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PREVIOUS NUGGETS |
11.04.05: Throat-slash
gesture nets trouble for Callahan ... Conference USA
Standings, Scores & Schedule |
11.03.05: Green
Wave's road trip to Navy on the house ... Tulane coming home
for C-USA hoops schedule ... Conference USA Standings,
Scores & Schedule |
11.02.05: Fledgling
FIU program lands series with Miami ... Conference USA
Standings, Scores & Schedule |
11.01.05: Fledgling
FIU program lands series with Miami ... Conference USA
Standings, Scores & Schedule |
10.31.05: College
Football Headliners: Stars & Storylines ... Conference USA
Standings, Scores & Schedule |
10.30.05: C-USA
Football Standings, Scores & Schedule |
10.29.05: Wake
football team loses four to suspension ...
C-USA Football Standings, Scores & Schedule |
10.28.05: UTEP
QB Palmer gaining his own slice of respect ... C-USA
Football Standings, Scores & Schedule |
10.27.05: Renewal
of USM-NCSU series set for television ... Conference USA
Standings, Scores & Schedule |
10.26.05: Pirate
basketball set for lights, camera, action ... Conference USA
Standings, Scores & Schedule |
10.25.05: Stokes'
first squad opening act for Homecoming ... Conference USA
Standings, Scores & Schedule |
10.24.05: College
Football Headliners: Stars & Storylines ... Conference USA
Standings, Scores & Schedule |
10.23.05: C-USA
Football Standings, Scores & Schedule |
10.22.05: C-USA
Football Standings, Scores & Schedule |
10.21.05: ECU
injury report a mixed bag for U of M game ... NCAA tinkers
with experimental basketball rules ... C-USA Football
Standings, Scores & Schedule |
10.20.05: Storm-weary
Tulane blown off course again ... Video company repents for
N.C. State incident ... C-USA Football Standings, Scores &
Schedule |
10.19.05: Southern
Miss star receiver lost for season ...
C-USA Football Standings, Scores & Schedule |
10.18.05: Pick
artist Parker reinforces ECU's renaissance ... Conference
USA Standings, Scores & Schedule |
10.17.05: Conference
USA Standings, Scores & Schedule ... College Football
Headliners: Stars & Storylines |
10.16.05: Conference
USA Standings and Scoreboard |
10.15.05: C-USA standings, scores &
schedule |
10.14.05: Va.
Tech ponies up bonanza for Beamer, staff ... Lefty-inspired
hoops tradition goes primetime ... C-USA standings, scores &
schedule |
10.13.05: Texas
baseball stadium gets $13 million name ... Conference USA
standings, scores & schedule |
10.12.05: C-USA,
Sun Belt bowl matchup moving to UL-L ... Feds: Wolfpack
basketball player in USA illegally ... One- time Dye
assistant calling it quits at Temple ... C-USA standings,
scores & schedule |
10.11.05: Mazey
benched; Godwin to fill in as head coach ... Pinkney earns
3rd career player of week honor ... Conference USA
standings, scores & schedule |
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News Nuggets, 11.05.05
— — — — —
NOTES FROM ECU AND BEYOND...
Previous Day Nuggets...
Next Day Nuggets...
Compiled from staff reports
and electronic dispatches
Litke: Politically correct or not, blacks run faster
By JIM LITKE, AP Sports Columnist
Before Joe Paterno gets dunked in the
same tub of recycled hot water where Fisher DeBerry nearly drowned last
week, let's get one thing straight: They're right. Both of them.
Black athletes run faster.
Not all black athletes, of course.
Distinctions are never more important than when discussing race, which is
why generalizations like the paragraph above are bound to cause headaches.
But the most recent, most credible research on the subject arrived at the
very same conclusion, over and over. And that was five years ago.
Too often in the past, saying blacks
were superior athletes was little more than a backhanded compliment,
intended to smear them in the same breath as inferior human beings. Like
many of us, author Jon Entine hoped that notion was history by the time he
wrote ``Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We're Afraid to
Talk About It.''
But as the furor over DeBerry's remarks
demonstrates, and while few would argue with what the Air Force Academy
coach said, even fewer are comfortable talking about why it's true.
Entine is not, perhaps because he is
careful about drawing distinctions, even among black athletes. He says
descendants of East Africans — Kenyans, for example — are predisposed to
lean body types better suited for distance running. Descendants of West
Africans, on the other hand, have more muscular body types favoring speed.
DeBerry didn't bother with such
distinctions when he explained a 48-10 pounding of his football squad by
Texas Christian this way: ``The other team had a lot more Afro-American
players than we did and they ran a lot faster than we did.''
And earlier this week, asked about the
offensive explosion in college football, Paterno stuck his toe gingerly into
the same pool.
