I recently said that it is time to declare a civil rights movement in college football in a column on ESPN.com. But the call for action must go beyond football.

The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida will soon issue the 2008 College Sport Racial and Gender Report Card. An early look at the results show how pervasive the lack of opportunity to people of color really is in college sports.

Anyone who thought that the election of an African-American as the president of the United States meant that we were entering a race-free or race-neutral era in our society needs to look at the huge gaps between African-Americans and whites as college coaches and administrators.

With all the media attention focused on how few African-American college football head coaches there are, it would be easy to assume that is a unique racial issue in college sport. But that is just the start. It is racially scandalous. Four African-American head coaches out of 119 Football Bowl Subdivision schools - where 46 percent of the players are African-American - verges on scandalous. That’s half what it was 10 years ago.

I was a guest on an episode of ESPN’s "Outside The Lines" on Dec. 14 that focused on the lack of African-American head coaches. Part of the discussion centered on Auburn's hiring of Gene Chizik, who had a 5-19 record as head coach at Iowa State. He was chosen over Turner Gill, who is one of the four African-American head coaches. Gill turned around a terrible State University of New York at Buffalo program, won the Mid-American Conference and beat then-unbeaten Ball State in the championship game. On the same show, Mark Schlabach, ESPN.com’s national football writer, said, "I had two SEC coaches tell me Turner Gill will never get that job because he is married to a white woman." Schlabach said Gill and Florida's Charlie Strong not only face long odds against getting a big-time job at a BCS school because they are African-American but also because of the race of their wives.

We can see how bad it is in college football. It is highly publicized whenever an African-American coach is hired or fired in football and the lack of coaches stands in stark contrast to the percentage of the players who are African-American.

What about the rest of college sports? Who are the coaches? The assistants? Who hires them and what do they look like? Who are our athletic directors? Associate ADs? What do the presidents who hire the ADs look like? How about the conference commissioners of the BCS schools. It is not a pretty picture.

Whites dominate the head coaching ranks on men’s teams, holding 89, 89 and 93 percent of all head coaching positions in Divisions I, II and III, respectively. African-Americans held 7, 5 and 4 percent of the men’s head coaching positions in the three NCAA divisions, respectively.

On the women’s teams, whites held 88, 89 and 92 percent of all head coaching positions in Divisions I, II and III, respectively. African-Americans held 7, 5, and 4 percent of the women’s head coaching positions in the three NCAA divisions, respectively.

As with the head coaching positions, Division III is the least diverse for student-athletes. But the percentages of African-American student-athletes are sharply different in Divisions I and II than for coaches who look like them. In Division I, African-American male student athletes make up 25 percent of the total male student athletes. In Division II it’s 24 percent. In Division I and II, African-American female student athletes make up 16 and 13 percent of the total female student athletes, respectively. In Division III, 9 percent of the men and 5 percent of the women are African-American.

I think most people believe there are very large numbers of African-American assistant coaches, waiting and ready to step up when the opportunity comes. While the numbers are better than for head coaches, whites still held 77, 79 and 88 percent of the assistant coaching positions on the men’s teams and 79, 81 and 89 percent on the women’s teams in the three divisions, respectively. African-Americans held 18, 14 and 8 percent, respectively, on the men’s teams and 14, 9 and 6 percent, respectively, on the women’s teams.

Gene Smith, who is African-American and the athletic director at Ohio State, was also on "Outside The Lines." He is all-too-rare, as African-Americans hold only 7, 4 and 2 percent of the AD jobs, respectively, in Divisions I, II and III. As they do everywhere else, whites dominate the position, holding 90, 92 and 97 percent in Divisions I, II and III, respectively.

As with assistant coaches, many assume there are significant numbers of African-Americans waiting in the wings as the associate athletic director. Not even close, as whites again dominated with 89, 89 and 96 percent of the total associate AD positions in Divisions I, II and III, respectively, while African-Americans only held 7, 8 and 3 percent of the positions at each level.

The president hires the athletic director. Of the 119 FBS presidents, 93 percent (111) are white and 78 percent (94) are white men. African-Americans hold only 2.5 percent of the presidencies in the group.

But at least African-Americans show up in the aforementioned categories. The conference commissioners are the real power brokers in college sport. All of the 11 FBS conference commissioners are white men. Among these 11 men are those that head BCS conferences and hold what are now considered to be among the most powerful and influential positions in college sports. When you look at all of Division I, excluding the historically black conferences, all 30 of Division I conference commissioners were white. Three conferences were led by women as commissioners.

NCAA President Myles Brand works hard for racial equality. However, he needs some new tools to bring real change. It is the end of 2008 and in nearly every major position in college sports, no matter what division, nearly 90 percent, and often more, are held by whites.

We need the stakeholders to get bold with Title VII lawsuits. We need Congress to hold hearings. We need African-American and white players alike to speak out. The system is broken when it is so exclusive. We need to fix it now.

It is time to declare a civil rights movement in college football.

We need a new game plan. We need a new arsenal of weapons that will change the hiring practices for head football coaches. What we have now is a failure.

We also need to revitalize the system of public education that produces our college student-athletes.

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AP Photo/Eric Gay

The late Eddie Robinson would be dismayed by the number of African-American head coaches in Division I-A football right now.

You don't really need a study to conclude that three African-American head coaches out of 120 Division I-A schools -- in a sport in which 46 percent of the players are African-American -- verges on scandalous. That's the smallest number in 15 years.

Members of the Black Coaches & Administrators are beside themselves. That includes Floyd Keith, the organization's executive director, who tells me that everything the BCA has tried hasn't worked.

"I was sure the Football Coaches Hiring Report Card would help move the issue and create more opportunities for coaches," he says. "While it has helped get more interviews for black coaches and more diverse search committees, we have gone backward instead of forward."

I was more than fortunate to be able to become friends with Grambling's legendary coach, the late Eddie Robinson, after being asked to co-author his autobiography with him. We first met in April 1997, when things were looking slightly better for African-American head coaches. At the time, there were eight, an all-time high.

Robinson coached for 56 years -- all at Grambling! When he retired, he had more wins than any other coach, had sent more than 200 players to NFL camps and had graduated 80 percent of his players, back when football graduation rates across the country were around 50 percent. In spite of all that, Robinson not only was never offered a Division I-A job, but was never even offered an interview for a Division I-A university head coaching job.

When he passed in April 2007, I was honored to be asked to deliver a eulogy. I told the 9,000 people assembled that Coach had hoped for so much more progress, but that there were fewer African-American head coaches that April day (there were six then) than there had been 10 years earlier when we met.

Eighteen months later, even that number has been cut in half. I told the audience that we need a rule in college sports similar to the NFL's Rooney Rule, which requires people of color to be included in the interviewing process for head-coaching positions. I said we should call it the Eddie Robinson Rule.

We need it now more than ever.

Robinson also emphasized educating his student-athletes. He literally would walk through the dorms with a cowbell before dawn to get his players up and out to class. That 80 percent grad rate is a testament to his methods. He believed that historically black colleges and universities such as Grambling provide a special opportunity for students to succeed.

Coach would not be happy with the report released Monday by The Institute for Diversity & Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida. It shows that the gap between the graduation success rates for white and African-American football student-athletes has increased from 14 percent in the 2007 report to 17 percent in the new study, although the grad rates for African-American football student-athletes has increased. While the 2008 numbers show that 76 percent of white football student-athletes graduated, only 59 percent of African-American football student-athletes graduated. The Institute arrived at its findings by reviewing data collected by the NCAA from member schools over a six-year period, using the freshman classes that entered college from 1998 through 2001.

There is some good news: This year's study shows a nine percent improvement for African-Americans over last year. But we cannot overlook the fact that 19 of the 68 teams bound for bowls over the next month graduated fewer than half of their African-American football student-athletes, while only one school graduated fewer than half of its white football student-athletes.

Dr. Fitz Hill, now president of Arkansas Baptist College, is one of the 23 African-Americans to ever be a head coach in the history of Division I-A football. Since he saw some illiteracy among recruits as an assistant coach at the University of Arkansas in the 1990s, he has focused much of his career on creating programs to reduce and ultimately eliminate it. Hill says illiteracy is the No. 1 reason teenagers drop out of high school, and many of them wind up in jail.

Some illiterate teenagers get football scholarships.

