Masters track: contradicting black supremacy in sprints?
Rick Reilly’s column in the current issue of Sports Illustrated (with a cover depicting long-haired Steelers safety Troy Polamalu) revisits an issue that got an exhaustive exegesis four years ago: Are blacks naturally faster than whites? A book by Jon Entine called “Taboo” provided plenty of scientific evidence for the belief that blacks (actually descendants of West Africans) are just plain faster.
Reilly wrote a hoot of a piece that began:
“Let me ask you a question. If I said, ‘The sky is blue, water is wet and moose don’t fit easily into coin slots,’ would you call for my dismissal? Well, then, why did Air Force football coach Fisher DeBerry get pure hell when he explained a bad loss to TCU by saying, ‘[They] had a lot more Afro-American players than we did, and they ran faster than we did…. It’s very obvious to me [black players] run extremely well’?”
The funny part was the collection of bogus letters Reilly concocted as replies to his column defending DeBerry.
Examples:
“Hey, Rick. I’m enclosing a razor blade. Do the right thing.”
–Spike Lee, Brooklyn
“Bravo! It’s time somebody cut through the tyranny of ultrasensitive PC freaks and told the simple truth. Thank you, Rick Reilly!”
–John Rocker, Atlanta
Me again:
I can buy the empirical evidence of West African dominance in open sprints (and East African dominance in distance-running), but the blacks-are-best theory falls apart in the older age groups, lending credence to those who say cultural factors have a big part to play in which race is tops at short races.
Here’s the deal:
Up until about age 54, the vast majority of single-age record holders in the men’s 100 are black. Starting at age 54 — with Olympian and Masters Hall of Famer Thane Baker — the vast majority are white. (Usually by the name Payton Jordan.) Same for the 200: With Britain’s Stephen Peters leading the way, most post-50 record-holders are white. Think Stephen Robbins, too.
In the women’s sprints, you have Jamaican-born
So what gives?
It could be the demographics of masters track — many more whites compete into the upper age groups than blacks (the leisure sport of the white retired class?). Or it could be that older whites have greater access to health care than blacks. I’m open to suggestions.
But I agree with Reilly and Entine on one thing: It’s OK (not racist) to raise such issues. Entine’s book (which I read five years ago) does a wonderful job of chronicling the history of racial stereotypes in sports — even recalling how, in the 1930s, Jews were thought better at basketball because of their crafty ability to plot moves on the court. (Entine is Jewish, BTW.)
Bottom line: Masters track may not negate the evidence for West African supremacy in Olympic sprinting, but it calls into question whether racial “truths” hold for the entire age spectrum of track and field athletes.
We certainly know this: With age, we grow colorblind. The older we get, the happier we are just to have someone — of any race — to run against.
10 Responses
Interesting factoid:
Gold medalists at the 1928, 1932, and 1936 Olympics in the Triple Jump were from Japan.
While I don’t think it’s “racist” to raise such issues, I also think it’s both counterproductive and demeaning to individual performance to attach “race” as a factor.
The fastest 100 is the fastest 100, no matter who runs it. That person deserves utmost respect for their training and performance. Too many people would like to attach race as a caveat – “Yes, it’s fast, but the runner was black” … almost as if the runner got a head start.
A few years back, when the L.A. Times quoted a coach (I believe Brooks Robinson) saying that he was trying to put the race issue to bed by searching for a “white” Carl Lewis, I wrote a letter to the Editor (subsequently published) saying that I’d be shocked if anyone could find another “black” Carl Lewis.
Achievement speaks for itself – and for the person who achieves, regardless of skin color, country of origin, or (most importantly!) age.
My two cents:
We are so ashamed of racism that the word ‚Äúracism‚Äù has morphed from its original meaning of an irrational belief of racial supeiority, to include scientifically-conclusions that genetic inheritance can account for statistically-significant differences in important physical characteristics‚Äî like explosive speed. I would rather have the public focus on more important issues…like the fact that blacks are victims of cancer, diabetes and other ailments more than whites.
From a master’s perspective the fact that white sprinters excel late in life should not imply that black sprinters’ training and lifestyles are somehow inferior (ie. “lazy”). I suspect that future generations of masters’ sprinters will produce results consistant with open races, as folks of all colors gain more leisure time and discretionary income to compete into their golden years.
I don’t think that race has anything to do with who is faster or can jump higher. Look at the men’s 400 and both men and women in the high jump at this years world championships [open].
