Today, sports are known everywhere in the world. This paper involves how an athletic team or competition came to symbolize something more. Throughout history, athletes, teams, and events have reflected broader issues (Gems et al.). Sometimes, they symbolize a pivotal movement for their sport. Other times, they reflect broader societal or international issues.
Jack Johnson V. Jim Jeffries
This match symbolized the fight against racism. In the 20th century, the first boxing match that transcended the sport happened in Reno, Nev., on July 4, 1910. The 7th man to hold the heavyweight title during the gloved period, Jack Johnson, defeated the prior champion, Jim Jeffries.
Many factors made the Jack Johnson v. Jim Jeffries match special. First, six years prior, Jim Jeffries, who reigned from 1899 to 1904, retired without losing any fight. Many people esteemed him and considered him the chief athlete in the universe. Second, two simple champions, Tommy Burns and Marvin Hart, succeeded Jeffries (Davies). However, on December 26, 1908, the world of boxing changed in Sydney when Burns lost his championship to Johnson. Unlike his forerunners, Jack Johnson was a huge man, standing 6 feet one and a half inches tall and weighing 200 pounds. At the same time, he was a black man. After Jack Johnson defeated Burns and became a champion, the reactions of his countrymen saddened him. Instead of rejoicing about the return of the championship to the land of America, they denigrated Johnson. The white men started to look for a white man who could defeat him. Third, this giant, Jack Johnson, rose during the post-Victorian period when all blacks were considered second-class people and interracial relationships were subjected to hostility. As a result, a white man to replace him was highly required. However, Jack Johnson made successful defenses against the white challengers. Fourth, Jeffries became a farmer after retiring and had distended to around 3000 pounds. He weighed 210 pounds. As a result, Jeffries agreed to meet Jack Johnson in the next championship and stated that he was responding to the call for a white man who was to defeat Johnson. However, over many rounds of the competition, Johnson defeated him (Leeds and Von Allmen). Finally, Johnson lost it to Jess in 1915 at Havana and later was jailed for his immoral behavior. Jeffries lost his legacy after losing the championship to Johnson, and thus, he is remembered for losing the fight. Johnson received praise as the greatest defensive boxer in heavyweight history.
Professional Basketball (The Rens)
The Rens is a great basketball team that served as a catalyst for societal equality. It was a team that won various championships even though it was not accepted socially or professionally. This team was made up only of blacks. The court was their next move when they faced various obstacles. Richard Lapchick, the Northeast University’s center director, states that “they were literally the pioneers and recognized that were making a statement in front of the audiences”. He continues to say, “and there were some audiences that did not like the statements.” The team started in 1922, and they complied with many of their on-court actions. John Wooden, a coach who once played against the Rens, bears witness that no team has ever played like the Rens in history. The tactics they used in handling the ball were amazing (Edelman and Wilson).
Bob Douglas, the black basketball father, founded the team at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Douglas began to receive this reputation at 25 years old when he organized two basketball amateur teams. It was at this time that he was not allowed to continue since the team included players who were being paid. This led to the Rens’s birth.
Douglas made a deal with Harlem’s Renaissance Casino in 1923. This casino was opened in 1922. Therefore, Douglas organized the black basketball players into groups and agreed to refer to this team as Renaissance, thus providing the casino with publicity. For instance, many people came to dance and see this team, which incorporated dancing into its presentation. This team was allowed to compete with other home teams. However, it later became the greatest traveling team that had ever been in basketball.
Jesse Owens
Owens proved Hitler’s theories about racial differences wrong. In 1936, the Olympics were complicated. The wrangle began when the Asians were not allowed to participate in the competition. “Whether or not the Olympic Games actually serve their purpose of promoting international understanding remains dubious,” TIME remarked the subsequent week.
Jesse Owens was the bright spot. On August 3, 1936, the track phenom from Ohio won gold in the one-hundred-meter dash. This was after he set a record in that race the day earlier. Before the end of the week, he had won a 200-m dash as well as a long jump and taken first place in the relay.
Not everyone recognized the victories of Owens. Hitler eminently declined to congratulate Owens. Hitler came up with theories that explained why the host countries were defeated. Despite the attempts to explain these wins by the use of falsehoods, Owens proved Hitler’s theories about racial differences wrong.
