A Tribute to Sports, Obama
and 'YES WE CAN'

Lut Williams
BCSP Editor

The inspiration for this special edition of the Black College Sports Page comes from the historic inauguration this week of Barack Hussein Obama as the first black president of the United States of America and from a comment made on the weekend edition of ESPN's Outside The Lines.

On that show this past weekend in a piece reflecting on barrier-breaking precedents in sports by African-Americans and how they have reverberated thru all facets of American life and spurred momentous changes in the greater society, former Oklahoma Republican Congressman J. C. Watts made an insightful comment which moved me.

Watts, a barrier breaker himself as the first black quarterback in University of Oklahoma football history and the first elected to statewide office in his state, remarked that boxing legend Muhammad Ali represented the "YES WE CAN" of another generation.

In that statement about Ali, Watts, I believe, captured the spirit that Barack Obama made the theme of his historic campaign - 'YES WE CAN.' It was not only reflected in the life of Muhammad Ali but in a host of others, both on and off the fields of play, and it has been the rallying cry of soaring accomplishments for African-Americans in the face of difficult and sometimes seeming insurmountable odds.

Ali, in his indominatable way, indeed championed the causes of racial justice, religious freedom and conscience while battling discrimination inside and outside the ring. And he in many ways today, is still a symbol of that struggle.

Watts' statement however spurred me to capture the names and pictures of heroes in many sports who have, in their own way, advanced the cause of African-American achievement, accomplishment and liberation and played a part in the election of America's first black president.

In the field of human endeavor, sports, by no means, has been the leading catalyst for change. In fact, because of its primacy in the eyes of an adoring public, it has been amongst the most resistant to it. But also because of it occupying that same place in the American psyche, the breaking of its barriers has been among the most strking.

In making their historic contributions, each of the persons pictured above played and competed as individuals but knowingly or unknowingly, willfully or unwillingly carried the hopes, dreams and aspirations of a people with them, thundering in their accomplishments a resounding 'YES WE CAN.'

© 2009 Azeez Communications, Inc.

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