Chicago Sun Times' Top 10 Black Sports Heroes in Chicago

I wonder if the "Corked Bat Problem" hurt Sammy Sosa's chance of making the Top 10 list?

Chicago's top 10 black sports heroes

Chicago Sun Times - February 19, 2006

February is Black History Month, so what better time for the Sunday Drive to take a spin down memory lane with Lacy J. Banks as he recalls the 10 top black sports celebrities who've made Chicago their home.

This is not a sophisticated poll, so there may be differences of opinion as to who should make the top 10, who should be first, second and third and who should make honorable mention.

But regardless of order and selection, Tim Black, a retired history professor in the Chicago college system, says, "There's no question that black athletes have brought much honor to Chicago and enriched its sports history.''

Here's Banks' list of athletes who've lived in Chicago for at least a couple of years.


1: MUHAMMAD ALI

Though born in Louisville, the three-time world heavyweight champion lived in Chicago, where he met and married his first two wives, from 1964 to 1969 and from 1974 to 1978.

The Greatest deserves top billing because he transcended sports and still might be the most recognizable athlete in the world. A human rights advocate, Ali refused induction into the army in 1967 during the Vietnam War because of his beliefs. He was stripped of his title and barred from the ring in his prime for 3-1/2 years. He supported his family through speaking engagements and lived in Chicago most of that time.

"He lived on the South Side, first in a house in the 8500 block of South Jeffrey,'' said Herbert Muhammad, his former manager.

"When he returned in the '70s, he bought a house in the 4900 block of Woodlawn for $65,000, rehabbed it and later sold it for about $500,000. Ali really loved Chicago. He especially loved running around that outdoor track in Washington Park.''

Howard Bingham, Ali's personal photographer and best friend for more than 40 years, said Ali lived and trained in Chicago for his first two bouts with Sonny Liston and seven other fights, including his 1967 victory over Ernie Terrell, another top heavyweight contender who lived most of his life in Chicago.


2: MICHAEL JORDAN

Acclaimed by many as the greatest basketball player ever, Jordan has lived in the Chicago area since the Bulls drafted him in 1984. He says Chicago always will be his home. He played his first 13 NBA seasons for the Bulls and led them to six NBA championships while winning a slew of individual honors, including 10 scoring titles, five regular-season MVPs and six Finals MVPs.


3: JOE LOUIS

Black remembers "The Brown Bomber'' moving to Chicago from Detroit in 1935. "He came here to marry his first wife, Marva Trotter,'' Black said, "and he lived here for at least 10 years while his boxing career took off. He lived in the Michigan Boulevard apartments, and I remember attending his first two fights.'' Louis was the world heavyweight champion for 11-1/2 years and had 25 title defenses.


4: JESSE OWENS

In his track and field heyday, Owens was the "world's fastest human.'' His greatest accomplishment was winning four gold medals in the 1936 Berlin Olympics in front of Adolf Hitler to shatter the Nazi myth of Aryan supremacy. Owens moved to Chicago in 1949, worked in public relations and lived in the city for the rest of his life before dying in his vacation home in Phoenix.


5: WALTER PAYTON

A native of Mississippi, the Hall of Fame running back was the darling of Chicago during his 12-year career with the Bears. "Sweetness'' was admired for his friendly personality and genuine kindness. He was involved with numerous charitable causes off the field.


6: WILLYE WHITE

For 46 years, this five-time Olympian and two-time silver medalist called Chicago home. She spent 37 of those years doing a lot of professional and volunteer work in the inner-city community helping poor children. The "Queen of Chicago Sports'' competed on 39 U.S. national teams in some 150 different countries.


7: ERNIE BANKS

During his 19-year career, "Mr. Cub'' never led the team to the World Series. But the Hall of Fame shortstop, two-time MVP and 11-time All-Star hit 512 home runs and became a local sports icon.


8: JACK JOHNSON

In 1908, he became the first black world heavyweight champion. He lived dangerously, beating white men in the ring and dating and marrying white women outside the ring. "He moved here in 1910 and lived here at least 20 years,'' Black said. "They had his funeral at Pilgrim Baptist Church at 33rd and Indiana and buried him in Graceland Cemetery.''


