The sports section of one of the local rags today has a column attacking Joe Paterno. That is hardly anything new; this particular (white) writer seems to live only to vent his hatred of Paterno whenever possible.
What caught my attention in this article was the mention of a prize recruit who just recently signed with Penn State, a black running back named Justin King.
Tom Bradley is the Penn State assistant coach who successfully recruited King. Bradley sent 30 handwritten notes to King -- just on one day last week! Thirty handwritten notes to a single recruit.
King has five moving boxes filled with correspondence from recruiters at major football programs. Do you know how many pieces of paper it takes just to fill one moving sized box?
I won't venture to guess on all the implications of a recruiter, a grown, middle-aged man, who sends up to 30 letters in a single day to a high school kid. But what is really pathological is when you look at all the lavish attention given to just this one kid, and you know there are many white high school running backs every year who are just as good but who get no recruitment letters whatsoever from I-A programs. Or who are told overtly or covertly that they are the wrong color to play running back (or WR, or CB).
The racism is so blatant and on such large, systematic scale that few can see it, though very slowly that seems to be changing. Must be similar to the "Big Lie," where the more outrageous the lie, the more likely people are to believe it.
What caught my attention in this article was the mention of a prize recruit who just recently signed with Penn State, a black running back named Justin King.
Tom Bradley is the Penn State assistant coach who successfully recruited King. Bradley sent 30 handwritten notes to King -- just on one day last week! Thirty handwritten notes to a single recruit.
King has five moving boxes filled with correspondence from recruiters at major football programs. Do you know how many pieces of paper it takes just to fill one moving sized box?
I won't venture to guess on all the implications of a recruiter, a grown, middle-aged man, who sends up to 30 letters in a single day to a high school kid. But what is really pathological is when you look at all the lavish attention given to just this one kid, and you know there are many white high school running backs every year who are just as good but who get no recruitment letters whatsoever from I-A programs. Or who are told overtly or covertly that they are the wrong color to play running back (or WR, or CB).
The racism is so blatant and on such large, systematic scale that few can see it, though very slowly that seems to be changing. Must be similar to the "Big Lie," where the more outrageous the lie, the more likely people are to believe it.
