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Don’t however, be too sure of that.Why Isn’t Al happy0 Well, here’s his reason: Look at the teams we have teaten, he began. We beat Mlsslssinewa (28-0) and NoblesvlUe (59-0) but they were no real tests. We got 40 or 50 people In the game and they were happy because they got to play. Then we get beat by Richmond (26-0). We’re letter than that. Then we ‘got’ Misicie Central (28-19) and we looked terrible, Just terrible. We teat Huntington last week (27-0), but really, Huitlngton’s not tough. We’re just not happy with wins like that.Faunce apparently had problems in the Rlchrmsid loss. The kids on our team hadn’t lost a ball game (football) since they started playing together intheeighth grade. When Richmond got to us, we hit rock bottom.JIM MURRAYKeep the faith, baby!Tommie Smith is the short-distance runner who always runs the 220 with his dark glasses on. Sometimes, it seems he goes through life the same way.Tommie Smith, a sage of 23 years, has Just issued an ultimatum to the Republic, that, unless things are improved considerably for Tommie Smith, he will not compete for this country in the 1968 Olympics.Horrors! Reflect on the implications of this for our comtry! Tommie Smith has given us just 10 months to shape up or he will positively not let us pay his way to Mexico City, house him in an Olympic Village with the greatest athletes from aU over the world,.feed him, press a probable gold medal Ui his hand put his picture on Page One from coast-to-coast, anj probably give him a ticker-tape parade up Broadway. He will deprive us of the privilege of making him a millionaire professional halfback.He has shaken up a multitude of two persons. The implications are clear. If Tommie has his way and a boycott of Negro athletes is accomplished, a terrible thing may happen: Italy may win more gold medals than the U.S. Could anything be more disastrous'' How would we ever explain THAT al the Compton Relays. Track and Field News would be bound to misunderstand.Just suppose the dissatisfaction spreads and the weightlifl-ers and the kayak pairs team and the fours-with-cox defect, too0! What if we lost the full-bore rifle shoot? Great Heavens, Lyndon — DO something!Don’t get me wrong. 1 wish I could run the 200 meters faster than anyone in the world. I rank It 2,001 in the list of things I wish I could do. Riglil behind playing the harmonica, but well ahead of wiggling ray ears.The impressive Ihing about Tommie is that he had to work hard to develop this talent. He had to put his shoes on. The running part of It, he feU out of bed one morning with.I don't know about ou, but I’m getting migtiy bored with downy-cheeked youngsters trying to general manage the world Just because they have an interesting little athletic talent. Tommie’s grievances are rather sketchily outlined in the wire stories wluch seem otherwise more open-mouthed at the dread prospect we may finish as low as second inthe Olympics if he has his way.But one of the grievances Tommie and hts teammate, Lee Evans, listed was the presence of a Caucasian on the relay team when his clockings clearly indicated he wasn’t entitled to be there. Now, I don’t know whether they bussed this boy over from an imderprivileged area of the locker room, or whether they just thought the toy would te athletically uplifted by being taken out of the white sports ghetto of backward athletic prowess. (Or, maybe he made It under an athletic version of the W law*' which provides ui some state universities that 2^ of the student body who come under the minimum academic requirements can te admitted anyway on the chance they were merely the victims of an inferior academic background.)The point is, discrimination should te fought on all fronts. But not by pointing toe gun at yourself. Tommie Smith Is either the beneficiary of some bad adtice, or he has •• as young athletes are wait to have -- an exaggerated idea of his own importance.You see, these youngsters are not to be blamed. They are recruited by drooling coaches, juvenile alumni, or athletic directors whose principal objective in life is Beat State’’. The kids’ opinions are then solicited by everybody from national magaiines wnters to regional politicians. Pretty soon, running toe world from the starling blocks or the foul line seems a natural thing to do. (The sovereign state of California, for example, recruited a top basketball player into a Taj Mahal of educational buildings erected at considerable taxpayer expense, and the boy’s first puclic utterances were that toe state was a phony and playing a gane on the rest of the country.’’)1 think someone has convinced Tommie that one of America's great goals ui this century is to win the 200 meters at Mexico City — or even to win the Olympics. Actually, you’re not supposed to keep score in an Olympics. The object is to win an individual gold medal, not a national one. Then, you take the medal, and you wail for toe Dallas Cowboys to draft you and poy you $100,000 to play wing tack for them; or toe Giants shovel mooey at you until you say stop to play free mktj.They woc’t call off the Olympics if you don’t show up, Tommie. Somebody will win the 200 with a clocking of 23.5, perhaps. but the re’ll only te a handful pf people in toe world
Newspaper Details
Kokomo Morning Times
Kokomo, Indiana, US
Thu, Oct 05, 1967
Page 8
Full Page
Clipped by
Badgerlink
WI, USA 11 Dec 2016
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