2008 Woodie Awards
The best accomplishments don't occur during the game
Tommy Wright
Issue date: 10/9/08 Section: Still Standing Tall
In my life as a sports fan, I have been lucky enough to tune into many great sports performances. Joe Montana finding John Taylor in the end zone for the winning touchdown in Super Bowl XXIII, Michael Jordan's "flu game" in the 1997 NBA Finals, Kirk Gibson's pinch-hit, walk off home run in the 1988 World Series.
At the time, I saw those events as heroic (despite my aversion toward the Dodgers) but looking back, they didn't have much meaning beyond the sports world.
I did watch Dave Dravecky's courageous return to baseball after he was diagnosed with cancer. But it seems that sports currently lack the heroes who were present in the years before my time.
Roberto Clemente is someone who died 10 years before I was born, but I have always admired him for what he did on the field and off. Clemente, a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, died in a plane crash while bringing aid to victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua.
There are also the people who have broken barriers in sports. Most people have heard of how Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball in 1947. But the barrier in professional football was broken twice before Jackie Robinson played his first game in the major leagues.
From 1920 to 1933, 13 African-Americans played in the National Football League. But it took until 1946 for another African-American to get back into pro football. That year, Marion Motley, Bill Willis, Kenny Washington and Woody Strode all made their debuts.
It took until 1950 for the National Basketball Association to integrate. Earl Lloyd, Chuck Cooper and Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton brought down the barrier in the NBA.
Billy Jean King, Babe Didrikson and Jackie Joyner-Kersee have all helped progress women in sports.
Other athletes made their mark by not participating.
Canadian boxers Sam Luftspring and Norman "Baby" Yak refused to attend the 1936 Olympics in Berlin due to the treatment of Jews in Germany under Hitler's rule.
At the time, I saw those events as heroic (despite my aversion toward the Dodgers) but looking back, they didn't have much meaning beyond the sports world.
I did watch Dave Dravecky's courageous return to baseball after he was diagnosed with cancer. But it seems that sports currently lack the heroes who were present in the years before my time.
Roberto Clemente is someone who died 10 years before I was born, but I have always admired him for what he did on the field and off. Clemente, a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, died in a plane crash while bringing aid to victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua.
There are also the people who have broken barriers in sports. Most people have heard of how Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball in 1947. But the barrier in professional football was broken twice before Jackie Robinson played his first game in the major leagues.
From 1920 to 1933, 13 African-Americans played in the National Football League. But it took until 1946 for another African-American to get back into pro football. That year, Marion Motley, Bill Willis, Kenny Washington and Woody Strode all made their debuts.
It took until 1950 for the National Basketball Association to integrate. Earl Lloyd, Chuck Cooper and Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton brought down the barrier in the NBA.
Billy Jean King, Babe Didrikson and Jackie Joyner-Kersee have all helped progress women in sports.
Other athletes made their mark by not participating.
Canadian boxers Sam Luftspring and Norman "Baby" Yak refused to attend the 1936 Olympics in Berlin due to the treatment of Jews in Germany under Hitler's rule.
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