Discrimination in Sports

Reverse Discrimination in Sports
As white, American males, are we feeling left out? Of course not, we are the envy of every other race, ethnicity, and gender. Right? To anyone that believes this, it must then be asked: If we, as white males, aren’t feeling “left out,” then why do we continually try to sneak aboard the overcrowded train of discrimination?
As the past has shown, the tracks this train screams across undoubtedly open up to a deep chasm of hurt and pain. And yet, it seems to be one of the most sought after tickets today. Have we lost sight of the real struggles from the Civil Rights and Women Movements, only to replace them with ridiculous reverse-discrimination issues of today?
Reverse discrimination has recently become the new fad in sports. First we were blessed with grumbles from less-than-athletic, underachieving, wannabe professional basketball players saying their sport has begun to discriminate against them because they are white.
But instead of grumbling, maybe they should thank Harry “Bucky” Lew for becoming the first African American in professional basketball. Thank him because now owners sign players based on talent and ability instead of the color of their skin. So, if you hear the bad news that the Denver Nuggets just don’t have room on their roster for you, it’s not because you’re white, you’re just not good enough.
Unfortunately, this plague of claiming reverse discrimination has now filtered into college athletics as well. Andrew Medcalf was denied a job as Pennsylvania’s head coach of woman’s crew two years ago, and he has now turned it into a discrimination case. In his mind, it was ludicrous that a college would turn him down because there was a better candidate for the job. Luckily for him, this other candidate was a woman. So, instead of accepting that he wasn’t qualified enough to become head coach, he simply claimed gender discrimination and he won. The University of Pennsylvania was forced to pay $115,000 in lost wages, emotional distress, and punitive damages.
Pennsylvania ended up hiring Barbara Kirch instead of Medcalf in 1999. Who knows, maybe Kirch was hired based on her gender. Or maybe, just maybe, Pennsylvania gave her the job because she has been a successful coach of woman’s crew at Dartmouth for nine years winning bronze medals at the 1996 and 1997 Eastern Sprints and a trip to the 1997 NCAA Women’s Rowing National Championship. Maybe she deserved the position because she has coached a U.S. Junior Women’s National Team, made two trips to the Olympics, placed second at the World Championship with the U.S. National Rowing team, and third at the World Championship with the U.S. team. Perhaps the decision even had something to do with the fact that she was once a two-time Olympian as a student at Pennsylvania.
Then again, why not hire a female coach for a woman’s rowing team? Medcalf’s argument was that Pennsylvania sought after Kirch because they were looking for a strong female role model. Is that discrimination? No, that’s just smart; that’s just another way to strengthen the woman’s rowing program. After all, when was the last time you saw a woman coaching a men’s team?
The reverse discrimination in sports is more of an example of the “norms” of society and as these examples show, some people are meant for a job and others just need to put forth more effort instead of expecting a position to be handed to them, athlete or coach. The position is usually given to the best candidate, discrimination or not, that is the ultimate goal of athletics and society, overall improvement.