February is black history month. It is a time to reflect on all the contributions African American athletes have made in sports in the last century. There are too many greats to name them all. Some of the few that have truly revolutionized their sport include Hank Aaron, Muhammad Ali, Arthur Ashe, Althea Gibson, Jesse Owens, Pele and Jackie Robinson.
These stellar athletes paved the way for some of the great things happening today. Serena Williams just won the Australian Open. Tiger Woods is still dominating the golf world. He recently won his seventh consecutive title on the PGA tour. Hockey just had the unprecedented event of having black goalkeepers opposing one another in a game. This happened when the NY Rangers’ Kevin Weekes opposed Ottawa Senators’ Ray Emery on 1/11/2007 at Madison Square Garden. Baseball is well represented with Ryan Howard, Derek Jeter and Vladimir Guerrero just to name a few. Lennox Lewis retired from boxing when he ran out of worthy opponents. Basketball have very note worthy stars such as Lebron James, Dwayne Wade and Tim Duncan. Ladainian Tomlinson, Marvin Harrison and Steve Smith are electrifying the NFL. The encouraging thing is that none of these great athletes are jerks. They seem to be outstanding people. There is sometimes a lack of positive role models in the African American community. Particularly, for the kids that come from low-income families. The athletes that they watch on TV may be the only role models they have to look up to. It is important that these athletes conduct themselves with class and dignity, to ensure future generations do the same. It’s great that it appears that players such as Rasheed Wallace, Allen Iverson and Ron Artest are losing popularity.
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