[Vision2020] The High road

[lfalen]

Tom
This was a good article, thanks for posting. These girls seem first class. As for Duke, Nifong should be disbarred,
Roger
-----Original message-----
From: "Tom Hansen" thansen at moscow.com
Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2007 19:52:22 -0700
To: "Vision 2020" vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: [Vision2020] The High road

> >From today's (April 20, 2007) Sports Illustrated -
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 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.
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Seeya round town, Moscow.
> 
> Tom Hansen
> Moscow, Idaho
> 
> "If not us, who?
> If not now, when?"
> 
> - Unknown
> 
> 
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