Even in the black sports media world, those who aren’t looking don’t see diversity

By Gregory Moore, Blackathlete.net columnist

SAN ANTONIO – A friend of mine called me the other day and told me that ESPN’s Scoop Jackson sort of lifted a story that I wrote about back in June.

“Greg, take a look at Page 2 on ESPN.com. Seems Scoop has sort of jumped on your bandwagon about that APSE report story you did for BASN back in June. Some of it sounds eerily familiar,” my friend told via a cell phone call.

What was interesting was that just a day later, while going through my e-mails and story idea sort lists, I saw in my e-mail copy of Howard Bloom’s Sports Business News’ Daily Dose and I see not one but two entries for Jason Whitlock’s column he wrote for the Kansas City Star. If you are not familiar about what Scoop, Whitlock or myself are referring to, it is a near damning report that the Associated Press Sports Editors had done by the renowned Dr. Richard Lapchick. I wrote about the study on June 24th of this year and you can read about what I had to say at http://www.blackathlete.net/artman/publish/article_02033.shtml. Now what’s ironic is that almost a full month after I wrote this piece on the BASN website, both Jackson and Whitlock gets national attention for their ‘outspoken’ comments on the lack of diversity. Well here is where it is time to turn over a little known rock on what is discussed amongst Black sports writers and Black journalists in general; this diversity problem exists because even Black journalists don’t necessarily know where to look.

I don’t want to take anything away from Whitlock’s or Jackson’s article because both writers make some valid points. From Jason’s standpoint as a minority writer at a predominately Caucasian paper, it probably is frustrating as hell to try and get a story out that is appealing to a smaller reader segment. Sometimes you just don’t want to write for the majority. With Scoop, I definitely can agree with him on the fact that maybe our young Black kids don’t know of the sports writers who ARE NOT on ESPN. I’ll even poke at my own self in that regards. Prior to my first appearance on ESPN’s Outside the Lines in May of 2005 and the half a dozen appearances on the “Hot List’ since then, nobody knew who I was, what Blackathlete.net was or that a small African American weekly newspaper like the San Antonio Informer even existed. Do I feel fortunate in the exposure provided by Mickey and company? Sure I do but I can’t complain. However I’m not going to sit here at a keyboard and say that I don’t wish for things to better for every sports journalist who is of color. Diversity is an issue that needs to be addressed and somebody is trying to ring the bell on that tabooed subject.

TOPIC ONLY DISCUSSED AT A CONVENTION SETTING

Even though the diversity discussion that has come about from Dr. Lapchick’s study and the admittance by the APSE, there’s an aspect of this discussion that Whitlock and Scoop fail to make mention to the public. Amongst Black journalists, this conversation only truly gets discussed in a certain venue and that is the annual National Association of Black Journalist convention. This year’s convention is being held in Indianapolis, Indiana and according to the group’s website, there are several workshops that will be held at the convention that hit on the diversity topic. Some of the tentative workshops are: Role of Minority Journalists in Integrating Motorsports, Black Ownership in Radio: Why it Matters Who is in Charge, Closing the Head-Coaching Gap in College Football and Women’s Basketball, Growing Our Own, Building a Stronger Black Press, Black Women in the Newsroom: Stomping Out the Stereotype and Are We Running From Behind (go to http://nabj.org/conventions/2006/workshops/index.html and scroll the list of workshop topics for a greater topic understanding of what these workshops will talk about).

These discussion workshops are not uncommon at an NABJ event and there is always at least one frank discussion on why there are not more African Americans in the newsroom. In relation to the sports genre, I have always surmised that one of the biggest reasons why there are not more of “us” being heard or read is because the more conventional Black journalists out there (the folks who are on TV or work for the big daily newspapers) are not looking to help the cause. Yes consider this the calling out of many journalists afraid to venture outside the box and actually talk to that Black journalist you see from the Washington Informer at a Washington Redskins game. Yes I’m calling out those who figure that a person who writes for a small Black newspaper like the Long Beach Times, the Dallas Examiner or the Seattle Medium. Yes when a beat writer from a big newspaper sees another Black reporter at a sporting event, I’m saying that it is only right and proper to introduce yourself to that individual and find out what publication that person writes for. Yes I am saying that is time for even the NABJ to finally recognize that collectively, members and non-members of the Black press are systematically not doing the job of making the Caucasian led senior management of the industry to look beyond their window and reach out to the talent that is out there. The small, maybe inconsequential Black publication is out there doing the same thing that a Kansas City Star, LA Times or Seattle Post Intelligence is doing and that is covering the world of sports.