Hill says, "While I was the head coach in San Jose State, I was recruiting a student-athlete in the Bay area. After watching film of this young man, I told the high school coach that I was going to recruit his player and offer him an athletic scholarship. The coach told me that I couldn't or shouldn't recruit this prospect. I asked why. Had he orally committed to USC, Cal or Stanford? He told me no and dropped his head. The coach hesitantly replied, 'The young man can't read.' Stunned, I said, 'You gotta be kidding.' Then I asked if this young man would be attending a tutoring session or a practice session when school was out. The coach said he would be going to practice.

"I thought, 'How sad,' and wondered how was this happening in 2002. Who would exploit a young man like this? How frequently does this happen? I would soon discover [it happens] more often than I realized. I then thought back to a situation where I was recruiting a student-athlete while working as an assistant coach for the Arkansas Razorbacks. We were having breakfast on his official visit and I told him to order anything on the menu that he wanted. He refused and told me to order for him. I finally understood that he couldn't read and was trying to hide it. This young man signed a football scholarship to play in the Southeastern Conference.

"But there are some questions that need to be answered. Who would pass these young men through grade school while not being able to read? What teachers and principals would do such a thing? Illiteracy is a form of mental incarceration which has greatly contributed to the quadrupling prison population over the last twenty years."

Hill, of course, is so right. Part of the problem of poor academic performance in college comes from poor preparation in elementary, middle and high schools in too many parts of this nation. I believe President-elect Obama will be proactive in getting more resources to these schools as early in his administration as possible. But no president will be able to bring about the wholesale change we really need.

So what do I mean by a civil rights movement in college football?

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AP Photo/AJ Mast

Executive director Floyd Keith says nothing the BCA has tried has worked.

I mean we need more than just another African-American coach or two. We need organizations like the BCA, as well as traditional civil rights organizations, to organize at the grassroots level so that student-athletes and parents can let athletics departments -- and their elected officials -- know that they care about what is going on at our colleges and universities.

I know this is a different era, so we cannot expect civil disobedience and marches to move college football the way they spurred the civil rights movement in the 1960s. But we do need sustained, clear and loud voices to stand up for this brand of justice in sport.

On the level of hiring practices, an Eddie Robinson Rule is imperative. Just as schools can lose scholarships under NCAA president Myles Brand's academic-reform package, a system should be set up that would cost a school scholarships if it fails to interview a candidate of color when it has a coaching opening. There must be sanctions. Bud Selig has mandated that candidates of color must be interviewed for openings for Major League Baseball managers, and it worked. The NFL instituted the Rooney Rule two years later, and it worked.

But the current process in college football is a failure. We need more firepower.

The NCAA says its membership will not agree to the Eddie Robinson Rule. But there is precedent for change in the face of the NCAA's stance.

Back in the 1980s, the NCAA said it could not publish graduation rates because members would not agree to make that information public. But Sen. Bill Bradley and Rep. Ed Towns fashioned legislation requiring the publication of graduation rates that were race- and sport-specific; suddenly, the NCAA was able to do it. The embarrassment of the record under public scrutiny led to Brand's academic reform package, which is a cornerstone of his tenure at the NCAA.

I worked with Bradley and Towns on the earlier legislation. Ironically, Brand, Keith, Hill and I testified about hiring practices in front of a congressional committee this spring. I talked about the Robinson Rule, and Brand testified that his membership would not support it. Towns was on this committee, and he nodded in recollection of that other time when the NCAA said it could not do something.

If need be, part of this civil rights movement might involve going back to the Congress after the Obama administration is in place. No sports organization, college or pro, wants the federal government involved. Just the threat of such an action might be sufficient to get something done.

Prospective students-athletes need a transparent view of the colleges they are considering. The NCAA should find a way to get every student-athlete an annually produced report on each college's graduation rates, broken down by race and sport, along with a breakdown by race of each team's coaching staff. Prospects should know more about where they are going.

Finally, lawsuits are a key. After years of procrastination, Title IX lawsuits changed everything about the funding for women's sports. Since the BCA convention in 1996, I have been urging the organization to take legal action against schools that don't give a fair chance to black coaching candidates. Now, under Keith, it is seriously looking at initiating Title VII civil rights lawsuits in those cases.

For that to happen, we will need a courageous coach willing to take a huge risk that he might never be hired anywhere. The reality, however, is that such a coach's chances to be hired right now are minimal anyway, as 2008 draws to a close.

Brand is a crusader for racial equality. He was as a university president at Indiana and may even be more so as NCAA president. And many athletics directors would consider hiring an African-American head football coach, if they could make the decision on their own. But the administrators in college sports need some new tools to convince boards of trustees and boosters who might resist. We need a new arsenal to blow open the doors of opportunity.

The Eddie Robinson Rule, congressional action and Title VII lawsuits would be a start toward making college football coaches look more like their own players, and more like America.

While NASCAR's Drive for Diversity program might be perceived as an effort to draw more African-Americans into professional racing, the reality is that the campaign is aimed at developing a full range of minority and female drivers and crew members and to expand its fan base in numerous directions. And so far, among Hispanics, NASCAR is making strides.

The program is helping produce promising Latino drivers. Michael Gallegos, who was born in Colorado, finished 17th in the 2007 NASCAR Camping World West Series standings in his third season in the program. And Jesus Hernandez, a second-generation Mexican born in Fresno, Calif., finished 12th in the 2007 NASCAR Camping World East Series standings in his fourth season in the program.

Several drivers, including Ruben Pardo, Rogelio Lopez and Jose Luis Ramirez, were born in Mexico. The elder statesman among Latino drivers might be Carlos Contreras, the first Mexican-born driver to compete in any NASCAR national series. Contreras, 38, broke through in 1999 when he joined the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and finished 14th in his first race -- the NAPA Auto Parts 200 at California Speedway.

"Most people expected me to go to CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams), which was very popular at the time in Mexico, but I chose NASCAR," Contreras said. "I wanted to be the first Hispanic in NASCAR, to open doors in Mexico and with Hispanics to NASCAR racing. I feel I have definitely opened doors for others to follow, including Ruben Pardo. We now have a NASCAR series in Mexico, and the races are broadcast in Spanish throughout the U.S. and Mexico. I feel that what I did started everything."

According to the Simmons National Hispanic Consumer Survey, about 8.9 percent of NASCAR fans are Latino. There was a 10 percent increase between 2001 and 2005, when the most recent survey was taken.

There are Latino team members, drivers and a team owner in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, Nationwide Series and Camping World Series. Felix Sabates, born in Cuba, has owned a NASCAR team since 1987 and was instrumental in making a Mexico City race part of the NASCAR Nationwide Series circuit. Armando Fitz, owner of Fitz Motorsports, has been a Nationwide Series team owner for seven years. Joe Nava, owner of Performance Motorsports, competes in the Camping World West Series. Alba Colon, from Puerto Rico, is General Motors' top engineer for its NASCAR Chevrolet racing program and was one of Hispanic Business magazine's 20 Elite Women last year. Phil Jimenez is a race engineer for the No. 84 Red Bull Toyota team.

But drivers are the faces of the sport.

Aric Almirola, who is of Cuban descent, drives for DEI (Dale Earnhardt Inc.) in the NASCAR Spring Cup Series.

"When fans have someone they can relate to, identify with and cheer for, they become emotionally invested in the sport," said Max Siegel, president of DEI. "I am proud to be able to support Aric's career, and hopefully have a direct impact on the growth of our sport."

There are obstacles, however, and some in NASCAR spoke openly about the challenges they have faced in trying to reach the top of the sport. Asked if he faced racism, Contreras said, "a little."

"The new Mexican guy stood out sometimes, especially to some people in the garage who had never been out of the South," said Contreras, who competed in two races last year in the NASCAR Nationwide Series for Fitz Racing. "I can say, though, that with time, I was seen by most as a regular guy in the garage, and I made lots of friends."

The bigger obstacle is attracting sponsors, Contreras said, because corporate America doesn't really rush to sponsor Hispanic or other minority drivers.

"If sponsors want the Hispanic market, they will go to soccer or music," he said. "… Give me a good car and I will get around the track as good or better than any driver. Why should I be limited with my sponsors because I am Hispanic? It's really not fair."

Ruben Pardo, who drives for Fitz Motorsports, said Contreras helped open doors for him.

"If there aren't big pockets behind you, you just can't go racing," he said. "I am eager to race, but support for me to continue my career is not there right now. I really have to work twice as hard as the next guy. Companies need to support Hispanic drivers. If you had a Hispanic driver competing with a high-profile team or sponsor, I am sure that fans would flock to their support. … It is tough for a Mexican company to spend this kind of money, and U.S. companies hesitate to sponsor a minority. My résumé should impress most anyone, but once they see I am Hispanic, I am cast aside as a Hispanic driver, instead of being seen as a NASCAR driver who has won races and championships."