9: RALPH METCALFE

He won a gold medal and a silver medal in the 1936 Olympics. Metcalfe finished second to Owens in the 100-yard dash, and Hitler refused to shake their hands as he had done with other medal winners. He lived most of his life in Chicago and rose to political prominence representing Illinois in Congress.


10: ISIAH THOMAS

This native Chicago Hall of Fame guard was one of basketball's most talented little guys. He has been involved in every level of the game. Thomas won two titles with the Pistons and has been a coach, owner and general manager in the NBA and was the commissioner of the Continental Basketball Association.


HONORABLE MENTION

Dorothy Gaters, Barbara Jones Slater, Ken Williams, Gale Sayers, Sonny Liston, Ernie Terrell, Dusty Baker, Billy Williams, Donovan McNabb, Larry Doby, Sammy Sosa and Minnie Minoso.

And As If to Validate Bryant Gumbel, Shani Davis Makes History Winning The Gold In Speed Skating

I think Bryant Gumbel was saying "If we as blacks get the chance to compete, we will do well. Here's an example that just happened today.

TORINO (AP) -- Shani Davis knew what he was doing. Davis became the first black to win an individual gold medal in Winter Olympic history Saturday, capturing the men's 1000m speed skating race. Joey Cheek made it a 1-2 American finish, adding a silver to his victory in the 500m.


Men's 1000m

Full Results
DAVIS 1:08.89
CHEEK 1:09.16
WENNEMARS 1:09.32

Erben Wennemars of the Netherlands captured the bronze.
Chad Hedrick, skating the weakest of his individual events, put up an early time that stood until Davis bested it in the 19th of 21 pairs with a clocking of 1 minute, 8.89 seconds.
Four other skaters passed Hedrick as well, leaving the Texan in sixth place - still an impressive showing considering he was skating the 1000m for only the seventh time in his career.
Davis came under scrutiny for skipping the team pursuit - especially when the Hedrick-led squad was knocked out in the quarterfinals, doomed by a slow skater who might not have been on the ice if Davis was available.
But Davis, world record holder in the 1000m, wanted to focus on his signature event. It certainly paid off.
After crossing the line and spotting his time, the first guy to break 1:09 on the slow Torino ice, Davis thrust his right fist in the air. As he coasted along the back straightaway, he raised both arms toward the roof of the Olympic oval, then put his hands on his head in obvious relief.
There were still two more pairs to go - four skaters, all capable of knocking him out.
Cheek went in the next group and came the closest, fading a bit at the end for a time of 1:09.16. Five days earlier, he dominated the shortest race on the schedule and donated his $25,000 bonus to a charity run by speed skating icon Johann Olav Koss.
This time, he'll hand over a $15,000 check to Koss. Dutch stars Wennemars and Jan Bos went in the final pair, but neither caught the Americans. Wennemars grabbed the bronze in 1:09.32, with Bos another tenth of a second behind, but only good enough for fifth.
Davis and Hedrick were the most intriguing figures on the ice.
Davis has dominated the 1000m on the World Cup circuit and skated the fastest time ever last November in Salt Lake. Hedrick is dominant at the longer distances, but decided to skate the 1000m at Torino in hopes of challenging Eric Heiden's record of five gold medals at one Winter Olympics.
Hedrick passed the first test with a dominating win in the 5000m, but his hopes of picking up a medal in team pursuit were essentially dashed when Davis decided not to skate. The U.S. was upset by the Italians in the quarterfinals, even though Hedrick was clearly the strongest skater on the ice.
NBC ImageAmerican Shani Davis won his first Olympic medal with a victory in the men's 1000m on Day 8.
Asked after the 1000m if he was happy for Davis, Hedrick replied pointedly:
"I'm happy for Joey."
Davis showed no immediate emotion after the last two skaters failed to beat his time. He was cooling down in the warmup lane, skating slowly with his arms behind his back.
Finally, he smiled and waved to the crowd. As he came to the other end of the rink, Davis found Wennemars waiting. The two rivals gave each other a big hug in front of the orange-clad, predominantly Dutch crowd, prompting the biggest cheer of the night.
Davis then donned a Chicago White Sox cap - a tribute to his hometown, specifically the South Side. He grew up there always wanting to skate, shrugging off friends who wondered why a black kid growing up in the city of Michael Jordan and Da Bears would want to don a tight-fitting suit and compete with a bunch of white dudes.
That wouldn't be last time he bucked the norm.
Davis and his mother, Cherie, have engaged in a long-running feud with U.S. Speedskating - even refusing to allow his biography to be displayed on the group's web site. Davis seemed to be doing his own thing in Torino, avoiding the media and the rest of the team.
"I think I've seen him a couple of times on the other side of the rink in the last week, week and a half," American teammate Casey FitzRandolph said.
Before the 1000m, there was even talk Davis would skip the mandatory news conference for medalists - even if he won. His agents scurried into action, hoping to cut off a public relations nightmare.
Davis said he's got a businesslike relationship with Hedrick - nothing more, nothing less.
"I haven't really witnessed any drama," Davis said. "We stay at the same duplex. He's on the top floor. I'm on the first floor. I mind my business and he minds his business."
Vonetta Flowers became the first African-American to win Winter Olympics gold at the Salt Lake Games four years ago. She was a pusher on the two-woman bobsled team, someone who helps get the machine going and hops along for the ride.
Davis won this gold entirely on his own.
"It showed that all the hard work and all the sacrifice paid off," he said. "Kids in general, if you put your mind to it and you believe it, you can achieve it.
"You cannot give up - even if the road is a tough road."