THE UGLY TRUTH THAT BLACK ATHLETES WANT BLACK REPRESENTATION

There’s another ugly little truth that nobody really wants to acknowledge and it’s probably worse than the fact that the Black media is not helping its cause fully in the diversity issue. The other ugly truth is that many Black athletes want to see Black reporters covering them. Yes I’m saying the other dirty secret that nobody wants to talk about. The reason why I’m saying this now is because you can’t talk about diversity and a lack of having qualified journalists in a newsroom without realizing the aspects that even in today’s sophisticated society, people of ethnicity feel more comfortable talking to someone of like resemblance and sometimes that is even on racial terms.

Many members in the Black media may disagree with me on this statement but I can only go on personal observations. In the dozen years of covering the NBA and other sports where African Americans are a major part of the scene, I have been able to build relationships with some players who were African American because they saw a Black reporter taking the time to just talk to them. A good example of such a relationship is with Jaren Jackson. When Jackson was a member of the San Antonio Spurs, at the beginning of the season I introduced myself. When he asked whom I wrote for, his eyes lit up and asked me to make sure he got a copy of my African American publication. There was a friend of mine who was writing for another Black paper standing with me and he was nearly ecstatic and asked her to make sure he got a copy of her paper as well. So just about every week until he left the team, Jaren got two weekly Black newspapers in his locker.

As trivial as the example may be or as inconsequential the argument may seem, the fact that continues to remain that for many African Americans, they want to see Black sports journalists covering them. Many news outlets understand that aspect of the diversity issue because the stories that they receive, the commentaries that are written or the prose that is said on the airwaves brings in a new demographic or increases the size of an existing one. The diversity issue, as a whole, doesn’t just apply here to Black reporters and journalists but the Black journalist is actually the minority in a world where African Americans may be the majority. That world is sports.

CHANGE STARTS WITH THE BLACK MEDIA’S PERCEPTION OF DIVERSITY

Sure the world isn’t perfect and Lord knows that things should be better. It would be nice that instead of having all of these journalist organizations in the world that one group be represented. Yet that is exactly why there are five different journalist groups for minorities; because one group does not represent another group in proper fashion. If the world was perfect, there would be no need for a diversity study by Dr. Lapchick to show the sports editors in the daily newsrooms what they see on a daily basis. For the APSE to say that they didn’t know that they had a problem is definitely a disingenuous statement and a slap in the face to every working journalist who is out there in the real world. Yet journalists like myself, Scoop, Jason or others can’t be crying foul every time we feel that our people are not getting proper media coverage when we are not out there actively recruiting fresh new talent.

In order for this diversity issue to truly be remedied, it will mean that even the Black media needs to recognize that sometimes we are as guilty of being a bunch of snobs to our own people. Luckily those cases are few and far between but it is still something that needs to be changed. As successful as Cathy Hughes’ Radio One may be, the fact that even this entity needs to have a viable sports talk show that is informative, reliable and gives the target audience substance that co-exists with the other forms of mediums they may gather. It is really the job of the Black journalist to not just report the facts to the general populous, but for many it is also the task to educate their own community and be the beacon of hope for those who may want to come forth and get into this professional field.

NABJ was founded in Washington, D.C. on December 12, 1975 by 44 men and women, many who were just starting out in their careers. Undoubtedly the reason why this organization was founded was to help promote diversity in the media field. Surely some 31 years later this group shouldn’t be having the same ‘discussion’ about diversity that the founding members talked about on that eventful day. However it may seem to be that is what is happening. That has got to stop. The re-hashing of the dead horse isn’t gong to solve the issues being raised.

When it comes to Blacks and the sports journalism field however, things can be changed by the acceptance that it takes a collective effort for the mainstream writers to help the not so mainstream colleagues to get noticed. Sad to say but if Scoop, Jason, Stephen A. or a few others that I know asked me to name as many Black sports writers/columnists, I’d flunk the test too. It’s not that I don’t know about them but because as a media ‘fraternity’, we don’t communicate. Maybe that’s the other end of the problem too. A lack of communication can definitely stall a worthy issue that needs a solution. But with that said, there is some diversity where many think there is none. It just takes some effort turning over those moldy rocks in the journalism pond and stroking the frogs up under there into becoming the princes that everyone wants to hear from.

Blake, Woods help shape phenomenal sports weekend during non-sports time

By Gregory Moore, Blackathlete.net columnist

SAN ANTONIO – in probably one of the best sports weekends that will never be mentioned, James Blake wins an important ATP men’s tennis tournament in Indianapolis and along the way he has helped to bring back American tennis at a time when many people think that it’s all but dormant these days.

