Should there be Affirmative Action for sports?

People like Malia may actually have gotten opportunities based on their talent and initiative. Several other blacks are pretty good at self selecting away from overly competitive endeavors and end up pursuing and obtaining opportunities they are completely qualified for and deserve as much as their white colleagues. Put down the ******* sports page, grow the **** up and start networking: churches, rotary clubs, Kiwanis, local school boards are all waiting for young white men like you to hand over the reigns to.

 

The only problem is no one wants to see a bunch of white dudes playing sports.

 

Pro Lacrosse has not really taken off, true.

 

All the more reason why we need the AA type system so that we can get equal outcomes. We have to force people to stop being so bigoted and ensure that professional sports are representative of the country. The NBA clearly doesn't have enough white, Asian, hispanic, and female players....and the ONLY reason for that is bigotry obviously. We still have a long way to go.

 

I wish I could have seen Ryan Anderson playing a sport this post season.

 

Affirmative action in sports would be just as stupid and unfair as it is in all other places it is used.

 

I get hyped when I see a white free safety or running back.
why can't we have more Jason sehorns! (screaming at my tv)

 

Almost nobody will do that. Only the very best high school players in the entire nation make it on a college team. Only the very best college players from only certain colleges will even have a chance of making it to the NBA. There is a greater chance for folks to be brain surgeons than NBA players.

In universities, only qualified applicants are accepted. That is true regardless of race and affirmative action.

 

There is no history of discrimination against white, Asians, or Hispanics in the NBA. The NBA has shown diverse hiring practices since the 60s. Performance metrics are easily tracked. The reason white players are not in the league is they are not good enough. AA is designed to make sure Qualified candidates have equal opportunity. If doesn’t assure you a spot just because you are a certain color/sex/nationality.

White players are given the same opportunity to be drafted or sign as Free Agents if a team feels like a player could help the team. 5’11, 260lbs 20 inch vertical and never played basketball is not a qualified candidate. A white player who played college ball at Duke will get a look from teams...doesnt mean he is good enough.

 

You have at a minimum one college educated parent. You are under achieving if you are making $13 an hour based on your background. Don’t blame your failures on others and do not be jealous that others have been more successful.

You live in the greatest country on earth and in a land of opportunity do work hard and pull yourself up by your boot straps. No one likes a whiner.

 

Clearly there is, how else do you explain their disproportionate representation in the league? Disproportionate representation equals discrimination or at least that's the basic assumption behind AA.

 

Affirmative action in college admissions already includes sports. Colleges seek diversity in their overall student populations, believing that a diverse student body brings benefits for everyone in their full development as people, not just narrowly thinking about their academic performance. So to have affirmative action again within the athletic departments doesn't really make any sense to me. It thinks about student athletes very narrowly instead of thinking about the whole person, much less the whole community.

As for professional sports, their relationship to diversity is completely different. They aren't nonprofits with the mission to develop and educate young people. They are entertainment companies that are structured as meritocracies. They're private for-profit companies though. If they think they can make more money by cultivating diversity in their athlete population, I'm sure they'll do it. That doesn't seem to be the case though.

The irony of this question, of course, is that the reason why the big sports are dominated by black athletes is that not enough opportunity has been afforded to blacks in other venues, to the extent that some significant fraction of black kids see sports as the most viable path to success. Maybe if we can give black kids opportunities equal to white kids we can ultimately end up with more white kids in our major sports leagues, with some of those black kids who could have been athletes too busy pursuing jobs in finance or engineering or whatever.

 

I love high-motor players too.

 

I don't think there is one single correct statement in this post.

 

Students of the game.

 

I agree.