SHEAMUS DALTON
Donald Sterling doesn’t like his girlfriend to take photos with minorities and we are all monkeys.
The sports universe really surprised me this week. In both the NBA and in European soccer, there were incidences of racism directed towards professional athletes, something I thought was nonexistent in professional sports.
First, Donald Sterling. Sterling is, as of press time, the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers (I don’t expect him to be there long). Over the weekend, it was reported that he had been recorded on tape telling his girlfriend that he did not want her to take photos with “minorities.” On Tuesday, NBA commissioner Adam Silver confirmed the tapes to be legitimate recordings of Sterling’s voice and banned him for life from the NBA with an additional $2.5 million fine. Sterling’s comments have been met by a tidal wave of condemnation from the Clipper players, management and fans, calling for Sterling’s immediate sale of the team.
Now, travel overseas to the Estadio El Madrigal in Spain, home of the Villarreal soccer club. In a match against FC Barcelona, a rogue Villarreal fan threw a banana at black Barcelona player Dani Alves who promptly picked the banana up and ate it while taking a corner kick. Villarreal banned the fan from their stadium for life and issued an apology to Alves and the Barcelona club. This incident was also met by a massive response via Twitter as players and fans posted photos of themselves eating bananas with the caption “We are all monkeys.”
Both the Sterling and Alves incidents have left me with a bit of culture shock. Maybe I was simply sheltered from it in my life but I believed that in sports, racism was a thing of the past. When I think of discrimination towards professional athletes I imagine Jackie Robinson in the 1940s — not Dani Alves or Chris Paul in 2014.
So, how should we make sense of these potentially volatile incidents? I think it is most important to focus on the response that each incident garnered, not the incident itself. Across the media, both the Villarreal fan and Sterling are being widely condemned and the punitive actions against them strongly praised. Alves’ actions during the game have even placed a humorous light on the situation and spurred thousands in social media to do the same, taking away the intended effect of the projectile banana. As a result, I am somewhat at peace with the situation. Our reaction as fans, unified and somewhat humorous, has brought a sense of justice to each incident, one that will help in making all racism in sports obsolete
Before I end my last play call of the year, a thank you to the Wooster sports community is in order. Myself, as well as my co-editor Anna Duke (and Ben Taylor), would like to thank and congratulate all the sports teams at the College this year on outstanding seasons. You were all fun to write, edit and struggle with formatting about in the past two semesters and I will look forward to seeing you all play next year. To the writers, copy editors and everyone in between, you made our jobs at the sports desk amazing with your excellent stories and clever edits. Finally, to our editors-in-chief, Ian Benson and Travis Marmon, we did what we did and we hope you liked it. We will miss you and all the seniors a great deal and good luck finding jobs.
So, here’s to another great College of Wooster sports year and to an even better one in 2014-15. Remember to always be yourself and, as my good friend Fez would say, never be afraid to be great. Go Scots.