"I know this is going to get played out the wrong way, but I'm going to say it anyway. And I know I'm going to get criticized for this. White kids are always looked upon as being soft. So Stanford's got a tremendous amount of really good players who for whatever reason, because they don't look like Tina Charles or Maya Moore, the perception out there is going to be, well, they must be soft.
"Well, I think that's a bunch of bull. I watched them play and nobody goes harder to the boards. Nobody takes more charges. Nobody runs the floor as hard. Those kids are as tough as any of the kids in the country. But people on the sports world like to make judgments on people by how they look. And it's grossly unfair."
These are the words of the University of Connecticut's women's basketball coach Gino Auriemma. It is in his opinion that the Stanford team's toughness is constantly and publicly in question because of most of that team's skin color. I don't personally understand what major differences in toughness there might be on the Division 1-A level between women's basketball players, or even how to see enormous differences in skill in a below-the-rim setting. It is why Mr. Auriemma's comments may fall unheard on the deaf ears of mainstream basketball fans.
Imagine if after the national championship game tonight, Tom Izzo, the men's basketball coach at Michigan State University sat in front of the media with that insidious grin he always has and says:
"People like to question Tyler Hansbrough and they like to say he's not that good and won't be in the NBA..."
and every black guy watching will say "yeah, all those people are right"
and Izzo will go on:
"But I think that's because he's white. The media feeds it and the fans automatically assume he's unathletic. I think that's a bunch of bull."
How do you think the mainstream would receive it? Would there be roundtable discussions and ESPN "Outside the Lines" special presentations? They'd just be talking about what everyone who's not on television is talking about when they see Mr. Hansbrough play. No one thinks he will do anything in the NBA but draw a few white North Carolina fans to games to see him get three rebounds in mop-up time. Everyone thinks that the team who drafts him is wasting a pick. If it's a lottery pick, then they're wasting money, and that's a bad business decision.
But if Izzo said it, maybe then Bob Knight would come out and say it. He seems to want to explode with those same words every time he speaks about Tyler Hansbrough. I'd like him to just come out and say it. I'd like for Dick Vitale and Digger Phelps and Jay Bilas and Bob Knight to hold a nice um...rally at ESPN where they take an hour trying to explain to us why Kyle Singler and Tyler Hansbrough and Luke Harangody are all going to be major contributors at the next level. How Hansbrough does all of the little things and is sooooo coachable. They will tell you that he's going to be like Luke Walton, but better. Now that's a bunch of bull.
Have I been totally judgmental when it comes to Tyler Hansbrough? Yes. It is difficult to call yourself a racist, but in a now reluctant way, I still am one when it comes to basketball players. I've always assumed that white players weren't better than others, and when a white player has been good, deep down, I wanted him to fail. I hated Larry Bird and Eric Montross, and I think that every center the Bulls had in the 1990's was terrible, and I can't remember Chris Dudley actually jumping, ever. I hated JJ Redick and Steve Wojciechowski and anything Duke. I figured it was the reason my dad liked Georgetown and hated St. John's. I figured that Basketball was around to needle that racism in all of us that wouldn't fade away.
