On Oct. 16, 1968 in Mexico City, American track athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos scandalized a nation and the world by bowing their heads and raising gloved fists during the playing of the U.S. national anthem on the Olympic medal podium. No doubt, as the 50th anniversary approaches, a great deal will be said and written about that momentous day. But why wait? That moment is as relevant today as it was then — or will be 66 days from now. I remember that day so well, how it shocked and angered me to see two American athletes disrespect their country in front of the world. Slowly, though, it dawned on me: as a 20-year-old white kid from Albuquerque's Northeast Heights who had never experienced racial discrimination, I wasn’t SUPPOSED to like it. All Smith and Carlos wanted from people like me was that we’d at least think about it. Eventually, gradually, I did. And I consider that day a seminal moment in the evolution of my thoughts and beliefs regarding race in our ...
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Buckeye Madness
To paraphrase our president: If Brutus Buckeye shot https://i.pinimg.com/originals/3b/ed/5d/3bed5dbfe98ea75d5b08b93308ba9879.gif someone on Fifth Avenue, I would still be an Ohio State football fan. In my case, however, love is not blind. Not quite, anyway. As a kid, I picked out teams from each region of the country as my football favorites: USC in the Far West, UNM in the Rockies, Texas in the Southwest, Georgia Tech in the South and Navy in the East. And Ohio State in the Midwest. Over the years, my rooting interest in USC and Texas — for no particular reason — waned. My chosen line of work as a sports writer, covering the Lobos has prevented me from rooting for UNM. How much that will change in my retirement is yet to be seen. My love for the Yellow Jackets, the Midshipmen and the Buckeyes, however, has flowed unabated. Not that, in the case of Ohio State, it has been easy. There was the Woody Hayes slugging incident. The Art Schlichter gambling scandals. Jim Tressel’s...
Welcome to my blog
I’m not sticking to sports in retirement, but I’m not leaving it, either. Politics? Only on the periphery. That’s a morass into which I choose not to get sucked. But even the periphery is fascinating and alarming enough. Case in point: https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-poll-43-of-republicans-want-to-give-trump-the-power-to-shut-down-media Obviously, Donald Trump’s attacks on the news media are in play here. (And yes, in my effort to stay unsucked from the morass, I acknowledge his supporters feel the “fake” media is getting what it deserves). Many years ago, though, my former Albuquerque Journal colleague Dennis Latta related to me a conversation he’d had with a state legislator of his acquaintance — a man who believed journalists should be licensed by the state of New Mexico in the same fashion as are boxers, beauticians, undertakers, etc. etc. Write a story that doesn’t meet the state’s approval, no license. Either he hadn’t heard of the First Amendment or disagreed with it....