After the death of Owens in 1980, TIME stated that Owens’s period on the track finally ended up being less significant than his historical timing. “At the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, which Adolf Hitler hoped would be a showcase of Aryan supremacy, Owens won four gold medals in track and field events, a feat not equaled since. The sight of the graceful American’s soaring victory in the long jump and his Olympic-record wins in the 100-and 200-meter dashes and 400-meter relay put the lie to der Führer’s simplistic myths about race.” Therefore, Owens was a hero in 1936 who disproved the various myths relating to race.
Louis V Schmeling
The Max Schmeling and Joe Louis rematch was more than a mere boxing match. This match served as a pinnacle of Louis’s career, and it is recalled as one of the main 20th-century sports events.
As the U.S. moved closer to World War II, the rematch in 1938 between Schmeling and Louis had universal implications. In Germany, Adolf Hitler had risen to authority, and his persecution of Jews, which resulted in the Holocaust, started during 1935. By the spring of 1938, Germany had captured Australia and had centered its attention on Poland and Czechoslovakia.
Hitler preached Aryan racial superiority and conveniently showed Schmeling as a symbol of that superiority. Schmeling was born in Brandenburg, Germany. He won the vacant heavyweight title in the world against Jack Sharkey by a fourth-round foul on June 13 in the 1930s. He held this title for a short time; however, he defeated people like Young Stribling, Mickey Walker, and Johnny Risko. On June 19, 1936, he fought Louis and knocked him out during the 12th round of the fight (White and Houlihan).
The loss barely disrupted the Brown Bomber. After Jack Johnson, Louis became the first black man to win a heavyweight championship after knocking out James J. Braddock in the 8th round on June 22, 1937. Louis was not content with this and stated that he should not be called a champion until he avenged and redressed his loss to Max Schmeling. Therefore, Louis made some defenses and signed for another fight with the one man who had defeated him. On June 22, 1938, in the rematch, Louis pushed Schmeling into the ropes and defeated him. He was paralyzed and claimed to have sustained a kidney injury during the fight (Davies).
History remembers Max Schmeling as an image of Hitler’s Aryan supremacy. In his autobiography, he explains that every defeat has a reason, and that made him a Third Reich toast.
Baseball
According to history, baseball lost its innocence after the year 1919; nevertheless, betting and other improper behaviour were well known. According to history, baseball has been described as a unique event that involved acts of throwing games, which likely happened a lot more than once. In the scandal that occurred in 1919, it is estimated that eight members of the Chicago White Sox had agreed to take money from gamblers to throw the World Series (White and Houlihan).
Jim Braddock
On June 13, 1935, Jim Braddock defeated Max Baer, the reigning champion, in a fight that symbolized German Jews’ Nazi persecution. These two men, Jim Braddock and Max Baer, were Americans. However, Max Baer used to wear shorts that bore the name “the star of daving”. Max Baer’s father was a Jew, but he grew up as a Catholic, taking his mother’s religion. This star represented the Jewish people’s pride. Jim Braddock, commonly called Cinderella Man, won this fight by decision. He defeated Baer when the German Jews’ Nazi persecution was starting (Davies).
Jackie Robinson
On April 15, 1947, Jack Robinson took the Brooklyn Dodgers’ field, and racial isolation in major-league baseball that had lasted for more than six years came to an end. Jackie Robinson was born in Cairo on January 31, 1919. His athletic talent became manifest at a very early age. He joined various activities in high school as well as junior college, such as track, football, baseball, and basketball. He gained fame nationwide in 1940 and 1941 at UCLA. He became the major four-letter man of the school. He was referred to as the “Jim Thorpe of his race” because of his many skills (White and Houlihan).
Jack Robinson, perhaps, is a historically important baseball player. In terms of his effect on a national pastime, he is ranked with Babe, who changed the way in which baseball was conducted. Jack Robinson altered American thinking. Robinson was acknowledged first in the 12th century as the first black baseball player in the major league. He moved forward and became the first player to win the batting championship. Robinson was also the first one to receive the Most Valuable Player award. He was the first to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He won the official Rookie of the Year Award and was the first one to be featured on a United States postage stamp as a baseball player, white or black (Gems et al.).
