SOCIOLOGY Author says blacks shouldn't rely on ascent via sports

Blacks must understand that Afro-America's involvement with sports is no game.
By IVAN CARTER
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. -- Kareem Rush doesn't remember the first time he picked up a basketball, but he does remember what it felt like, fingertips meeting leather.
"From that moment on, all I wanted to do was play," Rush said. "I loved it and I made up my mind that I was going to do whatever I had to do to get to the NBA. Playing basketball is all I thought about."
Rush chased his dream carefully, knowing it could end in a moment. He won a high school state championship and played at Missouri. Basketball took him places, all the way from his grandmother's house in Kansas City to lovely Los Angeles and the Lakers.
Kareem Rush made it. His brother, JaRon, a sure-fire NBA prospect and high school legend, did not--his career collapsing under the weight of expectations and impropriety.
Two weeks ago, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird both said the NBA needs more white players in starring roles. Meanwhile, experts say the pressure remains higher than ever on kids in black communities to become professional athletes.
It is an obsession that troubles people such as Harry Edwards, who has studied the relationship between race and sports in American society for more than 30 years and addressed the issue of young black people and the unhealthy fixation with sports in his book: "The Struggle That Must Be."
"As things now stand, the overwhelming majority of young blacks who seek to fill the shoes of O.J., Dr. J, Reggie J., and Magic J., in all likelihood will end up with no J at all -- no job whatsoever that they are competent to do in a highly technological modern society," Edwards wrote.
"Thus, big-name athletes who tell black kids to 'practice and work hard and one day you can be just like me' are playing games with the future of black society. And as I have a repeatedly stated over the last dozen years, blacks have a principal responsibility to understand that sports must be pursued intelligently and that Afro-America's involvement with sports is no game."
Tough odds
The numbers are staggering.
Of the 10,000 seniors who played high school basketball in the United States last winter, fewer than 1 percent of them will receive a Division I scholarship. The possibility that one of them will land a major pro sports contract is less than that of winning the lottery. Rush is one of only three players from Kansas City, Mo., who have broken into the NBA in the last decade.
Of the 10,000 seniors who played college football last fall, about 2 percent were selected in April's NFL draft.
"I don't think kids realize how hard it is to get here, how many millions of guys out there are chasing the same thing," Rush said. "I saw it with my brother. And even if you do get here, nothing is guaranteed. I would never tell a guy, 'Don't chase your dream,' but I would tell them to go to school and prepare themselves in case they don't make it."
The late Arthur Ashe toured predominantly black high schools in the late 1980s and early 1990s while putting together the definitive history of the black athlete in America, a three-volume set titled, "A Hard Road to Glory."
Ashe said he came away "thunderstruck" by the obsession placed on sports at those schools.
"Black families are eight times more likely to push youngsters into athletics than are white families," Ashe said in 1992. "The disparity is glaring, if you think of the black parents' involvement at a sporting event versus their participation in a PTA meeting. We need to turn that around."
Ashe's views were supported by research. A 1998 study conducted by Northeastern's Center for the Study of Sport in Society found that 66 percent of black males between 13 and 16 believed they could earn a living playing professional sports, more than double the percentage of white males.
There are only 400 roster spots in the NBA, and more of those are being filled by international players every year. The NFL has 1,696 spots on its active rosters. The average career span of a player in that league? Four years.
Unreal expectations
Reality does little to squash the dreams of young black youth in America's cities.
"Everybody wants to achieve that dream, make the NBA, get that big contract," said Robert Nutt, who was a senior point guard at Lincoln Prep, Kansas City, Mo., last season. "I've always loved basketball since I was little. I heard all the statistics about how hard it is to make the NBA, but I'm not going to lie, I really didn't believe them. You always think that you are going to be the one to make it."
But while he dreams of the league, Nutt also seems to understand the importance of education. He's weighing scholarship offers from several smaller Division I and Division II programs and says he wants to be an engineer some day.
"A lot of guys don't really think about what they want to do besides basketball," Nutt said. "They get caught up in what's going on around them, the bad influences and things like that. They don't think that school is all that important."
Susan Wilson, a behavioral psychologist at Swope Parkway Health Center, believes there are several historical, cultural and economic factors that have contributed to the all-or-nothing approach many young black males have taken with sports.
"Society shapes unrealistic expectations of youth," Wilson said. "Kids see the quick money that can be earned through sports or entertainment, but what they don't see is that only a select few rise high enough to make it, and those who do make it don't stay long."
The right balance
For Sheila Coleman and her son Brandon, it's already started. Brandon Coleman will be a high school junior and plays both football and basketball at Lincoln Prep. Coleman has the kind of size and developing skills that catch the eye of college recruiters.
He's gained exposure on the AAU circuit, and the college letters have already started pouring in.
Brandon, of course, wants to play in the NBA. That is where Sheila comes in.
"I've always stressed to Brandon that he's a leader, a winner and that he can achieve his goals, but I've always made him understand the importance of education," Sheila Coleman said. "I've told him: You can't live off of basketball."
Robert Nutt's mother, Regina, has preached a similar message to her son.
"For a lot of kids, that's the escape," Regina Nutt said. "Chasing that dream. It's OK to dream, but the problem is that a lot of kids lose focus on the real. I try to tell Robert every day, life is nothing but real."
Life after athletics is real. According to Richard Lapchick, director for the Study of Sport in Society, 58 of 328 Division I basketball teams failed to graduate a single black player in the last six years.
"It's a nightmare waiting to be fixed," Lapchick said.
According to a 2003 report by the NCAA, black male athletes graduate 48 percent of the time, while black female athletes graduate 62 percent of the time.
"It's a whole chain here," Lapchick said. "There are a lot of people in our schools, too many, who think they're doing young people a favor by promoting them from grade to grade, believing the dream that this kid is so talented that he's going to make it to the pros."
With money in his pocket and an LA lifestyle at his fingertips, it's easy for Rush to preach. It's easy to tell little brother Brandon -- who bolted Westport High School last year for North Carolina's famed Mount Zion Christian Academy -- and other young dreamers to follow his words, not his example. It's easy to forget he left Missouri after his junior year.
But Kareem Rush wants to remember he still has unfinished business. He doesn't want to be blinded by the dream, like everyone else.
"Money and fame are definitely perks to being in this league. There's nothing like it. That's what draws a lot of guys in," Rush said. "But at the end of the day, I still stress to people: Go to school, because nothing is guaranteed.
"That's why I want to go back and finish up. Education is the key."