World, and that led me to Kittyclysmic World, then Kittyclawsmic World. Will I switch blog titles? No, I already have a blog I call The Caterwaul. But it’s an interesting thought.
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