Clearly, the talent is there. But the sport still needs more top Latino drivers at all levels. And the corporate sponsors still need to fully understand that embracing diversity is a business imperative and that the Latino market has not been fully engaged. Understanding that could be the real fuel that propels the Latino community even further in the world of motorsports.

There are likely to be some stars of Puerto Rican descent in the Major League Baseball playoffs. Chances are Carlos Beltran and Carlos Delgado will continue to help lead the Mets, while Javier Vazquez and Geovany Soto have fans in Chicago thinking big with the White Sox and Cubs, respectively.

They have followed generations of baseball legends from Puerto Rico in what has become a rich tradition on the island, which has produced more than 250 MLB players. Like most people who know something about the role Jackie Robinson played in integrating MLB for African-Americans, many think of Roberto Clemente when they think of pioneers from the island. The Roberto Clemente Coliseum stands as a testimonial to Clemente's life as well as his death in 1972 as a hero.

Far less known, but every bit the pioneer, was Hiram Bithorn. The national stadium that sits across the way from the Coliseum in San Juan was named Hiram Bithorn Stadium. Opened in 1962, it honors the island's first citizen to play in Major League Baseball.

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Hiram Bithorn was briefly with the Pittsburgh Pirates during early 1947, but was waived and later picked up by the Chicago White Sox.

And as we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, it is a special time to reflect on the past and honor the historic figures who paved the way. For Puerto Rican baseball players, everyone needs to look back to Hiram Bithorn.

Bithorn played for the San Juan Senators. He was a fine pitcher but was not the best player on the island, where winter ball was king. It seemed unlikely he would be chosen to break the barrier in the majors. However, a combination of his personal background and the onset of World War II helped pave the way to Bithorn's ascension with the Chicago Cubs.

On April 15, 1942 -- 13 years before Clemente would play in the majors -- Bithorn made his debut. Bithorn was light-skinned, had a name that did not sound Latino, and joined a field of Major League players who had been seriously depleted by World War II. The United States entered the war after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, and more than 70 MLB players had joined the U.S. Armed Forces before the 1942 season. They were joined by almost 140 more before the 1943 season started. That was more than half of the players in the 16-team leagues.

Bithorn's family was of Dutch and Spanish origin, making him look more European than stars like Perucho Cepeda, whose son, Orlando, would become one of baseball's best once the racial barriers fell. Perucho Cepeda had hit .377 in the 1941-42 winter season. Pancho Coimbre hit .438 with the New York Cubans of the Negro Leagues in 1942. But it was Bithorn who got the call.

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Fans watch a game at Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 2006. The stadium was built in 1962 and was home to an MLB opening-day game in 2001.

Bithorn went 9-14 in his first season. In 1943, he went 18-12 with 19 complete games and led the league with seven shutouts. No one from Puerto Rico has broken that record. But Bithorn joined the Army and, as others who had done so, lost his career momentum when he returned. He went 6-5 with the Cubs in 1946 and ended his career with the White Sox. A sore arm hastened the end of what was once a promising career.

Bithorn posted a 34-31 career record with a 3.16 ERA. He completed 30 of the 53 games he started, and finished with eight shutouts. He pitched in the Mexican winter leagues but never regained the touch that would have allowed him back into MLB.

Tragedy struck when a Mexican policeman shot and killed Bithorn, then 35, on Dec. 31, 1951. The circumstances were cloudy at first: The officer said Bithorn identified himself as a member of a communist cell and acted violently. In the end, the police officer went to prison for the murder of Bithorn.

He was still such a source of pride for Puerto Rico that the stadium was named after him in 1962. Now it is no surprise to see great Puerto Rican players in MLB. But when you look at the careers of today's stars, remember they are all walking on the road created by Bithorn.

Watching Hurricane Gustav bear down on the Gulf Coast area with a ferocity reminiscent of Hurricane Katrina nearly three years ago, I have been reeling with the thought that my friends and extended family in New Orleans would face a repeat nightmare. Thankfully, they are all safely outside the city.

As I wondered Sunday night what would happen in the next few days during and after this storm, I remembered my first trip to the area to help in the post-Katrina recovery. I flew to Baton Rouge, La., on Sept. 7, 2005, with the Orlando Magic to help in the shelters. I was angry that my country so badly failed thousands of Americans who were stranded in the Louisiana Superdome and the Convention Center. Almost all were poor and African-American. My life changed that day.

I also have been thinking back to the moments after Katrina when we entered shelters and saw scores of listless, hopeless people with eyes glazed over become transformed when they saw the Magic. Suddenly, there were smiling faces with glistening eyes as they moved toward the players. I saw all the New Orleans Saints shirts and caps people were wearing when they were engulfed in the fury of the waters that flooded their neighborhoods.

Over and over, I saw the power of sport bringing people together and giving them hope. An 87-year-old woman told me her 106-year-old mother regained hope when she saw the Magic because it meant people from outside cared about New Orleans and its people.

I have been working in the world of sport for almost four decades and have seen sport and athletes work to transform society, help it heal and help people believe that strength will return.

And ever since that first visit after Hurricane Katrina, like many other Americans, I hoped I could do something to help the people of New Orleans who remain to this day in such tremendous need.

I have never been a resident of New Orleans, but I became a citizen in my heart with that first visit in 2005. That feeling returned in December 2006, when I met Stanley and Betty Stewart. Since then, my wife, Ann, and I have spent 15 weeks there gutting and rebuilding, often with the help of students in the graduate program in the DeVos College of Business Administration at the University of Central Florida.

Courtesy Richard Lapchick

Stanley Stewart, left, and Richard Lapchick have become close friends following rebuilding efforts in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina three years ago. The City Council of New Orleans named Lapchick an "honorary citizen" earlier this year for his work.

We were at Stanley's home 10 days ago, on the night of Aug. 21, with 52 of my graduate students from the DeVos program who had just done a week of service in New Orleans. Inside the Stewarts' house is what Stanley calls a "Wall of Fame," which features family photos, along with photos of all the DeVos students, Ann, me and our daughter, Emily, who had been woven into the lives of the Stewart family. There are pictures of a crew of more than 20 roofers, carpenters, electricians and plumbers from the Berkshires who were led by Massachusetts State Rep. Smitty Pignatelli and had spent six days doing all the skilled labor to restore the house. And there was also a picture of LeBron James with Stanley and Betty Stewart. More about that later.

During the past several days, as Gustav approached, I have seen Arnie Fielkow on TV. As a leader on the New Orleans City Council, he was in the forefront of preparations. Sunday night, he told me what had become obvious: "This storm is serious."

I have been a close friend of Fielkow, who was executive vice president for business for the New Orleans Saints at the time of Katrina. When Saints owner Tom Benson tried to move the team to San Antonio, Fielkow stood up to say that the Saints, in good conscience, could not leave. Fielkow said the Saints needed to be a part of the community's recovery.

Benson dismissed Fielkow. But the Saints later were forced by the NFL to return to New Orleans when the Superdome, the symbol of so much horror, reopened its doors for fans in 2006. It was another day that showed how the power of sports could bring people together.

Fielkow was elected to the city council and served as its president earlier this year. Back in 2006, he helped arrange our first service trip to the city. Just 10 days ago, he and the city council saluted the 52 DeVos students working for the city's recovery efforts through the Hope for Stanley Foundation. Later that night, at the Stewarts' home, we learned that we had been to New Orleans more than any other group from outside the city.

My wife, daughter and 10 DeVos students and two friends from Boston, Pignatelli and Allyce Najimy, met in New Orleans on Dec. 17, 2006. We talked that night about our expectations. I told the students I was confident that we would never be the same people after that week.

The next morning, an aide to Fielkow, Broderick Green, took us on a tour of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, ending in the Lower Ninth Ward, where the worst devastation took place. Broderick stopped at a spot where two barges had crashed through the levees, letting water pour into the Ninth Ward. Nearby on the other side of the Industrial Canal was the French Quarter, which was relatively safe because the levees broke and flooded the Ninth Ward.

We began to recognize what we were looking at. We saw remains of homes that had clearly not been reinhabited 16 months after Katrina. As we looked more closely at the land around us, we realized that there were slabs of concrete representing all that was left of the homes nearest the breach. Broderick told us that before FEMA would set up trailers and help people return, there had to be water and power. The Ninth Ward received water and power about a year after Katrina.