Blake’s impressive 6-4, 4-6, 7-5 win over Andy Roddick on Sunday was nothing short of masterful tennis by both players. Blake’s win is especially good to see because the young man has been battling his own self-doubt of being a champion for months. Yet this weekend’s win showed the America tennis public something that it hasn’t had in a long time and that’s a player who was hungry. As a friend of mine puts it succinctly, it was sexy as hell to watch and in sports folks, sexuality sells the product.

"Andy and I wanted to prove that U.S. tennis is back now," Blake said. "We're on our surface now and we want to do well going into the U.S. Open and hopefully for the rest of the year.

The two top seeded players did exactly that and it was a treat worth watching. For those who didn’t’ know who James Blake was, he is now the fifth ranked player in the world. He was the top seeded player in the RCA championship this weekend and he definitely showed that he could handle the pressure of being in the spotlight. For Roddick this loss didn’t make him any less of a player but it did something that both he and Blake wanted to do and that’s a reiteration of what good tennis could be. We haven’t seen that from American players in a long time. The Williams’ sisters are not nearly as good as they once were and with the retirement of Andre Agassi, there haven’t been many players out there to cheer about. Until now that is.

"This is one of the best finals I've ever played," Blake told reporters. "I had to play like that to beat a champion like Andy.

"I played my best tennis, it's very satisfying to have done it in the final."

Let’s hope we get to see a lot more of these two great players for years to come and hopefully a showdown in five weeks at the U.S. Open.

TIGER’S WIN CAPPING A GREAT GOLF WEEKEND

At 18 under, Tiger Woods has once again become the sports story that is leading many headlines this week and that’s a good thing. Chris DiMarco ended up 16 under and his story is right next to Woods’ own. Yet just like with the winning of Blake in Indy, Woods impressive win at Hoylake for his third British Open and his second one that was back to back (Woods won last year’s title at St. Andrews to complete the grand slam).

DiMarco’s valiant effort wasn’t enough but this weekend was more than just these two American golfers and Ryder Cup teammates battling out. Woods lost his dad just before the Masters and DiMarco lost his mom a couple of weeks ago. Both players were trying to play inspired golf for more than just a trophy and bragging rights and this week; both of them came out giving golf fans a memorable performance.

So even though football isn’t quite here and baseball is a bit in the doldrums, there were two sporting events that gave us something to really stayed glued in front of the flat screen this past weekend and they were well worth the view.

When will Black athletes realize that they actually ‘make’ their society?

By Gregory Moore, Blackathlete.net columnist

SAN ANTONIO – Excuse me while I conjure up an old commercial for a public service announcement. Sir Charles, take it a way.

"I don't believe professional athletes should be role models. I believe parents should be role models.... It's not like it was when I was growing up. My mom and my grandmother told me how it was going to be. If I didn't like it, they said, ‘Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.’ Parents have to take better control."

Okay I was really expecting the old Nike commercial from him. You know the one. “I am not a role model”. In a sense the above quote will have to do as the anomaly because whether Sir Charles likes it or not, professional athletes, rappers, big booty shakers on BET and MTV are all the role models most Black kids see and want to be emulate. Whether Charles likes the situation, the fact of the matter is that as long as society continues to pay millions of dollars to professional athletes to play a kid’s game, kids will want to attain the millions that are out there. Talk about a warped sense of economics and the basic formulation of supply and demand. Yet it’s out there folks and whether I like it or not, whether Charles likes it, or if anyone else thinks they can change it, the premise is out there. But yet when Black athletes continue to go out and do some of the damnedest things in our society, I think I’m like Charles at times; I want to go hide from the world.

Black athletes have this inordinate sense of responsibility to actually be very positive role models for our youth. We have some really good ones but there are some bad ones as well. For example, if anyone is a member of the Cincinnati Bengals franchise and you have been arrested within the past two years, would you please raise your hand? If this were a real test, we would at least see two hands go up in Charles Henry and Mathias Askew. Okay here’s another one. Will the professional athlete who has allowed his household to become the benchmark for stupid spending please stand up? C’mon Mike Strahan you know that’s you. With all joking aside, the reason why I selected these individuals is because right now they are in the limelight for being either incredulously inept at managing a household or are so ill equipped at being a law abiding citizen that somebody has to rattle their cages a little.

ROLE MODEL #1: A FINANCIAL ROLE MODEL

Before I tackle another reason why crime doesn’t pay, I want to delve into Michael and Jean Strahan’s ridiculous divorce proceedings. Now I’ve gotten into a heated debate about this case with my own girlfriend. She has taken the stance that Jean deserves $21 million for putting up with Strahan for seven years. Funny because it is believed that Strahan only is worth $23 million. I of course think that she deserves to get $7 million and be forced back to her pre-marriage life of frugal spending as a cosmetics store manager’s salary because evidently she didn’t believe in keeping such principles when she got married. But despite what I might feel towards a woman I have never met, I am putting the blame of this sordid tale at the feet of the New York Giants superstar because he wasn’t man enough to run his household like, well, a man. In my eyes, not only did Strahan allow his wife to go off on that ridiculous spending spree over the years, he was the basis for it because he himself never became a frugal finance manager and lead the household down a normal spending path. As a father of twins, he can’t say that he has set a good example for his daughters on being financially responsible.