The statistics only scratched the surface in determining Robinson as a ballplayer. World War II and institutional racism prevented him from playing until he was 20 years of age. As a result, his career lasted for only 10 seasons. His entire batting average was around a solid.311, though because of the shortness of his career, the cumulative statistic is comparatively uninspiring by the standards of the Hall of Fame. However, it is ironic that Robinson’s difficulties with whites in the military resulted in his rising to the list of Branch Rickey’s candidates. This ended up portraying him as the color barrier of baseball. Robinson remains the unofficial African-American spokesman and the man who stood for various civil rights (Leeds and Von Allmen).
Pro Football
Pro football is one of the greatest games that was ever played, symbolizing the rise of sports. A contest between the New York Giants and the Baltimore Colts is the game that propelled pro football. This game was ushered in from the 1950s, when the sport was rated lower than horse racing. Football started overtaking baseball as the national pastime. Welling Mara states, “Pete Rozelle always told me that the reason pro football took off was because that happened just at that time, in that season, and it happened in New York.” Pro football started to capture the attention of the general population of the United States at the beginning of the 20th century. It was an intense subject in terms of rivalry and competition, albeit localized in nature. Even though payment of players was considered unsporting, various teams hired players (White and Houlihan).
Althea Gibson
Althea Gibson, in 1956, made history when she became the first black person to win a French championship, showing the equality of different races. The following year, she won Wimbledon, making history as both the first black player and the first from the United States of America. Perhaps she must have wished to win the worldwide award since she repeatedly participated in the tournament (White and Houlihan).
In the early years, Althea Gibson was not allowed to participate in sports until after Jackie Robinson played in the major leagues. No black person was allowed to play in the United States Championship nationally. She was allowed to play tennis at the age of 23; thus, she became the first black player allowed to compete. Her championship at Wimbledon challenged the widespread discrimination or color barrier that prevented blacks from participating in various sports. She loved playing the attacking game. Therefore, she always played a good game of tennis, which made color discrimination less effective in preventing blacks from playing sports (Davies).
1966 NCAA Championship: UTEP V Kentucky
The 1966 NCAA Championship changed the world. This period was full of racial strife. All-black Texas Western and all-white Kentucky stepped onto the basketball court. During this period of election, the leader of civil rights was moving around, turning to separation as well as poverty along the Mason-Dixon line. The game was played at the University of Maryland. The victory of Texas Western turned this match into a great reappraisal. However, the coach in Kentucky privately complained about this victory (Edelman and Wilson). The victory of the minority team forced many questions to be raised in the sports arena, proving integration resistance, as Michael Cramer, the former president of the Texas Rangers and Dallas Stars, stated. The work of Jack Johnson enabled blacks to make their way into the white boxing universe in the 20th century (Davies).
This victory resulted in the realization that if those schools did not accept black players, they would not win any games, for instance, in basketball, field, track, and football. The impact this game had on racial segregation would not have been realized in their absence. As Cramer states, as a result of these games, he had the opportunity to get into integrated schools and interact with black children as well as play with them. Therefore, the 1966 NCAA Championship match changed the world and resulted in the integration of different ethnic groups, resulting in decreased discrimination (Edelman and Wilson).
John Carlos And Tommie Smith
Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who won bronze and gold, respectively, in a 200-m sprint, raised their black-gloved fists in Mexico during the medal ceremony in 1968, symbolizing a fight against injustice. This became one of the images of sports in the 20th century. These two athletes planned a protest carefully. When Smith and Carlos walked onto the stage, they removed their shoes, protesting against poverty. Similarly, they wore scarves and beads to object to lynching. Whenever a national anthem was played, they raised their gloved fists and lowered their heads. This behavior rocked the universe. These acts had symbolic meaning. “I looked at my feet in my high socks and thought about all the black poverty I’d seen from Harlem to East Texas. I fingered my beads and thought about the pictures I’d seen of the ‘strange fruit’ swinging from the poplar trees of the South.” As it is recorded in the story of John Carlos, therefore, the two showed that they were representing their country in the world of the Olympics; however, they were ashamed of the things that were affecting their country, such as poverty, racism, and the slow movement of America to respond to these challenges. However, they were asked to leave the Olympic stage since this was against the laws and regulations of the Olympics. Even after they left, their images still exist because of the role they represented in giving sports a different significance in the world (Davies).
