Disposable Heroes

Every
year Boston Globe columnist Derrick Z. Jackson does a number of columns
on the sham and shame which major
college sports in this country have become.  Specifically, the
low graduation rates of black male athletes at major school programs
in Football and Basketball.

On the occasion of the college bowl games in football and
the NCAA tournament in basketball, Jackson shows that most of these minority
individuals, the cream of the stream of young Americans of color, or
at least those who have managed thus far to escape the gangs, the drugs,
the police and the depression of dead-end jobs and psychotic families,
are used and abused, built up to an unnatural, demonic hyper explosion
of physical prowess, and then abandoned, discarded, rejected or forgotten,
often with permanent physical disabilities, no discernable job skills
and a seriously out-of-wack impression of the world and their place in
it.

Is it any wonder that most of these kids end up falling
into the same traps their athletic skills allowed them to escape, or
at least avoid, for a few years, even harder and with less chance to
find a way out? In the face of these statistics, can we still ask where
are all the Black lawyers, the Hispanic doctors, the minority CEO’s?

The Dowbrigade has written on the topic before. Jackson’s
column today shows that the situation is not improving, or even on the
radar screen of most Americans hunkered down in front of their new 42-inch
HD Plasma TV’s for the buffet of bowl games. The worst of the offenders,
with overall graduation rate followed by a Black and White breakdown:

PLAYER DISQUALIFICATION

Overall graduation rate of under 50 percent:

Florida St. (49) W 71 B 43
Alabama (49) W 63 B 45
Wyoming (49) W 59 B 38
Georgia Tech (49) W 63 B 43
Auburn (48) W 74 B 40
California (48) W 59 B 42
Troy (48) W 48 B 49
West. Va. (46) W 56 B 33
Okla. St. (45) W 57 B 41
North Texas (44) W 58 B 38
Oregon St. (44) W 50 B 40
Ariz. St. (44) W 59 B 34
Colorado (43) W 60 B 29
Louisiana St. (42) W 61 B 35
New Mexico (42) W 50 B 38
Florida (42) W 56 B 36
Minnesota (41) W 60 B 27
Utah (41) W 38 B 31
Tennessee (38) W 67 B 30
Northern Ill. (38) W 47 B 24
Louisville (35) W 53 B 27
Oklahoma (40) W 48 B 35
Memphis (40) W 59 B 29
Fresno St. (40) W 39 B 43
Texas (34) W 36 B 33
Texas-El Paso (34) W 34 B 38
Pittsburgh (31) W 48 B 21

from the
Boston Globe