In the "Shula" book kicker Garo Yepremian figured prominently and it brought me back to those days. As hard as it is to believe now back then kickers like Jan Stenerud, Yepremian and others like the Packer's Chester Marcol, were often in the headlines. They were full fledged stars and thought of as maybe the best player on their teams. Everyone knew them and associated them with their teams.
These days kickers are never put on a pedestal and generally when they are mentioned like in the Bears playoff loss, it is to beat them like a drum for missing a kick. Kickers today are thought of as nothing more than mainly useless accessories to the "real men"--meaning mainly black players. The Bears situation was revealing. Their head coach and team swallowed hard fully implicating the missed field goal as the sole reason they lost their playoff game to the Eagles. Never mind their vaunted defense fell apart late in the game. No the kicker was used as a scapegoat. Then when it was discovered that the missed field goal was actually blocked the coach and the team didn't really stand up for the kicker preferring to let the initial but wrong narrative fester.
The reason I bring this up is because times have changed since the early 1970's. And I think ESPN and their offspring like the Fox Sports Network and all the internet sports media outlets have truly changed the greater narrative of sports. Which is why my dream job (obviously will never happen) would be the editor of Sports Illustrated where I would have a platform to readdress the
black heavy narrative that is rammed down consumer's throats on a daily basis.
I have always been interested in declarations of black athletic superiority and over the years there have been some overt overtures in that direction. Below is a quick list of hallmark books or articles on the subject that pop to my mind.
1971-Sports Illustrated had a very crude piece on why blacks are superior athletes and they never flinched from that conclusion.
1992-Amby Burfoot, a long distance runner, wrote a scathing piece in "Runners World" entitled "White Men Can't Run" that laid out the template that blacks are simply faster than whites.
1996-"Darwin's Athletes" by John Hoberman while more of a sociological study still had the black superiority issue as a back drop.
1997-Sports Illustrated's infamous cover story "What Ever Happened to The White Athlete" wasn't quite as cut and dry as their much earlier feature but touched on what was considered a "taboo" subject.
2001-"Taboo" by Jon Entine blew the doors open with a full blooded throat grabbing book that fully declared "blacks are superior athletes."
2013-The Sports Gene" by David Epstein is a toned down more "politically correct" version of "Taboo" and was thought of in general as a more considered piece even though Epstein was hawking the same theories of Entine. He just approached it from a "more" acceptable manner.
These days books and articles on the subject are scarce although the ESPN site the non diverse "The Undefeated" peddles in black superiority theories. William Rhoden the ex long time New York Times sports writer who moonlights there, has been one of the most recent media figures who proudly believe black athletes are better than white athletes etc.
Does the lack of books mean the theories have died down? Not exactly. I think it just mutated into the approach that ESPN and their copy cats like the Fox Sports Network take every day.
ESPN doesn't always directly say stuff like blacks are better so to speak but by constantly promoting black athletes 24/7 it is inferred and at the end of the day it is just the same as blurting out "white men can't run."
Which means as we all know here at CF that the subject of black and white athletes is distorted to a disorienting degree where any semblance of realistic thinking on the subject is destroyed. ESPN carefully avoids anything that runs contrary to their beliefs which is why hockey and tennis are rarely discussed on their morning shows.
Yes Lamar Jackson is a dynamic athlete playing QB but listening to ESPN and other outlets you would think he is the greatest athlete in the world and more important than the discovery of electricity. ESPN avoids pumping up a player like Mike Trout because they might sense deep down what they are peddling is race baiting. That Trout is the better athlete than Jackson is a given for someone like me who has watched a lot of sports in my life but these "truths" are constantly obscured by the likes of ESPN.
We have said on this board for years that we need to write our own book. The problem is that with things getting so anti white everywhere, it would be hard to find a publisher. You would have to go to a smaller pub. co. just staring out but it could be done. I for one would line up to buy that book and if the word got out there I think many more people would buy it up. It would be a controversial book as it's goes against the main stream narrative but I think it would fly off the book shelves.
Will another book on the subject appear? Maybe not because ESPN has been doing the same leg work.
Just wonder if things will ever change though. Maybe?