In all my trips back to New Orleans with first-time visitors, I have always taken them on a similar tour. By now, I know the streets of New Orleans better than my hometown of Orlando. I did this again two weeks ago. We saw five of the so-called "Brad Pitt" homes under construction, a sure sign of hope. Pitt created the Make It Right Foundation to help the reconstruction effort. But throughout the Lower Ninth, after three years of rebuilding, approximately one home on every other block is occupied. Aside from the excitement of the Pitt homes and a handful of others, two weeks ago the Lower Ninth looked too much like it did in 2006, when we became so angry at what we saw.

Stanley Stewart, then 51, had lived in what was clearly a beautiful home prior to the storm. The courtyard was made of brick and wrought iron. Stewart had built his home over the course of many years. In that first meeting in December 2006, as we gutted and listened, he told us about the storm and its aftermath. It haunts me to this day, even though I have heard him tell it dozens of times.

He said he, Betty, their four daughters and their niece, who had since lived in a small FEMA trailer next to what was left of his home, watched the water come across a field in front of their house. He said the water looked like a tidal wave and churned for hours. He pointed to telephone poles that were 30 feet high and said the water went completely over the top of them. Stanley Stewart said that within 10 minutes, his home had gone from being dry to having 14 feet of water inside. He said he and his wife had rarely disagreed about anything regarding the house, but she did not want him to build a second story over the main part of the house. As they scrambled to the second floor, Betty knew that if she had won the argument, her family probably would have been among an estimated 1,800 who died in the hurricane and subsequent floods.

As rescue boats came by the next day, Stanley Stewart told them where to find people who were even more desperate, some even perched in trees across the field. Finally, they made it to the Convention Center. Stanley organized some men to be sure that every woman, child and all who were ill got on the buses when they finally came to clear the area. In doing so, Stewart was separated from his family for months. He ended up in Birmingham, Ala., and after he was reunited with his family, they stayed there until they could get a FEMA trailer more than a year after the storm.

When I spoke with Stanley on Sunday afternoon, he had gotten the entire family back to Birmingham, in the same place they stayed in 2005. A deeply religious man, Stanley told me: "I thank God that we are all safe and all together tonight."

We helped Stewart and his family get back into their home, and formed the Hope for Stanley Foundation. The mission is to organize volunteer student-athletes and people in the world of sports -- through All Congregations Together (ACT), Habitat for Humanity and the St. Bernard Project -- to rebuild dozens of other homes. Of all the things I have been able to do in my 63 years, our time in New Orleans has been the greatest blessing in my life, the life of my family and those of our students.

Stanley and Betty have become close friends who are more like family. They have come to see the students in Orlando three times since our first days of work on their home. After one of their visits, in February, they flew home and discovered on arrival that Stanley's father was critically ill and had to be hospitalized. Later that night, Stanley was with his mom in his front yard when they heard gun shots a block away. The nephew that Stanley and Betty Stewart had raised was shot 18 times and killed.

Courtesy Richard Lapchick

Stewart and his wife, Betty, met LeBron James during the NBA All-Star Game in New Orleans in February. It was an uplifting moment for the Stewarts after so much tragedy in their lives.

Before that happened, I had asked the NBA for tickets to take Stanley and Betty to the All-Star Game, which at the time was about a week away. Ann feared it was too soon, but I asked them anyway.

We went to the festivities both nights and the Stewarts were elated, their spirits lifted from the depths of the loss of their nephew. We were in an NBA hotel the night before the game, and that is where the photo with LeBron James was taken by Emily. As soon as Stanley got it, the picture went up on his "Wall of Fame." He was thrilled when I introduced him to many of the legends of the game. It was sport, once again, lifting spirits.

I will be watching intently with Ann as Gustav moves, praying for the city and its people that we love so much. Stanley Stewart and the 106-year-old woman in the shelter have shown me the resiliency of the people of New Orleans. I believe that their commitment to their community will once again help New Orleans recover from whatever happens this week.

As the 2008 Olympic Games in China have been projected across the globe to one of the largest TV audiences ever, we saw Chinese athletes doing great things in gymnastics, swimming and diving. The enormous popularity of Yao Ming was seen in the opening ceremony and through the basketball tournament. Through last Tuesday's events, Asian nations had won 32 percent of the gold medals, and China itself had won 21 percent.

All along, I wondered what the impact would be on Asian-Americans and people of Asian descent in America when the Olympics ended. The sports industry should be interested because Asian-Americans make up one of the nation's fastest-growing ethnic groups. The aftermath of the Olympics might be an additional catalyst for corporations to create marketing campaigns aimed at Asian-American communities and break the stereotypes underscored by some national teams from Spain.

Until recently, athletes of Asian descent have hardly been heard from in sport in the United States. There are stereotypes that Asians are not interested in or encouraging their children to play sports, that they were not athletic enough but instead were viewed as being super-intelligent.

But the stereotypes have been cracking. In professional golf, Vijay Singh from Fiji and Tiger Woods, whose mother is Thai, are two of the top men, while Asian women are dominating the LPGA. Michelle Kwan and Kristi Yamaguchi created great interest in ice skating, just as Michael Chang did in tennis. We have had Olympic medalists in gymnastics with Amy Chow and in volleyball with Liane Sato. With these successes, there is also a small but growing number of athletes of Asian descent in professional leagues, college, high school and youth sport programs across America.

The current numbers of Asian athletes at the elite levels seem to affirm the stereotype. Major League Soccer has the highest percentage at 3 percent, followed by Major League Baseball at 2.8 percent, the NFL at 2 percent, WNBA at 1 percent and the NBA with less than 1 percent. Male and female college student athletes of Asian descent were 1.7 percent and 2.2 percent, respectively. In each area, there has been only minor, incremental increases in the last five years.

There have been similar, small increases in the percentages of Asians running our professional sports. In the league office, the WNBA is tops with 12 percent of the professional posts being held by Asians followed by 7 percent in the NBA, 4 percent in MLS and 3 percent in MLB. There are no Asian team presidents, general managers or head coaches in all U.S. professional sport. In senior positions on teams, the NBA and WNBA have 2 percent each while the rest have 1 percent being held by Asians. In team professional positions, 4 percent of the posts in the NBA are held by Asians while the other leagues have 1 percent each. There is hardly any Asian presence at the top levels of college athletics departments, and there are no Division I conference commissioners who are Asian. At the NCAA headquarters, 4.8 percent of the chief aides and directors are Asian, while 1 percent of all professional staff there are of Asian descent.

That is a lot of numbers and not many people. What does the future hold?

Major League Baseball has had great stars from Asia. Currently, there are about 20 players from Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, with Japan leading the way with 16. Japan won the inaugural World Baseball Classic in 2006. Yun-Oh Whang, a professor of sports marketing at Kansas State, said he believed "it brought the baseball fans of the world a lot closer because they all learned to respect the other leagues."

But when it comes to the future, Whang looks even more positively at these Olympics: "The U.S. gymnastics team competing in the Olympics right now has two Asian-Americans (Kevin Tan, men's team captain, and Raj Bhavsar). Having those Asian faces and names competing under the stars and stripes is a great education to the American public that Asian-Americans are also Americans."

Another major development from the games is the broadcasting on the nbc-olympics.com Web site, which Whang said is where many Asian-Americans are viewing the games. The site has video feeds from almost all Olympics events, so the viewer does not have to rely on the selection made by NBC. This is the first Olympics where this online video technology is being used so widely.

Whang said this "is great news for many Asian-Americans who can watch their favorite sports either live or recorded any time. ... It is a great tool for many Asian-Americans who inherited a culture of enjoying different sports."

"It means that more Asian-Americans can enjoy the Olympics the way they want to, and it brings them closer to their roots," Whang said. "By watching the Korean women's archery team wining its sixth consecutive gold medal at the Olympics, Korean-Americans get a huge boost for their self-recognition and identity. Thai-Americans would cheer Thai's first weightlifting gold medal in history, and Japanese-Americans would feel proud of Japan's continued dominance in judo. It is all possible because of the extensive coverage on the Internet."

I believe all of this will help Asian-American parents and their children to think more often about a sports career and not only a career in medicine, law or other lucrative professions. Asian-Americans now witness the success, fame and financial rewards of star players, like Yao, who look like them, and that has changed their perception of a talented athlete.