Bryant Gumbel's Right About Blacks and The Winter Olympics - It's Not A Racist Comment

On this week's edition of HBO's Real Sports, a respected sports television news magazine, it's host Bryant Gumbel was recorded making this comment:

"Finally, tonight, the Winter Games. Count me among those who don't care about them and won't watch them. In fact, I figure that when Thomas Paine said that "these are the times that try men's souls," he must've been talking about the start of another Winter Olympics.

"Because they're so trying, maybe over the next three weeks we should all try too. Like, try not to be incredulous when someone attempts to link these games to those of the ancient Greeks who never heard of skating or skiing. So try not to laugh when someone says these are the world's greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the winter games look like a GOP convention.

"Try not to point out that something's not really a sport if a pseudo-athlete waits in what's called a kiss-and-cry area, while some panel of subjective judges decides who won. And try to blot out all logic when announcers and sportswriters pretend to care about the luge, the skeleton, the biathlon and all those other events they don't understand and totally ignore for all but three weeks every four years. Face it -- these Olympics are little more than a marketing plan to fill space and sell time during the dreary days of February. So if only to hasten the arrival of the day they're done, when we can move on to March Madness -- for God's sake, let the games begin."

This speech by Gumbel has set off a firestorm of criticism from a number of writers, all white so far. Indeed, the fact that a group of writers who happen to be white are complaining only works to make Gumbel's point. But before I continue on that, let's coldly look at what he's saying.

First, I watched the Winter Olympics, and I like doing so. I've never thought of the partcipants as the "World's Best Athletes" but as the best in their athletic field of choice -- the idea of the "World's Best Athlete" to me is someone like Strongwoman Shannon Hartnett, who lifts very heavy objects or my new friend Shana Bagley, who was coaxed into the same field by Hartnett and can lift a 350-pound tire...And is just about 5-4 and well under 200 pounds. Women who can do that are the World's Best Athletes to me. (Oh, they're both white, by the way.)

But then, they are also in the Summer Olympics in weight lifting -- so Gumbel's right because they're not in the Winter Olympics regardless of race.

On the matter of race, there's a nasty misuse of the term "racist." To be racist is to put someone down because of their race. What Gumbel was stating was that because Blacks are not in large numbers in the Winter Olympics, thus making the event less than diverse, it's impossible to claim that the participants are amoung the World's Best Athletes because the entire field of people who could do that sport well regardless of color is not represented.

Let's face it folks, he's right. That's being race concious, not racist. He's not saying whites can't be great athletes, just that you can't say you've got all of the best if they're mostly one color.

It's sad that what he said has been twisted by the unintelligent writers out there. They should be asking how the Winter Olympics could be diversified. To ask this question is to take on the very foundation of economic and social discrimination that still exists, yet must be destroyed.

I guess that task is too much for some people.