‘Mayor of NE Portland’ Honored With Affordable Housing Building
The Paul & Geneva Knauls Building will provide wraparound services for military veterans.
On Steps of US Supreme Court, AG Rosenblum Rallies Abortion Rights Supporters
Speaking at an ACLU-organized rally on the steps of the United States Supreme Court this morning, Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum made an impassioned defense of abortion as essential healthcare, and of medication abortion as a key part of those healthcare rights. The rally coincided with arguments being presented inside the Supreme Court in the AHM (Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine) v. FDA (Food & Drug Administration) case.
Should College Essays Touch on Race? Some Feel the Affirmative Action Ruling Leaves Them No Choice
When the Supreme Court ended affirmative action, it left the college essay as one of few places where race can play a role in admissions decisions. Yet the added weight of the college essay has fallen unevenly on students of color, who often feel pressure to exploit their hardships as they compete for a spot on campus.
Bird Flu, Weather and Inflation Conspire to Keep Egg Prices Near Historic Highs for Easter
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The Portland Art Museum presents Future Now: Virtual Sneakers to Cutting-Edge Kicks
Exhibition on view March 30 - August 11, 2024. Programs to include sneaker-focused Summer Camps and in-gallery activities ...
Portland Street Response Hosts Town Hall
PCCEP is seeking community input to help shape their recommendation in support of Portland Street Response. ...
Joint Center Responds to the U.S. House Office of Diversity and Inclusion Disbandment
This decision jeopardizes the establishment of policies to support diverse communities and threatens the pursuit of inclusivity for...
Bonamici, Kaine Praise Billion Dollar Increase for Child Care, Early Childhood Learning
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Portland Rose Festival 2024 Court Member from Benson Polytechnic High School Announced
The Rose Festival Princess from Benson Polytechnic High School, Laedyn Romero, was selected March 22. ...
California's commercial Dungeness crab season will end April 8 to protect whales
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4th person charged in ambush that helped Idaho prison inmate escape from Boise hospital
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Georgia ends game on 12-0 run to beat Missouri 64-59 in first round of SEC tourney
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Georgia faces Missouri in SEC Tournament
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COMMENTARY: Is a Cultural Shift on the Horizon?
As with all traditions in all cultures, it is up to the elders to pass down the rituals, food, language, and customs that identify a group. So, if your auntie, uncle, mom, and so on didn’t teach you how to play Spades, well, that’s a recipe lost. But...
A Full Court Press to Get the Lead Out
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OP-ED: Congress Is Right: Federal Reserve’s Reg II Will Hurt Minority Communities in America
The Fed is taking every effort to promote income equality and workplace diversity and inclusion, but Regulation II would undercut its great work in this respect and cause potential harm to millions of minority families. Now that a congressional coalition has...
OP-ED: A Silent Killer No More
Data from Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City shows that more than 13 percent of African American men between the ages 45 and 79 will develop prostate cancer in their lifetimes. And Black men have a 70 percent higher rate of developing...
Tennessee governor signs bill to undo Memphis traffic stop reforms after Tyre Nichols death
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Tennessee politicians strip historically Black university of its board
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Beyoncé’s 'Cowboy Carter' reinforces her dedication to Black reclamation — and country music
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Celebrity birthdays for the week of March 31-April 6
Celebrity birthdays for the week of March 31-April 6: March 31: Actor William Daniels (“St. Elsewhere,” ″Boy Meets World”) is 97. Actor Richard Chamberlain is 90. Actor Shirley Jones is 90. Musician Herb Alpert is 89. Actor Christopher Walken is 81. Comedian Gabe Kaplan...
How to make an Easter ham last all week
The beauty of making a baked ham for Easter (or any holiday or large gathering) is that there's bound to be leftovers. Leftover ham, which will last for up to five days in the fridge, can be a springboard for other meals during the week. Of course you’ll want a sandwich or two, but...
Book Review: 'Glorious Exploits' turns classical history into an endearing comedy about tragedy
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US changes how it categorizes people by race and ethnicity. It's the first revision in 27 years
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Baltimore bridge collapse puts the highly specialized role of ship's pilot under the spotlight
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Stock market today: Wall Street rises to more records to close out its latest winning month
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Russia arrests another suspect in concert hall attack that killed 143
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Putin says he won't start a war with NATO. But Western bases hosting Ukraine F-16s would be targets
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Doctors visiting a Gaza hospital are stunned by the war's toll on Palestinian children
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PHOTO: Texas Western (now UTEP) was the underdog against No. 1 Kentucky, but the Miners won with the first all-black starting lineup in title game history, beating the Wildcats 72-65.-- AP Photo
Nearly a decade ago, my wife and I took our two basketball fanatic sons to the local movie theaters to watch a film called Glory Road, about a Texas Western (El Paso) University basketball coach, Don Haskins, who decided not only to recruit African-American student athletes to the school -- during a tough era of American segregation in the 1960s -- but to start them all in the 1966 NCAA Finals against the one and only University of Kentucky Wildcats, who had not yet broken the color barrier with their team.
