As high schools and universities try their hardest to make their schools more improved at sports, a rang of diverse people, culture, and raise comes with these improvements too. Growing up in Florida, with a big sports community, every high school competes for every athlete to come to their high school. My school specifically was a college prep school who was known statewide for our football, baseball, soccer, and swimming teams. With each winning team at my school, came different races that made up the teams that carried each sport to a championship.
From as long as I can remember, sports have played a huge role in not only my life, but my community too. No matter what race or sport it might be, each town has the superstars that go off to college playing a division one sport. I grew up worshipping these tremendous athletes, not seeing a difference between whether one was African American, asian, Indian, or white. To me and me friends, race never played a part in how to distinguish athletes. For us, we only knew that they were incredible at what they did, it did not matter what color their skin was.
(image one :of GQ, The Editors. “The 50 Greatest Living Athletes.” GQ, GQ, 24 Oct. 2017, www.gq.com/story/fifty-greatest-living-athlete.)
As I got older, though, I started to see some things change. In the Twenty first century, and in a town where everyone was treated equally, there was not racism between people. We all went to the same school, had the same teachers, same classes, and same opportunities as the next person. However, I did start to notice a certain stereotype that came with a race.
As a culture and a community, I started to learn things that my friends and I would have never thought about as little kids. Some stereotypes we picked up on like: if you were black, you were fast, athletic, and probably going division 1 either for basketball, football, or track. If you were white, you could not run as fast, probably played baseball. You might play football, basketball, or run track, but you definitely were not as good as someone that played those sports and was African American. If you were Asian, you were good at golf, and that is all.
(image two: Kinrade, Emma. “What Athletes like Usain Bolt Eat to Fuel Their Olympic Success.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 20 Aug. 2016, www.independent.co.uk/news/science/rio-2016-usain-bolt-gold-medals-diet-olympics-a7201151.html.)
As a society, we may not ever say this directly to a person, but it is absolutely what we are taught. We are taught by stereotypes. We are taught that anyone that is African American is amazing at sports. We are taught that any other race could not be better at a sport than someone is African American.
This stereotype and stigma against each race has gotten so engrossed into our society, that now people do not see these races as anything else other than what they are known for. Now, people only think of African Americans as great athletes with incredible athletic skills in any sport. Though this may be great and a compliment for now in today’s world, this is the only stereotype of what society sees this entire race as, never anything else. We as a society never consider an African American as a golfer, or slower than a white tight end, or a basketball player that can make a free throw. We see someone who is white as someone that could never be a better player than any African American. When this stereotype is proved wrong, society is in shock. We cannot believe that someone who is white could start over someone who is black in a football game. And when this does happen, we as a society are shocked to witness it.
(image three: Davis, Scott. “The 50 Most Dominant Athletes Alive.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 21 July 2017, www.businessinsider.com/50-most-dominant-athletes-alive-2017-7. )
The real problem behind having these stereotypes is that it takes away from the athlete as a whole. We forget how hard they trained to be this good. We just think they came into the world, being the greatest basketball player in the country. We forget how many hours these athletes practiced and took the time to become the role models we see them as.
For the most part, what makes these athletes so remarkable at all of these sports is almost nothing to do with race. In fact, it has everything to do with their own genes and their work ethic. No race makes you better at a sport than another race could. What makes the athlete better is what they do with their talent. If the person takes their gift as an opportunity to succeed and works the hardest to continue to improving, they will be the athlete the little kids grow up admiring. However, if these people do not take advantage of their gift, do not work hard and push themselves to become an even better athlete, their talent goes to waste. To me, race does not make a person a better athlete. What makes the better athlete is the talent they are given and what they decide to do with their gift after.