Sports provided the focus of President Bill Clinton’s second town
hall meeting on race relations in America. Clinton and leading
collegiate and professional sports figures participated in a lively
meeting and discussion, which was held at the University of Houston on
April 14, 1998. The televised forum was entitled, “Race & Sports;
Running in Place?”
ESPN analyst Bob Ley moderated the meeting, which lasted several
minutes beyond its ninety-minute time slot. President Clinton has used
the town hall meeting format as one of several tools to engage the
American people in the national dialogue on race relations he has led
over the past year. The first town hall meeting was held in Akron,
Ohio, last December.
The wide-ranging discussion, which included collegiate sports icons
University of Georgia Athletic Director Vince Dooley and Georgetown
University Basketball Coach John Thompson, was broadcast live by the
ESPN television network before a national audience. Other town hall
meeting participants included former NFL great Jim Brown, Minnesota
Vikings coach Dennis Green, track and field star Jackie Joyner-Kersee,
baseball Hall of Famer Joe Morgan, San Diego Padres owner John Moores,
San Francisco 49ers President Carmen Policy, St. John’s University
basketball player Felipe Lopez and New York jets wide receiver Keyshawn
Johnson.
America, rightly or wrongly, is a sports crazy country,” Clinton
declared at the beginning of the meeting. The president noted that
sports are important to Americans because “we often see [them] as a
metaphor or symbol of what we are as a people.”
With most of the overall discussion centering on the absence of
minorities in management jobs in college and professional sports,
Clinton attributed the failure of the sports establishment to hire
minorities in management positions as an indication of “something wrong
with recruitment” efforts. Citing his own record of hiring minorities
in his administration, he added that when organizations make credible
recruiting efforts, “there’s a lot of people out there” to hire.
Thompson, who is regarded as one of college basketball’s most
influential coaches, noted that sports’ managers and owners pretend
that racial discrimination does not play a role in hiring practices. “A
lot of people don’t act as if [discrimination] exists,” he said.
Although Thompson was critical of the sports establishment for
failing to hire minorities into management jobs, he defended his
employment and support of White sports agent David Falk, who also
represents several of Thompson’s former players. Thompson, in reaction
to Jim Brown’s suggestion that Black sports professionals have a
responsibility to hire Black agents and other Black professionals, said
he has hired White professionals who have proved to him their loyalty
and their ability to perform well.