I also think that there will be a significant social impact of Asian-Americans being more involved in sports, which will result in a broader general sense of involvement in the whole society. As more Asian-Americans become fans of hometown teams with Asian stars, they will join fans of various racial and ethnic backgrounds at the ballpark in ways that have not been possible in too many other aspects of their lives in America.

When our sports expand their participants and their audiences, America will be the biggest winner.

When a news event takes place in a closed society, there can be concern about the flow of information and whether communications are open and honest. When the event is the Beijing Olympics, it becomes an even greater concern, as China has positioned itself to show the world what it had become. The Chinese government promised an open press when it secured the Games. It even changed its press laws starting in January 2007, and said the changes would remain in effect through October 2008 when they would elapse.

For months, especially since protesters used the Olympic torch run as a platform to demonstrate, China has attempted to mute some of the potential controversies. Some people believe China is a repressive regime. Others want China to have more religious freedom highlighting the Dalai Lama in Tibet. Some are concerned about China's role in supporting the government of Sudan, which has been responsible for the worst case of genocide in the 21st century -- what the United Nations calls the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today.

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AP Photo/Oded Balilty

Before the Olympics began, the government blocked foreign journalists at the Main Press Center from using many Internet sites. After protests, the Chinese relaxed the restrictions.

In the wake of the tragedy surrounding the May 12 earthquake, China reportedly paid local residents to not discuss the inadequate construction of schools that collapsed killing so many schoolchildren. As the Olympics opening ceremony drew near, 16 Chinese police were killed by two attackers in the Muslim territory of Kashgar, far from Beijing in Northern China. It was in the same city where beggars and homeless people had been removed from the streets. Two days after the opening ceremony, 10 assailants and a security guard were killed in the wake of 12 bomb attacks in the same region where the police were killed six days earlier. Two Japanese journalists were beaten and detained after investigating the two incidents in northwestern China. The government apologized later. The terrible pollution in Beijing is widely reported in the Western press, as were all of the incidents above.

Shortly after the Olympics began, just hours after the brilliant opening ceremony at the Bird's Nest stadium, Todd and Barbara Bachman, in-laws of U.S. men's volleyball coach Hugh McCutcheon, along with their Chinese guide, were attacked by a Chinese man while visiting the 13th-century Drum Tower. Todd Bachman died from stab wounds, while his wife and the guide are recovering. This became a huge news story in the United States and Western media.

Bachman's murder was not mentioned in the main Chinese TV evening news but was reported by the official Xinhua News Agency. According to press reports, Chinese journalists reportedly were censored from tying the murder of Bachman to the Olympic Games. Several Chinese reporters at a news conference held by the U.S. men's volleyball team had their notebooks and at least one tape recorder confiscated afterward. The Chinese press generally reported the "murder of a tourist" and did not connect Bachman to the volleyball coach or cover the concerns of U.S. Olympians so widely covered in the US media.

A Google search resulted in 3,742 "related articles" in the Western media on the murder and its effects on the U.S. Olympic team, but the news was scarcely mentioned, or not at all, by Chinese Web sites. Where it was mentioned, it was mostly as the murder of a tourist and not related to the Olympics. Most of the sites that carried a story have now removed them. Xinhua has now removed the article which downplayed the murder as an "isolated case of extreme behavior."

It appears that the image and legacy of the Games are all-important to China, which has often rewritten its own history when its past did not suit it, especially after the Cultural Revolution, and later after Mao Zedong's death in 1976.

This could be part of that tradition -- to first downplay the murder then to begin removing references to it, eventually obliterating the incident from the history of these Games and polishing the possibly tarnished image of the Beijing Olympics.

The widely respected Human Rights Watch reported just before the Games opened that "the Chinese government has prohibited local Chinese-language media from publishing unflattering news ahead of the Games, leaving foreign media as the only source of factual reporting about a wide range of crucial issues in China today." But it also says foreign correspondents' work on investigative stories is hindered by "systematic surveillance, obstruction, intimidation of sources, and pressure on local assistants."

At one point before the Games started, Internet sites in the press center were restricted so journalists could not get access to human rights Web sites and those critical of China. The Chinese relaxed the restrictions after extensive media protests.

During the torch run protests, BBC Asia-Pacific contrasted the coverage of the same events in the Western press and the Chinese press:

The New York Times describes the torch's progress around San Francisco as an "elaborate game of hide-and-seek … as security officials secretly rerouted the planned torch relay, swarmed its runners with blankets of security and then whisked the torch to the airport in a heavily guarded motorcade."

The Washington Post editorialized that the "Chinese are seeing for themselves how public opinion around the world has been repulsed by their government's cynical and amoral foreign policy in places such as Sudan and Burma and by its repression of the Tibetan minority."

In China, Xinhua painted a generally positive picture with headlines including, "Olympic torch relay concludes in San Francisco without 'major incidents,' " and "Chinese ambassador: Olympic torch relay in San Francisco 'successful.' "

The protests were mentioned in Xinhua's main news story, where it reported: "At one point, Tibetan separatists tried to disrupt the torch relay. They tried to grab the torch, but were pushed back by police escorting the torch relay." Xinhua added: "Many San Francisco citizens expressed dismay at attempts to link the Olympic Games with politics."

China Daily, also state-run, had headlines including: "San Franciscans denounce disruptions."

The British media expressed concern about possible protests before the torch arrived in London. The Times ran headlines that "Police fear Olympic torch protests after China shootings in Tibet," and "Met on protest alert as Olympic torch lands." The Daily Mirror called the London portion of the torch's run a "disturbing farce," and said, "The oppressive security needed to protect the Olympic torch in London should ram home to China's dictators what the world really thinks of them."

Xinhua had several news stories about the London run. One began with "The unseasonable snow in London did little to dampen people's passion for Beijing's Olympic flame as large crowds lined the street to greet the torch relay on Sunday." It described the torch as a "sacred symbol of the Olympic spirit" spreading the "ideal of peace, friendship and progress." While it did publish several articles on the protests, the BBC said the main focus of the Xinhua coverage was the carnival-like atmosphere of the torch run.

There was no coverage in China of a series of demonstrations in cities around the world that took place about the time of the Opening Ceremonies in Beijing. In response to a call from Reporters Without Borders, several hundred demonstrators marched in Paris, ending across the street from the Chinese embassy. About 100 people demonstrated outside the Chinese embassy in Berlin. Reporters Without Borders also organized demonstrations in Rome, London, Madrid and Washington, D.C.

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Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

John Ray, a British journalist and correspondent for Independent Television News, was detained briefly by Chinese police this week after he tried to report on a pro-Tibet protest, but he was then released.

In what the Guardian is calling "the clearest breach yet of the host nation's promise of free media access during the Games," Independent Television News journalist John Ray was detained as he attempted to cover a Free Tibet protest close to the main Olympic zone. Ray was dragged along the ground and forcibly restrained for about 20 minutes. The IOC reacted Thursday, urging China to allow foreign journalists at the Games to report freely and not prevent them from doing their jobs.

Virtually ignored in China, there was a great deal of attention paid in the U.S. press when President Bush attended church in Beijing. There has been little coverage anywhere that Hua Huiqi, the head of an unrecognized Protestant church, was arrested while on his way to the same church service that Bush attended.

The Foreign Correspondents Club of China is the association of Beijing-based professional journalists reporting on China for audiences around the world. They report for news organizations in more than two dozen countries. The FCCC welcomed the promise of open and free reporting in China as the Games approached. However, the FCCC says that foreign journalists have reported "270 cases of harassment, obstruction, and detention since the promise of openness was put into effect at the beginning of 2007." A recent report from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) catalogues the ways in which journalists throughout China are censored, and argues that "China has fallen short of its Olympic promises."

In fact, the FCCC has reported five incidents since Aug. 7. In one of these incidents, police arrested two Associated Press reporters in the northwestern province of Xinjiang and erased the photos they had taken. One was arrested as he watched the opening ceremony on TV. Two Scandinavian journalists were stopped when they tried to interview peasants in Hebei province about the impact of the games on their activities.

The FCCC and the CPJ also charge that the IOC has not responded adequately. The report says: "Many journalists were optimistic, in fact, when the Ministry of Foreign Affairs eased restrictions on foreign media in January 2007. The new rules said foreign reporters could travel without government permission and could interview anyone who would speak with them. But the relaxed regulations crumbled when put to their first test: coverage of the ethnic demonstrations that led to rioting in Tibet in March 2008.