Let’s forget the Patrick Ewing anecdote of “We spend a lot because we make a lot” when it comes to professional athletes. One of the biggest problems that Black America has is the fact that athletes believe they have to spend gobs of money on lavish rides. I’ve heard that right here in San Antonio that a former San Antonio Spurs player has a Ferrari, a Mercedes, a Cadillac Escalade and another car that he has been seen driving in. That’s his prerogative and his right but in my eye that is so extravagant it’s unreal. After all how many cars can you drive at one time? One. But for athletes who are professionals, they measure their success on the materialistic things of cars and bling and rarely is it put in financial vehicles that perpetuate wealth. I’m not going to assume that this former Spurs player doesn’t have lucrative business dealings or real estate prosperities that pay for his gas toys but one has to wonder how many other athletes like Strahan continue to live the crazy life of spending money because I have it.

When the judge splits the fortunes of the Strahans, I’m hoping that the judge finds a common line of thought and award properly but Michael needs to do better in life. If you’re keeping count kids, this is another set of kids who will not have a two-parent household and that is something very prominent right now in Black America.

ROLE MODEL #2: THE GOOD CITIZEN

This probably should have been flipped but it deserves to be last. The last time I wrote about a Cincinnati Bengals’ player, Chris Henry was just in court for something else that involved minor girls and alcohol. That was sordid enough. Now comes to light that Matthias Askew was arrested for not following police orders after a traffic altercation. Okay here’s where things are just becoming ridiculous in Cincinnati. Henry, Askew, rookie linebacker A.J. Nicholson and third round pick Frostee Rucker are facing criminal charges ranging from spousal abuse to vandalism to resisting arrest to whatever Henry is facing at this time. I don’t want to put the moniker of being the NFL’s equivalent to what the Portland Trailblazers were a few seasons ago in the NBA, a laughing stock of a team that had a bunch social deviants who don’t understand that there laws in every state. I don’t want to put that moniker on the team because that’s not fair to the rest of the players who are doing the right thing nor is it fair to the coaching staff and the fans that love that team.

However it is time for the Bengals front office to put the hammer down. Marvin Lewis needs to set an example that this type of shenanigans will not be tolerated by anybody no matter their depth chart status. If it were me and I had the decision as to who stays and who goes, once the first cuts needed to be decided, all four of those players would be looking for new work. For some fans that may seem harsh but let’s look at the bigger picture if you’re a Bengals fan. What’s more important a franchise that wins games with players who are positive role models to our kids or a franchise that is full of law breakers who will disrespect management the moment they have the chance. I’m taking my chance on wanting a franchise that is law abiding because life would be so much easier when there is less distractions such as what is being written about here.

So what does those two sub topics have to do with what Charles Barkley said? It shows the need for parents to start reinforcing some values that can be carried into adulthood. Without trying to play Dr. Phil on a website, let’s be honest about these examples. In the case of Strahan and the Bengals’ players arrested, these issues came at the hand of social acceptance and rearing. On the one hand you have an athlete who believes that money means success. He believes that flaunting is a way of acceptance and whether he wants to admit it or not, he is the reason why his now former ex-wife spent money the way she did. Yeah I think that Jean Strahan could have been more frugal but I’m blaming her former husband Michael for not living to those standards to begin with. As for the Bengals players, their actions come from the reinforcement of not respecting the laws of the land. Not a single person from their families can successfully argue that they are all good men of reputable stature because they have all been arrested for moderately serious crimes. Yes, even resisting arrest is a serious crime. The only reason why this behavior is being displayed like it has is because somebody told these young men that it was acceptable to be barbaric and disrespectful in society. Somebody taught them these actions and the sad thing is that it may have come from where the surroundings they had as kids.

So that leaves me to agreeing with what Barkley said in his quote. It’s up to parents to do what’s right for their kids. It’s up to them to kick them in the ass when they screw up in life where you have to go talk to the police or juvenile judge. It’s up to parents to reward them and continually encourage their kids when they are excelling in a worthwhile endeavor that will build life skills and showcase their talents. But I’m going to also say that it is up to our professional athletes to set up a secondary line of defense and show that they are indeed role models of a different kind. In this society kids want to see successful athletes be successful in their private lives as well. Right now the players I mentioned in this piece can’t be a part of that collective body of work. But somebody needs to step up and show that this is an anomaly and not the normal cycle in the Black community. The kids who actually look up to them deserve real life success stories and whether we like it or not, professional athletes are a part of that role model demographic.