``You gotta be careful how you say
things sometimes, DeBerry got in trouble,'' Paterno began hesitantly. But
then the Penn State coach added, ``The black athlete has made a big
difference. They've changed the whole tempo of the game.''
For a full, frank discussion of why
that's so, read Entine's book. For a quick explanation, scan the ranks of
NFL cornerbacks and world-class sprinters.
``I did hear the gist of it and I think
I know the point that he was trying to make,'' said Indianapolis Colts coach
Tony Dungy, one of the NFL's most thoughtful leaders and a former cornerback
himself.
``I didn't really read anything into it
other than he wanted more speed on his team. ... I didn't think it was a
racist comment. It may have been politically incorrect to say it that way,''
Dungy added, ``but I didn't view it negatively at all myself.''
Neither did Jon Drummond, a U.S.
gold-medal sprinter who, like Dungy, is black.
``I laughed the first time I heard what
the Air Force coach said. In fact, the flip side is a running joke in the
sprint world. We're always saying, 'Find a white man who can run real fast
and you'll find a man making a whole of money.'
``So do I think a guy should be
reprimanded or fired for saying blacks are faster? No,'' Drummond said. ``I
think we've definitely come a long away from the attitudes in place a
generation or two ago. But do I think that coach needs to have a
conversation, have somebody pull him aside and explain that it's still a
very sensitive subject? Absolutely.''
The subject is still so raw that the
right-thinking people at the Air Force Academy made a wrong-headed decision
and forced a tearful apology from DeBerry the day after his original
comments. All that proved is that people of every color can be made to atone
in a hurry.
But DeBerry's sin wasn't as egregious
as that committed by Paul Hornung, who said Notre Dame, his alma mater,
should lower admission standards to net more blacks. Nor was it was as
foolish as the pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo that Al Campanis and Jimmy ``The
Greek'' Snyder tried to pass off as observations. Hornung got off light, but
the same nonsense cost Campanis and Snyder their reputations and their jobs.
It's shameful how little the debate has
advanced since. Entine believed when he finished ``Taboo'' five years ago
that any discussion about race in the open ``beats backroom scuttlebutt.''
But every time it spills back into the headlines, he's not so sure.
``I think what DeBerry said was
absolutely accurate," Entine said, "though he didn't say it as elegantly as
he should have. The problem arose because of the historical context in which
the discussions have been carried on ... that because blacks are better
athletes, they somehow have less between the ears.
``But DeBerry wasn't saying that,''
Entine added, ``and frankly, I don't see how anybody with any common sense
would question what he did say.''
In 1999, Entine was attending an
academic conference and listening to speakers debate whether racial
profiling was still widespread in sports when he noticed a man the size of a
defensive lineman sitting alone in the back. He turned out to be an
assistant football coach at a big-time college.
``I've been listening to this nonsense
going on half an hour. ... At Division I or in the pros, to survive, coaches
have to recruit the best players and we damn well better play them at the
optimal positions,'' the assistant coach said. ``We don't care if a player
is white, black or striped. The pressure to win is immense.''
Jim Litke is a national
sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at
jlitke@ap.org.
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C-USA Football Standings, Scores & Schedule
(Through games
of Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2005)
CONFERENCE
USA STANDINGS
EAST DIVISION
TEAM
C-USA ALL
Central Florida 4-1
5-3
Southern Miss
3-1 4-3
Marshall
3-2 4-4
Memphis
3-3 4-4
UAB
2-3 4-4
East Carolina
2-3 3-5
WEST DIVISION
TEAM
C-USA ALL
Texas-El Paso
4-1 6-1
Tulsa
4-1 5-3
Houston
2-2 4-3
Tulane
1-4 2-5
Southern Methodist 1-4 2-6
Rice
0-4 0-7
THIS WEEK'S
SCHEDULE
[C-USA
teams in bold; ECU opponents in red.]
TUESDAY,
NOV. 1
UAB 37, Memphis 20
WEDNESDAY,
NOV. 2
West Virginia 45, Connecticut 13
SATURDAY,
NOV. 5
Tulane at Navy, 1:30 pm
Rice at Southern Methodist, 3 pm (CSTV)
Houston at Central Florida, 6 pm
Tulsa at Texas-El Paso, 9:05 pm
Duke at Clemson, TBA
Wake Forest at Georgia Tech,
TBA
LAST WEEK'S
SCORES
[C-USA
teams in bold; ECU opponents in red.]
SATURDAY,
OCT. 29
Central Florida 30, East Carolina 20
Texas-El Paso 38, Rice 31
Marshall 27, Tulane 26
N.C. State 21, Southern Mississippi 17
Wake Forest 44, Duke 6
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News Nuggets are
compiled periodically based on material supplied by staff members; data
published by ECU, Conference USA and its member
schools; and reports from Associated Press and
other sources. Copyright 2005
Bonesville.net and other publishers. All rights reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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