USA Today Sports Front Page - Media Inserts Race

USA Today | 10-02-03

[TXBubba]

Can anyone link the USA Today Sports Page where they interject race into their coverage of an athlete? The media did today exactly what Rush said they do. The article is about a black crew athlete. The radio station in San Antonio is all over this.

[TXBubba]

Couldn't find a thread on this via search. I hope someone can help me out with posting this info.

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[Peach]

I'll go look for it on Drudge's page - I think he has a USA Today link.

[Tacis]

Check also, the issue of the NFL requiring black candidates for coaching vacancies, and the fine that Detroit got for NOT calling in some guy to talk just because he was black.

[TXBubba]

Thank you so much.

[Peach]

This is the link to USA Today's sports page. I didn't look at every article and don't really know what to look for (not having heard the radio broadcast you've heard).

Perhaps the article is in here.

http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/sportsindex11.htm

[TXBubba]

True but that isn't what Rush was being crucified for THIS week. He said the media inserts race and they said, "No, we don't." But today it is there in plain sight.

[TXBubba]

Can't find it immediately. The radio stationg 1200 a.m. said they are already changing it on the hotwire copy. Would that refer to the internet? So, they are covering themselves asap.

[Peach]

I don't know. We subscribe to USA Today and when my husband gets home I'll ask him if he's read anything regarding this matter.

If it's in the paper tomorrow, I'll ping you (writing your freeper name down now so I don't forget).

[TXBubba]

The story was about a black rower doing "what no other black athlete has ever done". And later in the story it quotes someone as saying that rowing is a lilywhite sport. Gee, no race inserted at all in that article. Just wish we could post the thing.

[FreedomPoster]

Here it is:

U.S. rower Abdullah navigates tricky waters Name, skin color won't deter goals: Athens, helping others

Aquil Abdullah has a plan, and despite what airport security often suspects when he's red-flagged and detained before flights simply because of his name, it has nothing to do with terrorism.

One of the USA's better rowing athletes, a single-scull specialist who's in training with the national team in Princeton, N.J., Abdullah wants to . . .

Reach next summer's Olympic Games in Athens, Greece?

Nah.

OK, sure, that would be boffo. In fact, Abdullah, 30, dearly wants to cap his career with an appearance as Rower of the Rings.

But the other plan, which would follow the aforementioned scenario, is a bit more esoteric -- if that's possible.

''I think I'm going to walk the earth like Caine, from Kung Fu, for about three months,'' he says, half deadpan, half serious. ''Get into adventures, resolve disputes peaceably. Yes. That's what I plan to do.''

Abdullah and one Kwai Chang Caine from the 1970s television series certainly have their similarities. Caine was half-American and half-Chinese. Abdullah's mother is Catholic; his father, Muslim. Caine played a woodwind; Abdullah plays a mean sax and a little guitar to boot. Caine became a master in the art of kung fu while Abdullah -- against all odds -- is a master of competitive rowing.

But you never saw Grasshopper -- young Caine's mentor-given moniker -- do this:

* Jam with the Godfather of Soul late one night at a smoky little joint in Augusta, Ga., after Abdullah, singing with the house band, suddenly finds audience member James Brown taking the stage at the request of the owner.

* Speak, with messages of motivation and inspiration, at functions, some put on by New Jersey Gov. James E. McGreevey.

* Decide to pursue rowing -- rowing! -- as a relative vocation despite showing enough football skills at Wilson High in Washington, D.C., to attract college scouts.

* Do all of the above while dealing with asthma.

''It's a compelling story,'' says John Devlin, Abdullah's rowing coach at George Washington University. ''Let's face it, his is by and large a lily-white sport, but he decided that's what he wanted to do, and he did it. And some of the things I see him do when he's competing, they're just magical.''

Although Abdullah's career has been groundbreaking in some areas, such as when he became the first black to win the venerable Diamond Sculls race at England's Henley Royal Regatta, he has scant interest in being the guy ''who has been likened to the Jackie Robinson of rowing,'' as his representative describes him in his bio.

''Right,'' he says. ''For me, it's two different eras. What Jackie Robinson did in baseball was truly special, but he was also a truly special player -- one of the best ever. But I think we've gotten past some of those issues now. Like I said, this is a different era.''

Indeed it is, and it has become that much more different since Sept. 11, 2001. Names have far more significance, and sometimes stigma, than before. So it has gone for Abdullah. Never mind that he converted to Catholicism years ago.

Once he was detained en route to an international rowing event. Another time he missed his flight while being checked for subversive intentions.

Abdullah's plight, shared by many with Muslim names, was featured by CBS News' Richard Schlesinger last spring. Since then his security stops are rare.

''I guess the only resentment I harbor is the inconvenience of missing my flight,'' he says with a laugh. ''Otherwise, I feel there are some things, in the interest of safety, that we just have to do now, and we have to be willing to accept that as a nation.''

Abdullah's best international finish is 11th, in the one-man category, or single scull, in the 2002 world championships. He didn't make the U.S. team that competed in Athens this year, in part because his asthma reared up at the wrong time during the second of a two-out-of-three elimination round and then he lost out in the rubber match by 7 inches.

He's fairly confident he'll be on the roster for the Athens Games but is keeping mum on whether his primary push will come in the single scull or the two-man.

Regardless, this is his final shot.

''Almost certainly, my last year of rowing at the elite level,'' says Abdullah, who also works as a financial consultant.

''Besides, I've missed a lot of weddings, a lot of functions with friends, a lot of familial obligations because of my commitment to rowing.

''Those are the things I'm starting to think about now, and I'm looking forward to the other things I want to do in my life.''