I believe that it is simply that more Black athletes have been willing to work very hard. We should give them credit for their accomplishments not take away by trying to claim that they must have some genetic advantage.
Very interesting post Ken.
Coach DeBerry has mad a mistake that is rampant in our culture. He has confused the cultural math.
Coach DeBarry’s equation can been expressed thus:
Defensive secondary success = Black football player
This equation can be, and often is a true equation. It is not necessarily a universally true equation. If, for example, we put William Refrigerator Perry in the defensive secondary covering Steve Smith of the Panthers the equation is disproved.
What Coach Patterson at TCU said in response to DeBarry’s remark is that TCU recruits speed for its football team. I think he nailed it down correctly.
Extending the math equation line of thinking, Coach Patterson’s equation looks like this:
Defensive secondary success = Football players with speed
Patterson’s equation, other defensive skills considered equal, could be considered universally true and thus he avoids the faulty racial equation of DeBarry.
When we tell a white athlete he has no hope of playing defensive back we create the phenomena that distresses DeBarry.
When you tell a black baseball player that he can’t manage a baseball team, the pattern is repeated.
We should all work harder at developing cultural equations with truth at their core and avoid these traps. If science shows a genetic predetermination for speed in a particular race, at least the basic equation remains correct and has not exacerbated our bias.
Very interesting topic and certainly worthy of reasoned discussion.
But I,as someone with an athletic and scientific background and (I’d like to think anyway) a rational and logical person will have to say that Black people of West African origin are, on average more genetically suited to sprinting faster and jumping higher. Just as Black people of East African origin are, on average, more genetically suited to endurance races.
Statistics, as Mr Entine in his “Taboo” publication points out in this matter, don’t lie.
By the way, there was a very excellent series of articles in an issue of ‘Runners World’ (titled something like ‘Why White Men can’t Jump’ that came out a few years ago that said the same things as “taboo” did.
Hey folks, I realized this 40 years ago growing up in Detroit. Black guys, on average, were faster than white guys. You could also see the correlation with a high school’s success in swimming and track & field/basketball by their relative percentage of white or black students, respectively. White folks have less dense bones than black folks -on average- and are more bouyant and, consequently, better swimmers. While black folks have -on average- more fast twitch muscles fibres and longer fibulas and are consequently better sprinters and leapers. I can recall schools in Detroit in 60’s that had radical changes in their success in those sports as the racial demographics of their areas changed.
Yeah, there are going to be some awesome white sprinters (like the current world 400m champion) just as there are going to be some awesome black freestlye 100m swimmers. But, on average, most elite sprinters are gonna be individuals with West African genes just as most Olympic swimmers are gonna be individuals with European genes.
And, Ken, don’t bring up this stuff about ‘most 54+ masters sprint champions are non-black which means “racial truths might not be valid for the whole age spectrum”. What it means, if you noticed, is that there are fewer blacks in those age groups participating. And, if you did care to notice, that of the few that did participate, there were a higher percentage that did very well. What I’m saying is, if there’s a white guy in the next lane to me, it’s only a minute chance that he’d be in Steve Robbin’s category. But if there were a black guy in the next lane, there’d be a higher chance he’d be in Stan Whitley’s category. Or closer to it.
But, hey, don’t mind my ramblings, I’m just miffed ’cause I missed out in the sprinter/jumper gene pool. And I can’t swim fast, either. So, alas, I missed out on all the good athletic gene pools.
Grant Lamothe
Vancouver, Canada
ps: I think masters track and field is so great because it does, to a large degree, bring people of different backgrounds together participating in an activity they’re all passionate about. This sport has diversified my friendship network and I an certainly much, much richer for it.
What 100m times will Willie Gault, Ketrell Berry, Aaron T.run in there 50’s I cant wait to see from about 10 meters back of course.
Excuse me, what are these ‘blacks’ that you speak of?
It’s amazing how far we’ve come in 2005. But someday our grandchildren will look back (maybe great-grandchildren at this point) and wonder why all the fuss?
And me? I don’t train anymore. I just step onto the track every spring and run. No I don’t. Yes I do. No I don’t.
Oh, and I eat cold eels and think distant thoughts.
-Mike Labay
http://www.southwestsprinters.com
(lighten up fellas, I’m just poking fun at us all…myself included)
Race is a biologic myth. The sooner you accept that, the better off you’ll be.
its all genetics, get over it were faster.
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