My oldest son, Ameer, who was already familiar with the popular college basketball programs said, “Wow, dad, so this all Black team is gonna beat an all White Kentucky team.” The concept of an all-Black basketball team as a college underdog to an all-White team was totally alien to my young son. In the year that he was born in 1996, Kentucky won its sixth title under then coach Rick Pitino, with a team full of Black players, including Derek Anderson, Tony Delk, Antoine Walker, Jamaal Magloire, Nazr Mohammed and a very athletic Ron Mercer. That 1996 Kentucky Wildcats team used a full-court press to dismantle the opposition, while sprinting up and down the floor, like a track and field relay team, executing acrobatic dunks and faced-paced lay-ups and jump shots.
However, in 1966 an all Black team in an NCAA Championship Finals was brand new to millions of American spectators. The game created a huge national audience and became another pivotal moment of history, where thousands of African-American teenagers and Civil Rights activists would gain new confidence and hope in opportunities not only in basketball, but in advancement in education, while participating in more competitive college and university sports and academic programs.
The pre-segregation Kentucky Wildcats teams, coached by the legendary Adolf Rupp from 1930-1972, had won four NCAA titles and multiple Southeast Conference Championships by 1966, all without any African-American players on the team until Tom Payne accepted a scholarship offer to attend Kentucky in 1969. Although it has been reported that coach Rupp had actively recruited Kentucky natives, Wes Unseld and Butch Beard as early as 1964, he also made no secrets about how difficult it would be for them to integrate Kentucky’s basketball team and with a populace of racially intolerant students, parents and alumni. So Unseld and Beard took their talents to the in-state Kentucky rival at the University of Louisville Cardinals.
NBA Champion coach Pat Riley, with the Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks and Miami Heat, was a member of that losing Kentucky Wildcats team of 1966, and he said the experience made an impact on his life and reminded him years later how fiercely proud and inspired African-Americans ball players were to have that Texas Western victory. He now seeks opportunities for the best players to be a part of his teams regardless of their race, class, color or creed.
Ironically, after Pat Riley was dunked on in the game by David Lattin, NCAA officials went on to band the intimidating and crowd-stirring art of the slam dunk from 1967-1976, right in time to deny one of the most dominant African-American big men in NCAA history -- Lew Alcindor at UCLA--who would later take on the name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and develop the most beautiful and unstoppable shot in basketball, the ‘sky hook.’
Fast forward fifty years later to 2015, and the Kentucky Wildcats basketball program is now led by top recruiter and inclusive coach, John Calipari, who is barely able to secure a minute of quality playing time for the White American players that are left at the end of his team bench. In fact, Kyle Wiltjer, one of the few White players to receive significant playing time over the past six years of Calipari’s Kentucky regime, transferred to Gonzaga, where he’s become a star of the team and a college stand-out.
Under Calipari, the present-day Kentucky Wildcats chase NCAA basketball history as one of the few undefeated teams to enter the NCAA tournament at 34-0, with a chance to win it all at 40-0, with all African-American starters, most of whom will turn pro a month later. Maybe it’s now the time, during our annual month of “March Madness” basketball talk, to remind millions of younger basketball fans how far not only Kentucky has come, but hundreds of other American colleges and universities, who now offer scholarships to African-American student athletes, where they didn’t before.
Coach John Calipari practically brags now about providing young African-American men and their families excellent opportunities to attend college, compete for championships, receive quality educations and ultimately a chance to increase their economic livelihood as professional players through his yearly program of intense competitive, team basketball.
Talk about turning around a program, Kentucky is now night and day from where it was in Glory Road days under Adolf Rupp and the America 1960s. Nevertheless, our next story needs to focus on how many of these new student athletes actually return to school and graduate, while learning something more than what it means to play college basketball as a celebrated phenom. That’s the next history lesson that needs to be told, and the next scholar-athlete movie that needs to written.
Omar Tyree is a New York Times bestselling author, an NAACP Image Award winner for Outstanding Fiction, and a professional journalist, who has published 27 books, including co-authoring Mayor For Life; The Incredible Story of Marion Barry Jr. View more of his career and work @ www.OmarTyree.com