Dad wants 10 year old son to have a normal childhood while playing basketball.

SAN ANTONIO – When Howard Jenifer went on national sports talk radio Wednesday morning, he wanted to set the record straight as to why he trains his son, Justin, so hard.

“No parent wants to run their child in a training regimen like was reported in that story,” Jenifer said in reference to a Washington Post story entitled, “Courting 10-year-old basketball prodigy”. Jenifer is probably feeling the heat of the media now descending upon him and he wants to shield his family from the eventual onslaught that may be coming. Well there’s only one problem with him trying to ask the media to bequeath his request: he began this process the moment he allowed his son to take a headband from Scottie Bowden.

There’s no secret that I despise guys like Bowden. Bowden is what I call a ‘shoe pimp’. His job is to go out and search for that special kid that Adidas may want to encase those talented feet in with new shoes. What Bowden does is basically ‘bribe’ brand loyalty to talented kids. It’s nothing new. Sonny Vacarro began the process a long time ago but now the three major shoe companies, Nike, Reebok and Bowden’s employer have refined the practice and made this a battle zone that no one could have expected. The battleground was once grown men and maybe trickling down to high school kids but today Bowden and his cronies of shoe peddlers are targeting a much younger audience. In this day and age it’s anyone below the age of 15 years old.

Bowden, Vacarro and others who have these rating services say that it’s the inevitable for being in the type of business that they are in? My question is what business are they in that would have a grown man basically prey upon the youth all for the loyalty to a sneaker? I really question it because Bowden is a principal at a middle school in Baltimore, Maryland and surely there is a set of bylaws within the Baltimore County Public School system. Surely Dr. Joe Hairston is aware of what one of his principals is doing and grave consequences that could arise from a trusted official in the education field may face if any impropriety was ever found.

But even Bowden can be put off of the main road of blame for the time being because there’s an organization that is being poorly represented that is as much the blame as anyone else I could point a finger at. That organization is the Amateur Athletic Union. An e-mail to the union’s senior sports manager of boy’s basketball programs, Joe Crawford, was not immediately returned. What the e-mail wanted to know in question was the rules of sponsorship, company affiliation and recruitment of players. The reason why I sent that e-mail was because I wanted to know if sanctions could be handed to anyone who tried to recruit outside of their area. I have looked at the AAU’s codebook for rules on this matter and I’m still trying to find answers on this matter.

LOOKING FOR SOME SORT OF ACCOUNTABILITY

So why am I stirring up a story that is trying to not have legs? Because parents just aren’t getting the message. Howard Jenifer want the best for his son and nobody can blame him but he, like so many others, are being sucked into this cesspool of shoe sharks and companies who don’t have the moral compasses to realize that 10-year-olds don’t have the buying power to purchase $200 sneakers. In a sense I really can’t blame Bowden for much of Jenifer’s ‘problem’ but Bowden’s boss, Darren Kalish, can definitely be held accountable for reaching this low on the basketball talent plane. Kalish’s assertions that you have to get them early in brand loyalty is nothing more the usual excuses a drug dealer or pimp may tell someone who is trying to understand why they sell poison to a 14-year-old boy or why they have hooked a 16-year-old runaway into a life of impoverished despair. I think that if Kalish and Adidas was serious about honing brand loyalty, they could go up to the high school level and get the same results.

Accountability ability also has to come from some outside forces that have a little more pull on AAU than the parents. I’m talking about school districts, the NCAA and the NBA. It’s ironic that the words of David Stern’s state of the league address seem to reverberate in my writings right now but this story about Justin and his dad are the very reason why Stern is saying what he saying. The very fact that Carmelo Anthony is funding an AAU team in his home town and they have this crazy budget of five figures to recruit and travel is reason enough to start implementing some rules on what is acceptable practices of ‘giving back’ to the community. When Sam Cassell gives young Justin $100 for making jump shots, then it is time for the NBA to have some heart to heart meetings with the players about tampering and giving off the wrong impression. Cassell didn’t help Justin’s mom or dad in raising that child at that time; he literally crippled them.

The NCAA also needs to start cracking down on these early recruiting letters. ESPN’s Outside the Lines had an episode on this very topic of tracking kids early and it was down right eerie. To have college head coaches send out letters to kids who are barely out of middle school or early high school years and yet they are getting letters of interest from these coaches. The NCAA says that it wants to crack down on such communications but yet they are not doing anything about this because even they know that there is big money in this process.

