Is "athleticism" thinly veiled racism?

No, it means something very specific. It means broad physical abilities that aren't specific to the sport in question but still provide value to it.

 

Still doesn't change the fact his black teammates with the Knicks felt he was one of them because of his athletic ability.

I remember hearing those interviews and wondering: So how does a "brother" play?

Quinn Buckner in college and the pros was labeled a heady point guard who was more of a hard worker than an athlete. Hell, I'm more athletic than Buckner.

Ditto for Scott May at IU.

Take Jim Leonhard from the Jets. Every idiot analyst falls in love with the small town story but if they did any research they'd learn he is ridiculously athletic.

Jason Sehorn coming out of USC was a freaking stud. But some secondary coaches in the NFL didn't want him to play corner because they suspected he wasn't athletic enough.

Bobby Jones of the old 76ers was a hell of an athlete and was lauded for such.

Willis Reed. I watched him for years. He known as much for his smarts/toughness as his athletic ability.

Dennis Johnson of the Sonics/Celtics was considered a smart, tough player.

Those are just a few off the top of my head.

 

The Oilers of Gretzky-Messier? The Red Wing teams with Yzerman?

 

You mean like "speed" or "quickness"? Then say "speed" or "quickness."

Also, your presumption is that this "athleticism" is somehow naturally occurring - that it's something apart from the training required for the sport. From the press box, looking at an athlete you've never met, how do you know what's natural and what's the product of long, hard practice?

 

The fact that there are better, more specific words doesn't prove that the word has no meaning.

And where on earth did you get that I presume that it's naturally occurring?

 

My best friend in high school had a brother who played D-III football as a (white) wide receiver, so we enjoyed peppering him with white-people cliches about what kind of player he was: smart, heady, tough, not naturally athletic but makes up for it with great route-running, great hands, does all the things that don't show up on the scoreboard, scrappy, team glue.

As it turned out, the most accurate term to describe him was "injury-prone."

 

White guys are like that. They aren't bred to take the pounding.

 

It proves that the word is a lazy, empty catchall, whose meaning is entirely subjective from writer to writer to writer, and whose meaning remains entirely subjective across its entire range of application. Which means it has infinite meanings - therefore no meaning at all.

 

The use of it is usually more lazy than out-and-out racist (sorry, this thread was three pages long by the time I saw it, so I apologize if I'm covering old ground).

For example, I keep hearing people around LSU say Garrett Green, the 6-11 white center, is a "stiff," code for white and unathletic. I never understood that because every time Green gets the ball with a chance to take it to the rim he dunks with authority and he runs the court well.

So it caused some double-takes when Trent Johnson said Green was his most athletic big man. There was some under-the breath chuckling at the notion.

Well, he is a decent runner/jumper and isn't that what is usually attached to the term "athletic?" Which brings me to a second point.

Is running in short bursts and jumping high all there is to "athleticism?" Let's use the Green example again. He's a terrible hand-eye coordination athlete who shoots 40 percent at the free throw line, routinely fumbles away rebounds and passes and is just a bit clumsy. Isn't having natural ability to do things with your hands as much of an athletic gift as being about to leap tall buildings and outrun speeding locomotives? Aren't Steve Kerr and Craig Hodges in their own way, gifted athletes? I mean, you can only maximize the speed of a slow person, you can never make him fast. By the same token, you can only make a bad shooter less bad, you can never turn him into Ray Allen.

My point is, I think we undervalue high-level hand-eye coordination as an athletic gift.

You ever go to one of those celebrity golf tournaments and see the former NFL or MLB player shoot par? To me, those are truly gifted athletes. And that has nothing to do with 40-yard dashes or vertical leaps.

 

What's this guy's name? Seems like a rock-solid 6'10" 330 lb guy with remarkably quick feet and jumping ability who was the state player of the year in football, basketball AND track is a name we should've heard of. Where'd this freak of nature go to college?

 

Bad memory, he's listed 6-7, but the rest is right:

http://www.huskers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=100&ATCLID=3662361

 

This reminds me of a similar discussion during Obama's presidential campaign. Someone described Obama as articulate and all hell broke loose because -- apparently, you're never supposed to call a black person articulate because there's some underlying assumption that by doing so, you're implying that most blacks aren't.

I never knew calling attn to someone's athletic ability was a similar no-no.

But thanks for pointing it out. Now I'm aware, I guess.