The glory and the cost of childhood dreams Many teenagers idolize sports figures. They dream of becoming sports stars as they loft jump shots, mimic the home-run swing of their favorite slugger, or hurl spirals at any convenient target. So it is especially shameful to remember that those childhood aspirations were limited for African-Americans until Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Fifty years after that epochal spring, we decided to examine the role professional sports play in the life of black Americans. On the country's professional playing fields, the story could hardly be better.
Blacks largely dominate America's major sports.
The vicious bigotry and hatred that Robinson faced have been replaced by reverential feelings and a meritocracy, where the talents of black Americans are largely unhindered. The embrace of blacks in major sports is so thorough that Robinson's grandson, Jesse Simms, was heavily recruited by dozens of colleges to play football and is a beloved figure among students of all races on his prep school campus. So it was good to see that Jackie's own grandson is able to benefit from the doors he opened and to have a very different experience in life. Paradoxically, though, the success of black athletes has had a sometimes troubling impact. But it's also clear that young black boys are closing themselves off from other avenues of economic advancement as a result of their very normal hero worship.