Ironically that’s the bottom line here; money. If it wasn’t little Justin being in the spotlight, it would have been little Johnny or Kaseem or Ivan. The shoe companies don’t give a damn about these kids and parents need to wise up and realize that. For the shoe companies it is all about making a sale. If Jenings decided that his son wasn’t going to become a ‘shoe slave’ to Adidas and not play for an Adidas sponsored team, do you think that would stop the other two from trying to woo them over? Of course not. To these big companies it is about brand loyalty but being loyal to the person you are wooing is only as good as long as they are either in your back pocket or they are extolling the type of skills you are willing to sink money into. Justin’s mom, Kisha Hull, said in the piece that she didn’t want her son to be bought and sold but guess what? He’s already well on his way down that path. He won’t be the first kid and he definitely isn’t going to be the last.

If Jenings thinks that all of this attention is going to stop overnight he’s mistaken. This is the very thing that I have railed against for years since writing on this site and on being on the radio airwaves. The education of parents as to the inner workings of competitive sports is something that still overcomes a lot of them. What would be nice is to have some sort of governing body to protect the parents who are truly wanting their kids to have fun playing amateur sports from the business side that has become the shoe wars. I wish the Jenings family all the luck in the world of finding that normalcy. It would be nice to write about Justin’s exploits when he is, let’s say, seven to eight years older than what he is now.

Mainstream media going to blast Davis on church comment but his excuse is the bona fide truth

SAN ANTONIO -- The Chevy Impala SS that came out between 1994 to 1996 was a mean motor scooter. The car was fast and it looked menacing. It was so menacing that police departments had them as cruisers. Today these cars are being tricked out and several young adults are adding fancy paint jobs, modifying the engine/transmission and adding the gigantic rims that they think are so cool. And every now and then somebody has their ride shot up because of somebody’s own jealousy, envy or self imposed street justice or stature. Evidently Dallas Cowboys safety Keith Davis became a victim of this madness and his only excuse was that he was going home to go to church.

As the Dallas Morning News story points out, Davis was on his way home from a family gathering in Shreveport, Louisiana and told officers that he was headed home on IH 635 when the incident happened. His excuse for leaving Shreveport? He wanted to go to church. It doesn’t sound plausible to the mainstream media but it’s true in what he is saying. Monday afternoon an associate that I know who covers Dallas sports informed me that her mother attends the same church as Davis and Cowboys’ star Roy Williams. In the e-mails that were sent to me, this person actually validates Davis’ story:

“He (Keith) attends the same church as my mom. Funny thing is (as we watched the news during her reception) she said Pastor Ricky Rush was scanning the church LAST WEEK at IBOC (Inspiring Body of Christ church) desperately looking for Keith. Keith attends the 7:30 a.m. service. Roy Williams was in the front row as always, and Pastor asked him to have Keith to call right away, he (pastor) needed to see him. Word was he was MIA at church lately. Of course when he got shot, Rush was the person he called first...eerie!”

This individual’s personal knowledge of actually backing up Davis’ story may never come to the main press because as it has quickly been heard, many are dismissing Davis’ claims as something of an excuse of what really happened. The fact that this associate gave me intimate details about Pastor Rush’s congregation and WHERE both Davis and Williams sit is actually proof to me that he could be telling the truth.

What this e-mail also gives me is the church’s web address and after going there, I was able to actually ‘triangulate’ and verify Davis story even further. Davis said that he was traveling on I-635 on his way home and then he was going to get back on I-20 to go to the church. As many of us may have heard this week on various talk shows, that story is ranking right up there with “the dog ate my homework”. In reality as this associate told me in an e-mail, Davis had been flaunting his rides on local television and thus everyone knew what he was driving.

If you will recall, I mentioned that there is a warp sense of entitlement for those who are not as fortunate as Davis in acquiring things. The candy apple red Impala SS has been seen around Dallas and evidently somebody wanted to let Davis know who they were on I-635 or Hwy. 75 (the toll roads in Dallas). Their jealousy of what Davis has surfaced and made national news. But should the mainstream media be so blind as to think that Davis was up to no good? Well if none of the media attends a 7:30 a.m. service at their church, they wouldn’t believe Davis’s story in the first place but Davis is active in that predominantly African American church and I’m sure that once people find out that he called his pastor first and then his family, this so-called fib everybody thinks he conjured up will come smelling out like the truth of the story.

Kids definitely getting wrong advice about trying to beat NBA age law

By Gregory Moore, Blackathlete.net columnist

SAN ANTONIO – The New York Times article sent a chill down my spine. Here was basically an industry nobody, Reggie Rose, telling the writers from the Times who wrote the story that maybe his brother, talented point guard Derrick Rose, might need to either get a trainer and work on obtaining a shoe deal or try to play overseas in Europe before making the jump to the NBA.