Muhammad Ali
On April 28, 1967, Muhammad Ali, the boxing champion, declined to be inducted into the Army of the United States of America, promoting civil rights. As a result, he was immediately stripped of his heavyweight championship. He was a Muslim and gave religious reasons for refusing to enter the military forces. Not only was he stripped of his championship, but he was also sentenced to 5 years in prison, fined 10000 dollars, and banned from boxing. He later appealed this and was allowed to return to boxing, and he won three times after even losing (Edelman and Wilson).
Roberto Clemente
Roberto Clemente was an all-time great player in baseball in the 1970s. He won different competitions in baseball. He was a professional player throughout his career. Clemente received national recognition in his career. Apart from his baseball achievements, he also received recognition for other things, especially his ethnic pride. Clemente was a Latino-American, and he was proud of his work ethic. This made a significant impact on the world, leading his name to be used by various institutions such as schools and hospitals (Gems et al.).
The Syracuse 8
The Syracuse 8 were members of the NFL in the 1960s. They played well. After the assassination of Martin Luther, they decided to meet in secret. They looked for ways of obtaining fairness in the face of injustices and thus decided to petition. The petition addressed equal access to academic advisers as well as tutors. As a result, their sports addressed much more than their profession, including the issue of racial discrimination (Davies).
1972 United States Olympic Basketball Team
In 1972, the Soviet Union defeated the United States. This was a gold medal game in Munich. The American team believed it was a stolen glory and that the Soviets never won the game (Davies). As a result, they decided to petition. However, today, they still believe that they are the ones who won the competition and that they were just a few steps from it. This sports activity symbolized more than the event. For instance, a Soviet team member asked the mother of the team about the God he was always explaining and promised to believe in Him if they won the game. After the game, this member accepted God and believed in Jesus (Davies). Therefore, this game brought God into context.
Billie Jean King V. Bobby Riggs
This presented the battle of the sexes. The game was famous in 1973 between Bobby and Billie, a man and a woman. This match attracted many people. This resulted in the acceptance of women’s tennis. Thus, this game brought women’s sports into the picture (Davies).
Ali V. Frazier
In 1971, the two had a legal claim to the world heavyweight championship. Frazier defeated Ali after he had refused to enter the military. Frazier dominated for some time during the match, but at last, Ali won the match. People who witnessed the match went home changed, and Ali’s supporters called him a cultural hero (Davies).
The United States Ping Pong Team
In April 1972, a table tennis match was held during the Ping-Pong diplomacy period. The Chinese invited the Americans to visit the People’s Republic. This invitation resulted in an international diplomatic tool. It later resulted in a presidential visit (Davies).
Alabama V. U.S.C
This is a match that occurred in 1972. It was played well in football, resulting in a change in the football game. As a result, it changed the view of whites about black people (Davies).
The Miracle On Ice And Doug Williams
In the Miracle on Ice in 1980, the American hockey team defeated the Soviets. This was not expected in the world because Russia was a well-trained team. This happened during the Cold War period. This was a conquest in the philosophical fight.
Doug Williams was the first black American to start in the Super Bowl. His historical story gives a reason that inspires players to rise as well as act on whatever they believe (Davies).
The Fab Five, Greg Louganis, Magic Johnson, Arthur Ashe, And Mahmoud Adbul-Rauf 1990s
Greg Louganis was a sports champion. In 1995, he introduced to the world his HIV-positive status and gay life. Magic Johnson and Arthur Ashe also announced their HIV-positive status. Mahmoud Adbul-Rauf, an NFL member, stood for the national anthem, saying it had issues.
The Fab Five in 1991, Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, Jimmy King, Ray Jackson and Juwan Howard, all joined as freshmen at the same time and made it to the championship. They changed the basketball world by introducing baggy shorts and black socks (Davies).
In conclusion, teams, sports, and athletes symbolize something more than sports. Some of these things involve racism, women’s inclusion in games, justice, and the courage to tell the world about HIV.
Work Cited
Davies, Richard O. Sports in American Life: A History. John Wiley & Sons, 2016.
Edelman, Robert, and Wayne Wilson. The Oxford Handbook of Sports History. Oxford University Press, 2017.
Gems, Gerald, et al. Sports in American History, 2E: From Colonization to Globalization. Human Kinetics, 2017.
Leeds, Michael A., and Peter Von Allmen. The Economics of Sports: International Edition. Routledge, 2016.
White, Anita, and Barrie Houlihan. The Politics of Sports Development: Development of Sport or Development through Sport? Routledge, 2003.
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