Minorities in Sport

Minorities in Sport:

Andreas Lightstone

April 24, 2008

For many years leading up to and including the year 2008, minorities have been excluded in certain professional sports. The common misconception that most people hold is that they think of a minority as someone of a different race or color. In truth, women as well as physically and mentally disabled people are all included in this category. Everyone should be included in sports, and that seems to be where society is going today.

The Special Olympics was founded by Dr. Frank Hayden in the early sixties. Hayden’s research led him to believe that intellectually disabled people were only half as physically fit as their non-disabled peers. He believed it was wrong to exclude them from physical activity. In the early 1960s, he teamed up with Eunice Kennedy Shriver who founded Camp Shriver, a mentally disabled program which “Promoted the concept of involvement in physical activity and competition opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities” , and in 1968 the first Special Olympic competition was held in Chicago. Since then, 38 more Special Olympics have been held all over North America. To be eligible to join the Special Olympics, “An individual with an intellectual disability must agree to observe and abide by the Special Olympics Sports Rules.” Year round training to athletes willing to participate is offered, and events are created so that participants with similar capabilities can compete with each other. Approximately, “Over two million athletes of all ages are involved in Special Olympics sports programs in more than 150 countries” However, there are problems that have arisen throughout the past years, where athletes participating in special needs sport pretend to have a mental disability in order to win gold medals. During the millennium year’s Paralympics, Spain received a gold medal in basketball. However, 9 of the teammates participating were later found to have no physical or mental handicap. One of the reasons why the special needs sports was started, was because, “In sport, fair play should be more important than results - fair play means that everyone should participate on a level playing field." When athletes with more capabilities are added into the mix there is no longer a level playing field, and it becomes unfair to those with disabilities who have trained long and hard to win. When entering the Special Olympics various tests are performed on applicants. However, athletes can get around these tests if they want too, thus making winning a harder task for the true participants.

The first time women participated in sport was all the way back in 396 B.C., “Kyniska, a Spartan princess won an Olympic chariot race, but was barred from collecting her prize in person.” Since then, women have been accepted into the sports world slowly. Currently, there is a female student that attends Ashbury College who is a member of the Ashbury Boy’s Football team. When she first joined the team in 2005 she played for the entire season without any problems. At the end of the season however, the National Capital Secondary Athletic Association (NCSAA) told her she had not attended a hearing deciding whether she was eligible to play. All the previous games she had stepped on the field for were forfeited.

There are still boundaries in sport which women need to follow while their counterparts, men, must not. This is most likely due to whether some women’s bodies can handle a rough sport played with men. Stereotypically, people believe that men are athletically better than women due to their build and stature. Although this may be true in some aspects, there are women in the world today that are much stronger, faster, and generally better than men in sport. Many sports including anything from football to hockey may not have a girl’s league, but the majority of the time women are allowed to participate. These sports may not necessarily be aimed for women, but they are certainly not excluded from them. However, there are many sports that women would play more of if there was a league where they could play in. For example, there are not very many girls’ football teams anywhere in the world. If there were more opportunities for women to play these sports, they would.

In the 2006 Winter Olympics held in Turin, Italy the Canadian Women’s hockey team brought home the gold medal. Today the achievements of female athletes are celebrated. This is a long way from not being able to collect your prize back in 396 B.C.

A common misconception is that Football and Basketball are the only two sports where racism comes into play. Many people believe stereotypically that you have to be at