Collegiate Sports

[ksquared]

Welcome, MWC.

This place gets more active during football season.

Yesterday's Star Ledger (northern nj rag), had a feature article on Morrison and Reddick. Of course they played up a racism angle. Apparently they get hassled big time by the fans. The Ledger posed the theory that it was because they were white and this would be the second time since 1974 when Bill Walton repeated the title that white players would win back to back Player of the Year titles.

Other players thought it was just because they were good and the good players always get hassled. I think it is a shame that the fans behave like barbaric hooligans.

The article and link are posted below, if you are interested.

Thanks for the update on the Player of the Year winner.

ksquared.GO.BLUE

Top stars get heat for being white?
Thursday, March 23, 2006
BY KEVIN MANAHAN
Star-Ledger Staff
Tyler Azzarelli stood on the side of the court, waiting for his chance to hop into a pickup game. He gets a rush from walking into a strange gym, pulling the "Who me? Yeah, I can play a little" con job, then showing off his skills. But this time, he couldn't even get picked.

According to the local rules, the winning team stayed on the court in that Philadelphia gym, and, from among the leftovers, a self-appointed captain would cobble a team of challengers. Azzarelli watched one game. Then another. Then another. Then another. He knew why he wasn't getting selected:

He was the only white guy in the gym.

But he also was a starting guard for Monmouth -- even if he were incognito -- and he wanted to play. So, he approached an unofficial captain and pleaded: "Let me run with your team for one game, just one," he said. "You won't be sorry."

Finally given a chance, Azzarelli took over.

He stole the ball. He threw in 3-pointers. He hit stunned teammates with no-look passes. Soon, everyone was whispering: You know this guy? Where did he come from?

Or, as Azzarelli overheard several times, "Who the hell is that white guy?"

Tonight, as the NCAA Tournament begins its Sweet Sixteen round, the white college basketball player is in the spotlight again, thanks to Duke's J.J. Redick and Gonzaga's Adam Morrison. One of them will be named the national Player of the Year, marking the first time white players have captured the award in consecutive years (Utah's Andrew Bogut won last season) since UCLA's Bill Walton repeated in 1974.

But this season, there is an added burden for being white and good: abuse from fans.

Redick, the most targeted player in college basketball, has been greeted in opposition arenas with signs questioning his sexual orientation and T-shirts that read, "Redick (stinks)!" Obscene chants can erupt whenever he touches the ball on the road. And there's more waiting for him in tonight's game against LSU.

At Temple this season, when a fan close to the court taunted Redick, Owls coach John Chaney scolded the loudmouth. "Behave like a human being!" Chaney yelled. When fans can't scream at Redick, they choose more subtle harassment: In 2004, Maryland fans uncovered his cell phone number and distributed it, so fans could leave nasty voice-mail messages.

Family members are not off-limits either. Redick's sister has been the subject of signs, and at Temple, an "I Dream of Jeanie Redick" banner referred to his mother.

Morrison, on the other hand, has been teased about his diabetes and a sparse mustache. The facial hair, fans have charged, makes him look like a pedophile, so they have screamed, "Amber alert!" at him. Fans have questioned his sexual preference, too, with sing-song taunts of "Brokeback Mountain."

Redick and Morrison have shrugged off the abuse, but other players who have been lesser targets insist they are suffering from a taunting trickle-down. If fans can abuse the best players in the game, then every player is fair game.

"I don't think they should get to say things about my sister and my mother," Syracuse star Gerry McNamara said. "College basketball fans are getting too nasty. They don't care what they say or who they say it about. Basketball is different from other sports, because the fans are right on top of the court. They're right in your face. It's pretty hard to take without lashing out."

Most often, it's white-on-white abuse. Some sociologists have theorized that white fans avoid targeting black players for fear of being called racists. Peter Roby, director of the Center for the Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern University, said that's nonsense.

Roby says heckling usually is not racially tinged. Fan behavior, in general, is out of control, he said, and when fans want to taunt, they will target the best players.

"This year, the lightning rods happen to be white," Roby said. "You think Allen Iverson doesn't get abuse wherever he goes? Fans don't think about black or white. They just want to unnerve the best player on the other team."

Just ask Keydren Clark, the St. Peter's senior who became the seventh player in NCAA history to score 3,000 points, doing so in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Tournament.

His reward? An obscene chant from Iona fans every time he touched the ball in the tournament title game.

Clark, who is African-American, said he didn't think the taunts were racially motivated.

"That was just fans doing what fans do," he said.

One thing is clear: It has been a long time since the two top players in college were both white. How long? Try 1965, when Bill Bradley and Gail Goodrich were at the top of Player of the Year ballots.

As the NCAA Tournament winds down, Duke and Gonzaga will go only as far as their two stars take them. In Duke's past three NCAA losses, Redick has shot a combined 10-for-42. Morrison will have to score a bucketful to make up for Gonzaga's soft defense.

And while the two have insisted they're not standard-bearers for their race, others hope the stars can help soften stereotypes.

"Redick and Morrison have been trying to make a name for white players again," said Azzarelli's backcourt mate, Chris Kenny. "They've done a lot for us. But let's face it. Basketball is dominated by African-American players. White players, like Tyler and I, are just trying to compete out there. If you're white, people basically assume you can't be very good.

"When we would go some place to play and people hadn't seen us before, whether it was my high school team or Monmouth, you could hear the crowd: 'Oh, these guys don't have a chance.' People just assumed, 'They're white, so they can't be quick.' When you play guard and everybody thinks the position is all about speed, they look at a white guy and figure, 'He's going to get burned.' Maybe that can change."

But Azzarelli believes the stereotypes aren't easy to address.

"That's because nobody wants to say the word," he said.

What word?

"White."

While sociologists insist this generation is more comfortable with race mingling than any before it, players insist some racial stereotypes persist nonetheless.

"I couldn't get into that pickup game because I was white," Azzarelli said. "But he put me on his team and we won, like, five games in a row. People were coming up to me and asking, 'You play college ball, right?' I went from a white guy who couldn't get into a game to someone they thought was practically an All-American."

And if it had been mostly white guys in a gym picking teams?

"They would probably pick the black guy first," Azzarelli said. "Or close to it."

© 2006 The Star Ledger
© 2006 NJ.com All Rights Reserved.

http://www.nj.com/search/index.ssf?/base/sports-0/114309419287770.xml?starledger?s&coll=1