"Once one or two players nationally go that route, a big chain will follow," the elder Rose said in a July 9th article on the possibility of his brother getting an agent and making the jump to the Euro leagues.

What also sent a chill up my spine was the once again mention of Sonny Vaccaro actually thinking about wanting to find sponsors for a ‘barn storming’ venture of several top players to do just such a thing. When I read those few lines in the piece, I just shuddered at the thought. “Oh great,” I’m thinking. “Instead of Vaccaro trying to help bridge a gap where these elite players need to ensure they have the fundamental skill sets for the college and/or professional ranks, he wants to find a way to make money and parade them around like prize show ponies”. Those were my thoughts then and they are definitely my words now as I look at what the elder Rose and Vaccaro believe to be a viable solution to a perceived loophole in the NBA collective bargaining agreement.

ONCE AGAIN, LACK OF BUSINESS KNOWLEDGE SHOWS

It was a little over a year ago that I did an interview with Sporting News Radio’s Tim Brando where the last part of the interview he asked me my view on the then new collective bargaining agreement in which a high school senior can no longer make the jump to the NBA and that the rookie salary contract is now a guaranteed two year deal and not the three years of previous times. I was very poignant about how this was good for the many African American basketball players that were going to be affected. When he asked me about the AAU coaches and their chance at possibly influencing a kid to hold back a bit before taking that leap test, I told him that if I were such a coach, I’d do it because it benefited me more than it benefited that player. Yet he and I both knew that when ploys like that were being made, that meant that nobody in that kid’s inner circle cared about the ball player. Not his coaches. Not his family members. Not his supposed trusted advisors. For damn sure it wouldn’t Vaccaro and others. What it also showed was a lack of business knowledge by anyone trying to say they understood the world of the NBA.

Vaccaro, Rose and anyone else who thinks that high school kids should skip playing college ball, sign shoe deals, get trainers and/or try to jump into the world of the International Basketball Federation better known as FIBA. If such individuals are thinking that they will be able to skirt around the NBA and find their dreams by going internationally, they will soon find out that it may be actually harder to go this route than originally planned. Playing in the European leagues is more than just finding an agent that can hook you up with a national federation. It’s about going out and being able get your passport to travel to and from this country. It’s about learning different customs in countries that you have never been in and realizing that you are on ‘foreign’ soil and not at home.

I want to kind of go over the statement of learning the customs in a new land because for these young men, this would be the most difficult thing to accept. Whether our society wants to believe it or not, the laws in other countries are a lot stricter than what is here at home. I don’t want to single out young Black ball players but because this idea actually affects them more than their Hispanic, Asian or Caucasian counterparts, I have not choice. Whether we want to accept the fact or not, most of the sports police blotter that has come across news desks in the past few weeks have more to do with African American athletes than it does with others. Think of the numerous Black athletes that have been in scuffles with the law right now as young men? Guys like childhood friend of Carmelo Anthony, Tyler Smith would be in serious trouble in Europe if he were caught with illegal drugs in the car. Isaiah “don’t call me J.R.” Rider was arrested again this week but imagine if he did this latest crime overseas. And while I’m not saying that none of these high school potential stars couldn’t handle playing overseas in Europe, the chances of their survival because of their immaturity levels definitely does not bode well for them in the odds of success/failure ratio.

PLAYING IN COLLEGE ACTUALLY A BUILDING BLOCK NEEDED

Whether people want to hear this or not, for African American basketball players wishing to make millions in the NBA or even overseas, playing at the college level is more of a building block for a good foundation rather than a hindrance. Far too many in this microcosmic community believe that if they had a child that was as talented as a LeBron James, Kobe Bryant or even a young phenom like an O.J. Mayo. Even if that kid is as good as the afore mentioned players, does that mean that his parents should forsake their duty in making sure that their talented young man gets a good educational foundation as well? They probably shouldn’t forsake their duties in this regard but I am willing to bet the house on the fact that far too many matriarchs, patriarchs, uncles, brothers and so-called family experts on professional sports do exactly that and when the financial rewards simply do not materialize, they are ready to either scream some type of social injustice or say that they just didn’t know the intricacies of the business matters at hand. In some regards, playing at college kind of prepares these young athletes for the perils at hand.

Playing college ball isn’t just about playing in front of big crowds but also about being able to handle the pressures that come along with newfound fame and stardom. If a player is talented enough to even think about skipping college and go play at some academy like the IMF Academy or Oak Hills, hire a trainer and get a shoe deal or bolt overseas, then he’s good enough to at least try his hand at playing in the structured environment of college ball for two seasons. The structured environment that is at this level is what is needed to hone the basic skill sets that these players may need and it also where these players can acquire them if they never really had them to begin with.