"As soon as anti-government demonstrations broke out, foreign journalists were expelled from Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region. Foreign travel to the Himalayas region was cut off after peaceful pro-independence demonstrations escalated into clashes with security forces and Han Chinese migrants. As the crisis grew, the government expanded its obstruction of foreign media into the neighboring provinces of Gansu, Qinghai, and Sichuan. In the six weeks after the March 14 crackdown in Tibet, more than 50 foreign journalists were obstructed while trying to report on the unrest."

The FCCC said its members had been "detained, prevented from conducting interviews, searched, and subjected to the confiscation or destruction of reporting materials" trying to report on the crisis in Tibet.

It was clear that China had a willing partner in wanting to control the flow of protests and such information in the International Olympic Committee which has, for generations, talked about "sport being above politics" in spite of the clear and obvious examples of the Games being used as a political platform, especially from 1968-84.

Even the USOC did next to nothing when the Chinese revoked the visa of Olympic gold medal speed skater Joey Cheek because of his humanitarian work as co-founder of Team Darfur. USOC CEO Jim Scherr said, "It is unfortunate, but it's between this government and Joey as a private citizen." The USOC did nothing to support Cheek -- the same man who carried the U.S. flag in the 2006 closing ceremony.

While so many were heartened that the U.S. team members chose Lopez Lomong, a Sudanese Lost Boy who fled the conflict there, to carry the U.S. flag in the opening ceremony, I had to think that this potentially very political statement left Scherr, the IOC and the Chinese icy.

In the United States and Western Europe, we have what we regularly call a free press without censorship. I remember going to China in 1976 as part of a delegation attempting to build relationships between China and the United States. In the delegation were leaders of most of the major religions in the United States, including Wallace D. Muhammad, son of Elijah Muhammad, then head of American's Black Muslims. The vast majority were members of traditional Christian churches.

We were the first Western group allowed into China after Mao's death and after the Tangshan earthquake that killed nearly 250,000 people. Frankly, we were surprised we were allowed to go forth in light of these developments. When we landed in Tokyo, we heard on the news that the so called "Gang of Four," including Mao's widow, had been arrested. Hours later we arrived in China but not the slightest sign of a news event of such magnitude was anywhere in the news. We were in Beijing, then Peking, for five days when the mayor told us, "We are so happy to have you that we are going to extend your stay and cancel your trip to Shanghai." We laughed to ourselves because we had heard that there were massive street demonstrations in Shanghai after the arrest of the "Gang of Four." One of the members of our delegation had access to the Voice of America where he heard the news broadcast. We were quite sure this was the reason. Suddenly, we were told that we were going to Nanking and then Shanghai. Our overnight train left without the slightest sign of the arrests and arrived in Nanking, where literally every wall of every street was covered in Chinese caricatures mocking the "Gang of Four" and praising their arrest. During lunch, we saw 250,000 people march down the streets of Nanking supporting the arrests.

Two days later, we arrived in Shanghai which was the "Gang of Four's" base of support. The Chinese had floated the news of their arrest there. When they realized they were able to maintain control, they let the rest of the country know what was happening. Now a big national demonstration, just a few days after the break of the news in Shanghai, was held in the streets of this city. We were taken to the center of the demonstration which was openly displaying support for the regime. Five million Chinese marched to the center of the city and filled streets for miles and miles.

It was a graphic example for all us of China's ability to control the press and population. In trying to undo this image with these Beijing Olympics, China had spent a fortune in preparation. But it cannot control news events. And the Chinese cannot control the U.S. media sending stories back talking not just about the beauty of the Games, but also what was going on in China. Just as it did in 1976 when people outside China knew what was going on inside before the Chinese people did. Our free press was then, and is now, able to tell the story, while the controlled press of China tells its people only what the government wants and only when it wants to partially open up.

As someone who has tried to involve athletes as social change agents for more than 40 years, I have come to know the organizers at Team Darfur -- a coalition of athletes trying to raise awareness about the human tragedy in Darfur (Sudan) -- over the past few months. Team Darfur is unique in its size (nearly 400 athletes from more than 50 countries) and in the power of its voice. Its president is Olympic Winter Games speedskating gold medalist Joey Cheek, who co-founded the organization. Cheek was scheduled to leave Wednesday for Beijing, where he intended to urge China -- which has made a number of major trade deals, including exchanging weapons for oil, with the ruling regime in Sudan -- to push for peace in the war-ravaged Darfur section of Sudan. On the day before his departure, the Chinese government revoked his visa. I spoke with him Friday about the Olympics, China and his visa problems.

Richard Lapchick: Have you been surprised by what has happened to you this week?

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Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Last December, Joey Cheek and actress Mia Farrow led a march to the Chinese embassy in Washington 'to remind China of its responsibilities' about Darfur.

Joey Cheek: Although I was surprised by the sequence of events that happened to me, I am not surprised by the efforts by the Chinese government to squelch anything they disagree with.

RL: How did you find out about the visa being withdrawn?

JC: On Aug. 5, I got a call just after 5 p.m. from the Chinese Embassy saying that my visa had been revoked. I asked why, and they said they did not have to give any reason. I asked if there was anyone else I could speak with, and they said no. That appeared to be it. I know there are people who have been lobbying on my behalf, but we'll see what happens.

RL: Do you think that there is still a possibility that they will succeed and you will still be able to get to Beijing?

JC: I hope so, although I would be very surprised. Going into this event, we have been pushing very hard for the idea of an Olympic Truce to be centered on Darfur. While there already is an Olympic Truce, we wanted it to be tied to something concrete. We thought a focus on Darfur really fit with the Olympic spirit and was a very positive thing all around. While we were working on this, we got calls from at least four athletes from countries all over the world saying that their national Olympic committees had been approached by Chinese officials who told them that their team members who were affiliated with Team Darfur should withdraw or they would be treated as "suspect individuals" subject to screening and extra security measures. The athletes thought they would be harassed in China. We knew already there would be real global pressure by the Chinese to silence any athletes who would speak out about Darfur either while in China or before they arrived.

RL: Do you think that the choice of Lopez Lomong, one of the Sudanese Lost Boys, as our flag bearer is a statement by the U.S. about Darfur?

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AP Photo/Koji Sasahara

Cheek used his gold-medal performance in the men's 500-meter speedskating at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino as a springboard for his humanitarian efforts.

JC: I want it to be clear that Lopez was chosen by his U.S. Olympic teammates and not by the U.S. government. I don't think it had anything to do with my situation. Lopez's story stands on its own and is so amazing. I think that his being chosen is an example of the greatest things about the United States and of the greatest things about the Olympics. That being said, it does serve as an example for us because Lopez came from that region and escaped from the same cycle of violence that has been happening in Darfur. How many more Lopezes are there? Right now, we are talking about 2.5 million. That is why I think it is within the Olympic ideals to talk about the issue of Darfur if you choose to.

RL: Everything that I have read about Lopez or quotes attributed to him since he was selected do not include the political issue. Do you think he might change that after the Games are over?

JC: I think that every person should be able to speak to what they feel comfortable with. Some people feel stronger than others. I think that his life alone stands as an example of why these issues are important. I think the Olympics are meant to address such issues. I think his example, just his story, is a strong enough example of the fact that this is something that we need to fight for.

RL: Have you met him?

JC: I never met him in person, but I hope to.

RL: What do you think is next for Team Darfur?

JC: We are going to wait and see. The Olympics is just starting today, and there are 72 athletes competing in these Games and more than 390 athletes worldwide who are part of Team Darfur. We will continue to reach out to them, now and after the Olympics. Several of the athletes have asked to travel into the region, so we are looking forward to some sort of trip after the Games for them. We will see where it leads.

RL: If you were in Beijing now, what would you be doing?

JC: Well, I would be there in two ways. The first is that I would support Team Darfur athletes however they need might it. I would also be there to support other athletes who might sign on to this.

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Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images

In June, Cheek testified about the crisis in Darfur at a hearing on Capitol Hill.

The second reason for being there is, as an Olympic alumnus and member of the Olympic family, there are a number of forums, meetings and opportunities with the press where some Olympians talk about the Olympic ideals we typically espouse. We have gotten away from them going into these Games, but the Olympics can serve as a force for conflict resolution. The Olympics can serve as a way to improve human rights around the world. The Olympics bring people together. I fervently believe in every single one of those things. But I also adamantly believe that athletes have the right to speak freely whenever they are addressed by the press or whenever they choose. I think there is a time and place when it is appropriate. I believe that freedom for an athlete is crucial and there should not be any pressure on them. They should not feel that they are threatened when speaking out. This is absolutely an essential right that should be guaranteed by the Olympic Charter.

