Race and Sport

The race and sport article mentions an excerpt from a 1971 article of "An Assessment of Black is Best" that was featured in Sports Illustrated. The information that is mentioned from the article is that environmental factors have a great deal to do with excellence in sport, but so do physical differences, and that it is likely that blacks may have an increased/ enhanced potential. This created madness in the American public. While I feel that it is definitely certain that some physical qualities provide better performances in certain athletic areas, and even though these qualities might  be more prevalent in specific ethnic groups as a whole, I feel that these qualities are not limited to only one specific ethnicity. Environmental factors and genes, in my opinion, play a much larger role. For example, it is stereotyped that the Hispanic, or Mexican ethnicity are awesome soccer players, have great stamina, and that is "their sport." Similar to basketball being predominately blacks. It is not necessarily that these two ethnicity's have any qualities that make them any better than whites at these two sports, however, it is often times due to their environment and the socioeconomic status' they had growing up. Those two sports started as relatively inexpensive, basically all you needed was a ball, so their less fortunate family members or ancestors most likely started those sports and it somewhat has just passed through the genes as a family hobby, or even career. I really appreciated the anthropologist W. Montague Cobb's argument that "proper training and incentive were the key factors in the making of a champion." I completely agree with this. Because as I said, I believe successful athletes are a mixture of genes and environment. The right person and the right sport. I do not agree with the other comments in the article such as blacks wanted revenge on whites and other statements such as that. Any black could excel in golf, any white person could excel in basketball, any Mexican could successfully participate in equestrian. However, it is a matter of socioeconomic status, environment, and tradition that has guided the ethnicity's participation.