[Vision2020] The High road

[Tom Hansen]

>From today's (April 20, 2007) Sports Illustrated -

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The High Road

Depth of character from Robinson to Rutgers
By Terry McDonell

The countdown to the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's first day in the
major leagues was unfortunately shot through with the inevitable anger and
melancholy that comes with every moment of racism in sports.

Don Imus was a little boy the day Robinson broke baseball's color line.
Sixty years later, as host of a nationally syndicated radio show, he was
mocking the Rutgers women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos."  Rarely
do you hear such naked racism (as opposed to code-talking or show-off
political incorrectness) but there it was, dominating the news in a vortex
of argument among athletes, politicians and pundits over not only racism and
sexism, but also- hip-hop, free speech, shock radio, civil rights, Borat and
God.

The one sure thing as volume rose was that Imus was going down.  Troubling
was the whiff of self-promotion that settled over everyone involved - except
the Rutgers' players and coaches.  Almost unknown despite nearly winning a
national championship, the depth of their character began to show when Aditi
Kinkhabwala's first story about the controversy on SI.com, where she writes
a weekly column. 

In that piece we learned that junior point guard Matee Ajavon's mother
cleaned houses until she had enough money to bring Matee and her sisters to
the U.S. from Liberia; that freshman forward Myia McCurdy is a science whiz
and former Girl Scout; that junior guard Essence Carson, who last summer
lost the grandmother who raised her, plays four instruments and writes
poetry.

Kinkhabwala, who interned at SI and now also covers Rutgers sports for "The
Record" of Bergen County, New Jersey, stayed on the story, and her exclusive
report taking you inside the Scarlet Knights' meeting with Imus leads the
magazine.

In an obvious irony, the fallout from Imus dampened the reaction to the
declaration by North Carolina attorney general Roy Cooper that the three
white Duke lacrosse players accused of raping an African-American woman were
innocent in a case so charged with racial content that it has left Duke
scarred and reeling.  The rush to judgment by ethically impaired  prosecutor
Mike Nifong shredded many lives as is underlined by Rick Reilly's column on
former Duke coach Mike Pressler, who was forced to resign before his players
were charged.

What would Jackie Robinson think of all this?  Writing about Robinson for
SI.com last week, senior writer Phil Taylor suggested that the Hall of Famer
"would undoubtedly have been heartened that the outrage over Imus' comments
has crossed racial and ethnic lines."  Then Taylor laid out an obvious
truth: "Jackie Robinson didn't tell the public about the content of his
character, he showed it, over time, through the way he behaved."  The women
of Rutgers are following in his footsteps on that same high road.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"If not us, who?
If not now, when?"

- Unknown