RL: Are there people there fulfilling the roles that you hoped to play if you had you gotten there?

JC: I am enormously proud of all the athletes who joined us. It honestly now appears that they did so at some risk. I don't know how large a risk it is. They signed on with such risk because they felt that it was the right thing to do. No one thought they were going to get rich and no one thought they would get any new media exposure for this when they signed on to it. They did so because Darfur is something that is going on and needs to be addressed and they thought they could help address this by trying to advocate for these people. That is why they signed up. To think this is being considered a negative thing or that they are being accused of trying to be political is just appalling to me.

RL: Do you think in the end that denying you the visa in some way might have helped gain attention for what you are trying to accomplish?

JC: Well, that remains to be seen. It certainly helped expose, I think, some of the dark side that is going into the Games with the Chinese government. I think that in some ways -- I can't say this is a good or bad thing now -- but what happened to me may be like a silent warning for athletes who might speak out that they will be smacked down. I certainly think the response of the IOC is not that, "Hey, for all you Olympians after you have completed the Games, we are going to support you, too." It doesn't appear that there is much backing of their athletes. So, I think, it remains to be seen whether losing the visa is a net positive. The real hope, of course, is that China and the international community as well can improve their role in protecting civilians in Darfur.

RL: Have you had much contact with U.S. government officials since the denial of your visa?

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AP Photo/Susan Walsh

Cheek represented Team Darfur in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., in early July.

JC: The office has had the contact, as I have been busy speaking about the issue. I have seen, of course, the press from the president. The speaker of the House wrote a very flattering letter. Mitt Romney wrote a great open letter as well. I think even [John] McCain and, maybe, [Barack] Obama as well have said that they thought that this was a travesty. The response from the U.S. government has been fantastic.

RL: How do you react to the president's trip to China?

JC: I think that also remains to be seen. I was pleased to see the speech that he gave in Bangkok that really addressed the fact that there were concerns that involve human rights and the rights of individuals. But I don't know yet whether or not it will have any sort of effect. I hope that it does.

RL: Would you like to be able to sit down and talk with the president when he comes back?

JC: Yes, of course, especially if it meant that we could aid in raising the issue of Darfur and trying to do more to protect their civilians. I am extremely concerned about the pressure that athletes are under and I think it is in direct violation of the Olympic spirit, for sure, although I do not know if it is an actual Charter violation. I would love to speak about those things with the president. But more importantly, of course, is that we could actually do some good for the people of Darfur and for the athletes competing in the Olympics.

RL: Have you been able to be in touch with any of the Team Darfur athletes that are in Beijing now?

JC: We have been able to communicate with several through e-mail, especially after the news started getting around that I had my visa revoked. They wrote that they were sorry I was not able to be there. They said they were proud to be part of Team Darfur and will still be able to represent the ideals that we stand for.

RL: What are your plans for the next few weeks in terms of keeping the issue in the media and in the public's eye here?

JC: We certainly have been getting calls from a lot of people, and so we have been responding as quickly as possible. I think that we really need to continue to watch and see how things develop as the Games continue. I have not at all lost the belief that the Olympic Games can and should be a great force for bringing people together and for addressing some of the human rights issues that we have been talking about. I think we will be able to continue with that message and continue to talk about the role China could play if it so chose in helping the situation in Darfur. Hopefully, this effort will stand as an example for future Games of ways in which we can be part of the Olympics and still be able to fight for those who are suffering all over the world.

As Venus and Serena Williams reached the 2008 Wimbledon final, many noted the great athletic accomplishments for the sisters, and fewer noted it as another racial milestone in sports. Venus's fifth singles title is surely remarkable, but it pales in comparison to the trailblazing efforts of Althea Gibson at Wimbledon in 1957.

In 1989, we honored Arthur Ashe when I was director of Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society. The first thing Ashe said in his acceptance speech at the ceremony was, "I would not have had the chance to do what I have been able to do if Althea Gibson had not blazed the way for me."

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AP Photo

At Wimbledon in 1956, Althea Gibson was beginning a dominating three-year run through the top levels of women's tennis.

The daughter of a sharecropper, Gibson titled her autobiography, "I Always Wanted to be Somebody." By the time the book was released in 1958, she definitely was somebody. By then, she'd won her first Grand Slam event with victories in both the singles and doubles in the French Championships (now the French Open) in 1956. Her doubles partner then was Angela Buxton, who was Jewish. That meant Buxton and Gibson had to confront anti-Semitism and racism, respectively. Still, they repeated their doubles victory at Wimbledon later that year.

Buxton was the first Jewish champion at Wimbledon, and Gibson was the first African-American champion. An English newspaper reported their victory at Wimbledon under the headline "Minorities Win."

Gibson was to win a great deal more, including singles titles at both Wimbledon and the U.S. Championships (now the U.S. Open) in 1957 and 1958. In 1957, she earned the No. 1 ranking in the world, and she was named The Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year in 1957 and '58. She was the first African-American female to win that award.

At age 31, she suddenly retired from amateur tennis in 1958. There was no prize money and there were no endorsement deals for women in that era. There was no pro tour for women, so Gibson could only earn money in exhibition matches.

Growing up impoverished in Harlem, Gibson changed tennis. She became the first African-American tennis star to be hailed internationally during an era when sexism and racism were abundant. The successes of Serena and Venus Williams are so important; but compared to Gibson's achievements, they are faint knocks on the door at the elite level of tennis.

Hopes were high for other African-American women after Gibson won at Wimbledon, but it took 42 years for the next such champion to emerge, when Venus Williams won the first of her five singles titles there in 2000. Other women of color to win that coveted crown were Australian Yvonne Goolagong Cawley (1971 and 1980), Brazil's Maria Bueno (1959, 1960 and 1964) and Spain's Conchita Martinez (1994). Serena Williams won Wimbledon's women's singles titles in 2002 and 2003.

Born in 1927 in Silver, S.C., Gibson's family moved to Harlem in 1930, where they lived on welfare for most of her youth. Developing her early skills from table tennis in public parks, she began to win at that game in Police Athletic Leagues and Parks Department-sponsored tournaments. Musician Buddy Walker gave her the first opportunity to play tennis and helped her to become a member of the Harlem Cosmopolitan Tennis Club, a group of African-American athletes. In 1942, Gibson played and won her first tennis tournament, which was sponsored by the American Tennis Association. Later, she was introduced to a physician from Lynchburg, Va., Dr. Walter Johnson, who mentored her, providing the opportunity to play more and improve her game. Johnson later became an influential person in Ashe's life.

In 1946, Gibson decided to further pursue her tennis career and moved to Wilmington, N.C., to work under Dr. Hubert A. Eaton while she attended high school. She won the first of her 10 straight ATA women's singles national championships in 1947.

Her tennis career continued to rise fast while she was a student at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, from where she graduated in 1953.

At the time, tennis was virtually 100 percent segregated. In fact, Gibson didn't compete against white tennis players for the first time until 1949. In July 1950, Alice Marble wrote an editorial for American Lawn Tennis Magazine in which she said, "Miss Gibson is over a very cunningly wrought barrel, and I can only hope to loosen a few of its staves with one lone opinion. If tennis is a game for ladies and gentlemen, it's also time we acted a little more like gentlepeople and less like sanctimonious hypocrites. … If Althea Gibson represents a challenge to the present crop of women players, it's only fair that they should meet that challenge on the courts."

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AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus

Champion Venus Williams, left, and her sister Serena, right, played for the women's singles title at Wimbledon last Saturday, 51 years after Gibson won the first of her two titles there.

Marble said that if Gibson were not given the opportunity to compete, "then there is an uneradicable mark against a game to which I have devoted most of my life, and I would be bitterly ashamed."

In 1950, Gibson played in the U.S. Championships for the first time.

In 1953, she took part in a U.S. State Department goodwill tennis tour to Southeast Asia. When she returned from the tour, the big victories began to pile up, leading to the 1956 French Championship.

Gibson won 56 singles and doubles titles during her amateur career in the 1950s, and won 10 major titles after the 1956 French Championship. Eventually, she was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame, the International Scholar-Athletes Hall of Fame and many others.

After her retirement from amateur tennis, she released a record album, "Althea Gibson Sings," and later, she appeared in the film "The Horse Soldiers." Her "pro" tennis career included a tour with the Harlem Globetrotters, playing exhibition tennis. Reportedly, she made $100,000 in matches before the Globetrotters games. In 1964, Gibson began playing professional golf on the LPGA tour.