[TXBubba]

It is today's paper. From what I am picking up there is a teaser on the front page (of sports) and the article is later. It has a picture with the article.

[gore_sux]

Try this:

Do a search for news articles on a guy called "Tiger Woods"

Tiger doesn't use his race, but the media sure as heck does.

[Peach]

I'll go grab our paper and look.

[TXBubba]

''Let's face it, his is by and large a lily-white sport, but he decided that's what he wanted to do, and he did it. And some of the things I see him do when he's competing, they're just magical.''

Bingo! Thank you so much!

[TXBubba]

And the other quote is written under the picture of the athlete.

[maggief]

http://www.findjustice.com/ms/nfl/pressrel.htm

EXCERPT

The report also offers a solution to the inequities in NFL hiring practices, a "Fair Competition Resolution." The Resolution outlines a process by which the NFL would award draft picks each year to teams diversifying front office positions by hiring qualified minority and female candidates. The Resolution also calls for each team to seriously interview a racially diverse final candidate slate prior to selecting head coaches, assistant coaches or offensive or defensive coordinators. Teams would have the option of opting out of this requirement, but at the cost of a significant draft pick.

"If adopted by the NFL, the Commissioner will have the tools to do more than encourage the hiring of Black head coaches," said Richard E. Lapchick, Chair of the Sport Business Management Program, University of Central Florida. "This represents a step forward in making the debate about minority coaches more than just a debate," said Lapchick.

###

[Peach]

Page 12C


U.S. rower Abdullah navigates tricky waters Name, skin color won't deter goals: Athens, helping others
By Skip Wood
USA TODAY


Aquil Abdullah has a plan, and despite what airport security often suspects when he's red-flagged and detained before flights simply because of his name, it has nothing to do with terrorism.

One of the USA's better rowing athletes, a single-scull specialist who's in training with the national team in Princeton, N.J., Abdullah wants to . . .

Reach next summer's Olympic Games in Athens, Greece?

Nah.

OK, sure, that would be boffo. In fact, Abdullah, 30, dearly wants to cap his career with an appearance as Rower of the Rings.

But the other plan, which would follow the aforementioned scenario, is a bit more esoteric -- if that's possible.

''I think I'm going to walk the earth like Caine, from Kung Fu, for about three months,'' he says, half deadpan, half serious. ''Get into adventures, resolve disputes peaceably. Yes. That's what I plan to do.''

Abdullah and one Kwai Chang Caine from the 1970s television series certainly have their similarities. Caine was half-American and half-Chinese. Abdullah's mother is Catholic; his father, Muslim. Caine played a woodwind; Abdullah plays a mean sax and a little guitar to boot. Caine became a master in the art of kung fu while Abdullah -- against all odds -- is a master of competitive rowing.

But you never saw Grasshopper -- young Caine's mentor-given moniker -- do this:

* Jam with the Godfather of Soul late one night at a smoky little joint in Augusta, Ga., after Abdullah, singing with the house band, suddenly finds audience member James Brown taking the stage at the request of the owner.

* Speak, with messages of motivation and inspiration, at functions, some put on by New Jersey Gov. James E. McGreevey.

* Decide to pursue rowing -- rowing! -- as a relative vocation despite showing enough football skills at Wilson High in Washington, D.C., to attract college scouts.

* Do all of the above while dealing with asthma.

''It's a compelling story,'' says John Devlin, Abdullah's rowing coach at George Washington University. ''Let's face it, his is by and large a lily-white sport, but he decided that's what he wanted to do, and he did it. And some of the things I see him do when he's competing, they're just magical.''

Although Abdullah's career has been groundbreaking in some areas, such as when he became the first black to win the venerable Diamond Sculls race at England's Henley Royal Regatta, he has scant interest in being the guy ''who has been likened to the Jackie Robinson of rowing,'' as his representative describes him in his bio.

''Right,'' he says. ''For me, it's two different eras. What Jackie Robinson did in baseball was truly special, but he was also a truly special player -- one of the best ever. But I think we've gotten past some of those issues now. Like I said, this is a different era.''

Indeed it is, and it has become that much more different since Sept. 11, 2001. Names have far more significance, and sometimes stigma, than before. So it has gone for Abdullah. Never mind that he converted to Catholicism years ago.

Once he was detained en route to an international rowing event. Another time he missed his flight while being checked for subversive intentions.

Abdullah's plight, shared by many with Muslim names, was featured by CBS News' Richard Schlesinger last spring. Since then his security stops are rare.

''I guess the only resentment I harbor is the inconvenience of missing my flight,'' he says with a laugh. ''Otherwise, I feel there are some things, in the interest of safety, that we just have to do now, and we have to be willing to accept that as a nation.''

Abdullah's best international finish is 11th, in the one-man category, or single scull, in the 2002 world championships. He didn't make the U.S. team that competed in Athens this year, in part because his asthma reared up at the wrong time during the second of a two-out-of-three elimination round and then he lost out in the rubber match by 7 inches.

He's fairly confident he'll be on the roster for the Athens Games but is keeping mum on whether his primary push will come in the single scull or the two-man.

Regardless, this is his final shot.

''Almost certainly, my last year of rowing at the elite level,'' says Abdullah, who also works as a financial consultant.

''Besides, I've missed a lot of weddings, a lot of functions with friends, a lot of familial obligations because of my commitment to rowing.

''Those are the things I'm starting to think about now, and I'm looking forward to the other things I want to do in my life.''









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[Peach]

You beat me to it; thx!

[FreedomPoster]

;-)

It's all good.