Whether playing in college is the right thing to do or not, what I can definitely tell you from reading the NY Times piece is that if there are so-called family members who are advising their young protégés into making the jump to play in Europe or to skip college, we are in for some very tragic views of lives being destroyed. I have said this far too many times to count but professional sports is a business and having the talent to get there is only part of the equation. The knowledge on knowing how to market that talent, hone that talent and use that talent to the point to where it makes you gobs of money never dreamed of is a hard one to learn. Very few athletes have that type of temperament to do so and the list is even fewer when you start thinking about the number of players who can do it coming from the international battle zones known as the National clubs of the FIBA leagues. It may be a tragedy in the making but nobody can say we weren’t fore warned about it chances. If there comes a mass exodus of high school seniors headed to the FIBA ranks, be prepared to hear the heart breaking stories of so many kids being turned away because they weren’t ready to play in that league either.

Simply put, if guys like Vaccaro and Reggie Rose were TRULY interested in helping young basketball player succeed, then uttering such choices to an internationally recognized newspaper like the Times would not have ever happened. Let’s hope that their words don’t become the catalyst for poor decisions that could be made by a segment of the population that believes that the road to true economic freedom and security by forsaking a chance at an education is the correct ‘career’ path. The only career path that could truly be certain is one of continued ignorance, poverty and misery; the very things that many of these young ball players want to escape from.

OHSAA doesn’t need another “LeBron” gate from North College Hill’s Mayo and Walker

By Gregory Moore, Blackathlete.net columnist

SAN ANTONIO -- There are reports floating out on various newswire services that the next Ohio high school basketball phenom, O.J. Mayo, may be headed down a slippery slope because of his talent on the basketball court and his ‘upbringing’ or lack there of by a parent or guardian. Meanwhile his backcourt teammate at North College Hills high school, Bill Walker, may have seemed to exhausted his eligibility to play at the school or any school in Ohio. The premise of many in the Queen City is that Mayo is a ‘godsend’, a prodigy and one who should be given special treatment and privileges yet they are forgetting an embarrassing situation about four years ago at an Akron, Ohio high school where another Ohio phenom became a household name in the midst of some scrupulous. Anyone remember “LeBron” gate? I’m sure the Ohio High School Athletic Association does.

As talented as mayo and Walker are, what is even more troubling is that there are individuals out there who are more about using these young men’s talents for their own gain. Guys like Mayo and Walker always have snakes, leeches and hang boys waiting for them at every turn but what may be dampening them now is their off the court actions. For Walker it’s his eligibility and for Mayo it is going to come down to who is actually raising the young man.

What is probably going to be astounding is that many will again think that this is just another column attacking these young men and their decision making as to what school they should attend after high school. Granted that while it may be quite the news story to see if the dynamic duo will play for the same school at the collegiate level, there is a more pressing matter and that is the surroundings that these two young men are currently in or formerly were a part of.

Whether many want to believe it or not, the eligibility of a high school player is very important; especially to the school and the player. According to OHSAA reports, Walker had used up his eligibility and that ended last year. Walker has been on record saying that playing basketball this season is not the most important thing in his life right now but that graduating from high school is. That’s good to know because the education aspect of his life is more important than bouncing a ball.

As for Mayo, there are reports that he may be thinking of going to USC rather than to Kansas State and that neither his mother, who is living in West Virginia, nor supposed ‘guardian’ Dwaine Barnes AND that mayo is supposedly trusting Rodney Guillory for guidance. Just so that you can get a handle on the seriousness of this situation, Guillory has been linked to stories of being a runner for an agent at one time and caused the suspension of two players by the NCAA. As many can attest, Guillory has a checkered past and is someone Mayo needs to avoid.

And thus you can see the quandary that the OSHAA may find itself in. Of the two players, Mayo is the media star and the one who can be the most at risk if the wrong people get to him. Am I pointing a finger in the direction of Guillory? Sure because Guillory knows that he needs to talk to Mayo’s guardians. But I am also looking at Barnes and Mayo’s mother as well because he is being ‘forced’ to make adult decisions in a big city without guidance.

The last time the circus came to OSHAA, LeBron James was the star attraction. OSHAA doesn’t need this hassle and Mayo needs to be protected. If Barnes and/or his mother won’t do the job, maybe North College Hills should step in for him. While Walker’s case may seem a small tragedy on playing for a school, the real tragedy could be the fact that if an adult who has Mayo’s best interest doesn’t step forward and guide him during this poignant time in his life, there could be a tragedy of mass proportions.