That article is familiar to me in so many ways. I went to an 80%-90% white school and had two major black schools we played once a year in football and twice each in basketball. I was fortunate to be in a unique situation where my grade had 4 or 5 white kids who were faster and quicker than any kids at the black schools so from a very young age I never thought of black people being better athletes. And my grade never once lost to either of the black schools in football or basketball. The only time we kind of lost, was when we were juniors in football and had a pretty weak senior class and had a lot of injuries. Nevertheless, we only lost by 2 points to the black team that went undefeated that year until the playoffs. When we were seniors we crushed them in football.
Despite having better athletes, whenevever we played them our coaches usually said two things:
1. They're going to be more athletic.
2. We're going to have to outsmart them to win.
Well, 1. They were not better athletes. We had guys who were quicker, faster and could jump higher. 2. I don't ever remember clearly outsmarting them for a victory; in fact, a black school in basketball once committed only 1 turnover the entire game, which we won by 1 point. They also had the unquestioned best coach in the area, so they were simply better coached than us. We won because we were better players and better athletes, but they almost beat us because they made fewer mistakes that game. That's not how it always was, but there wasn't a glaring difference in the amount of turnovers, penalties, etc. in football and basketball: we were simply better athletes.
My grade was also very lucky because our white parents, by the time we were in 2nd grade, brought us basketball players to play in the black neighborhood leagues and tournaments. Looking back, it must have been really odd to have a white team playing in those run down inner city gyms and church basements, but we were so young we didn't think anything of it. And because we were so young we hadn't been indoctrinated with the belief that we should be intimidated by black players or that they were inherently superior. And we usually won the tournaments we played in because we were better.
In large part because of that experience, my grade was never intimidated by black schools or thought they were naturally better athletes, despite what our coaches said. We didn't fear them in the slightest and I believe that is a major reason we had so much success against them.
A revealing example occurred in Middle School track. One of the black teams got off the bus in all black sweat pants and hoodies, with the hoods pretty much covering their faces. They all walked real slow, in single file as they entered our field. I was up in the stands with some track mates and a bunch of them were terrified. I told my friends how dumb they were to be afraid and went right down to the black team while they were walking up and laughed at some of the guys I knew. They laughed back when they saw me and we joked about how obvious it was that they were trying to intimidate us, but it wasn't going to work because we knew them. My friends who grew up playing in those black basketball leagues were of course not intimidated for a second and we went out and destroyed them. I bet a lot of white schools that they did that to lost before the meet (or game in football and basketball) even started because they were intimidated by the scary black athletes.
And the experience of being a white on a black court is always hilarious. I happen to be really quick, but not a great shooter. However, whoever I get matched up against always thinks the opposite and is licking their lips before we start. I sometimes get the "Larry Bird, Jr." or "Nash" comments or whoever. Because of this, I usually catch everybody off guard the 1st and usually 2nd time I get the ball, because I blow by my guy and go in for a layup. By the third time everybody is ready. Like the white track guy, once the black player I'm going head to head with thinks I'm better, I'm able to really beat him all game because it messes with his head so badly to have a white guy clearly beat him with athletic ability. 9 times out of 10 the black guy will pretty much just give up trying to compete. I've got the "you must be part black" comments too, despite my blue eyes. lol
That article is very revealing about how white athletes are indoctrinated and intimidated psychologically.