In 1971 at the age of 44, she tried a comeback in professional tennis, but was far past her prime and could not compete with the younger players.

In 1975, Gibson was named the manager of the East Orange, N.J., Department of Recreation, a position she held for 10 years. She was also the New Jersey state commissioner of athletics from 1975 to 1985, and she served on the state's Athletics Control Board until 1988 and on the Governor's Council on Physical Fitness until 1992, when she retired.

Gibson began experiencing health problems in the 1990s and suffered a stroke in 1992. She also had two cerebral aneurysms. These health problems caused a significant financial burden on her, and she became a recluse, rarely seeing people or being seen in public. Again living on welfare, Gibson was unable to pay for her medical or living costs. Eventually, Gibson called her old doubles partner, Buxton, and told her she'd been contemplating suicide. Without informing Gibson, Buxton arranged for a letter requesting support to appear in a tennis magazine. Nearly $1 million poured in from around the world.

Gibson died on Sept. 28, 2003, at the age of 76. I attended the funerals of both Ashe and Gibson. Ashe, who hailed her as his champion and role model, drew thousands from across the globe to his funeral in Richmond, Va. Perhaps because she'd been a recluse for nearly a decade, the crowd that came to Gibson's services numbered in the hundreds but did not quite fill the Trinity and St. Philip's Cathedral in Newark, N.J.

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AP Photo/Susan Ragan

Even Arthur Ashe, shown here being inducted with Gibson into the Eastern Tennis Association Hall of Fame in 1988, credited Gibson with blazing a trail for him.

Alan Schwartz, the president of the United States Tennis Association, told those who gathered there, "She simply changed the landscape of tennis. … Gibson was no less a trailblazer than baseball great Jackie Robinson or tennis champion Arthur Ashe, although she received less recognition for her accomplishments. Arthur Ashe's job was not easy; but if he had to climb a hill, Althea Gibson had to climb a mountain. She was the original breakthrough person."

Zina Garrison, the next African-American woman after Gibson to reach the Wimbledon final (she lost to Martina Navratilova in 1990), eulogized Gibson, too.

"Althea used to say she wanted me to be the one who broke her barrier, to take the burden off of her [as the only black woman to have won Wimbledon]," Garrison said. "She showed me the stall where she dressed and where she popped the champagne when she won. She knew she opened the door for all of us, and she was so excited about all the women who followed her."

After Gibson passed away, Venus Williams released a statement honoring her role model: "I am grateful to Althea Gibson for having the strength and courage to break through the racial barriers in tennis. Althea Gibson was the first African-American woman to rank number one and win Wimbledon, and I am honored to have followed in such great footsteps."

I surmise that Gibson was there in spirit Saturday when Venus won her fifth Wimbledon title.

Her legacy is being carried on by the Althea Gibson Foundation, which was founded "for the primary purpose of identifying, encouraging and providing financial support for urban youth who wish to develop their skills and talents in the sports of tennis or golf, and have decided to pursue a career as a student athlete at the post-secondary level. The Foundation will continue her work to encourage young people to utilize sports to help improve upon the social condition of urban America and to promote global unity."

Gibson once said, "I hope that I have accomplished just one thing: that I have been a credit to tennis and my country."

She was a credit to all of humanity. And she blazed the trail for the Williams sisters.

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Blair Cross was the only black female swimmer in the ACC last year. Brielle White graduated from Virginia in 2006; for four years, she, too, was the only black female swimmer in the ACC. Cross and White share a distinction the organizers of the National Black Heritage Championship Swim Meet want to erase.

This Memorial Day weekend, I attended the event, which was sponsored by the Central Florida YMCA in Orlando. My daughter, Emily, was a high school swimmer. Over the years, we watched a number of big meets at the YMCA Aquatics Center, where this meet was held. Out of the more than 2,000 swimmers we must have seen there, I can recall seeing only three African-American competitors.

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Courtesy Maryland University

The University of Maryland's Blair Cross says people are surprised to learn she's a swimmer.

At the National Black Heritage Championship, there were 500 African-American swimmers.

But the YMCA had more than competition as motivation to bring the event to Orlando. In Florida, drowning is the leading cause of accidental death of children younger than 4, and the state has the second largest number of drowning deaths in the nation. For children ages 5 to 14, drowning rates for African-Americans are more than two and a half times higher than those for white children of similar age, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Nine drown each day, and that number is increasing.

"We want to save families from childhood water-related tragedies by surrounding kids with swimming opportunities and role models," said Jim Ferber, CEO of the Central Florida YMCA.

In the 2005-06 academic year, the last year the NCAA published the data, 107 African-American male and female swimmers competed in Division I, compared with 7,121 whites, 207 Asians and 213 Latinos. African-Americans represented .012 percent, then, of the 8,515 Division I swimmers (which also includes Native Americans, international students and people categorized as 'other.'). In other words, Asians and Latinos were twice as likely as African-Americans to be on a Division I swim team, and whites were nearly 70 times as likely. The percentages were similar in Divisions II and III.

USA Swimming, the sport's sanctioning body, has 280,000 members. Less than 1 percent are African-American and Latino.

Cross says people regularly are surprised when she is identified as a swimmer. A common comment, she said: I thought you would sink in water. At the University of Maryland, where she goes to school, she often is referred to by other students and competitors as "the black swimmer." When she tells people she goes to Maryland but doesn't identify the College Park campus, she said people often assume she goes to the less academically rigorous University of Maryland, Eastern Shore, where the student body is heavily minority.

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Eric Kelley, UVA Athletics

Brielle White was a seven-time all-American at Virginia.

"I know I am a role model for other young African-American girls," she said. "They see me swim, and it gives them the confidence to swim competitively. I tell them to jump in, do your best and have fun."

Brielle White was a seven-time All-American at Virginia and now hopes to land a spot on the U.S. Olympic team. The first African-American college champion was Chicago State's Fred Evans, who won the 100-yard breaststroke at the 1975 NAIA swimming championships. It took another 15 years for Anthony Nesty to become the first male swimmer of African descent (he is Afro-Caribbean) to win an NCAA championship. At the University of Florida, he won the 100-meter butterfly three times (in 1990, '91 and '92) and also won the 200 in 1992. Nesty was born in Trinidad and Tobago, and his family moved to Suriname when he was very young. Swimming for Suriname in 1988, he became the first swimmer of African descent to win an Olympic gold at the Seoul Olympics.

Anthony Irvin won gold in the 50-meter freestyle at the Sydney Games in 2000.

Maritza Correia won both the 50- and 100-yard freestyle in the 2002 NCAA championships, becoming the first African-American woman to win an NCAA championship. In both events, she set American records, bettering the marks of two Olympic gold medalists (Amy Van Dyken and Jenny Thompson) in the process. Correia won a silver medal in Athens in the 400 freestyle relay. She was the first African-American woman to make the U.S. Olympic swim team and the first to win a medal. (Though her parents are from Guyana, Correia was born and raised in Puerto Rico, and so is also considered to be the first Hispanic-American to set a U.S. swimming record.)

Today, Sabir Muhammad is arguably the best-known African-American swimmer. A 6-foot-7 man from Atlanta, some people who spot him think he is a basketball player. It was not easy, but Muhammad's work ethic got him to the elite world in swimming, where he broke 10 American records.

Swimming, like golf and tennis, has been considered a "country club" sport. Yet despite the success of swimmers such as Muhammad, Correia and Irvin, swimming to date has not prduced a Tiger Woods or a Venus and Serena Williams. Until that happens, it's likely the swimming pool will remain a frontier for African-American athletes.

There have been widely held assumptions by whites that African-Americans cannot swim. Former Los Angeles Dodger vice president Al Campanis even used this stereotype in his infamous moment on "Nightline" in 1987, when he talked about blacks not having the necessities to be big league managers. Unfortunately, when one community accepts stereotypes about another, members of the community that's stereotyped often come to believe it as well. In this case, that might have kept some blacks from seeking out opportunities to swim competitively. Clearly, more pools are available in suburbs and in affluent communities where country club membership is possible. That is one reason why the YMCA is now involved with a push to teach swimming in its urban facilities.

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Courtesy Maryland University

Maryland's Cross understands that she is a role model.

If we are going to produce more elite African-American swimmers, then high school and college coaches will have to look for the African-American swimming clubs where excellent training is taking place to bring them to mainstream attention and create the potential for more media coverage and scholarships.

I went to the Black Heritage Meet with my friend Anita DeFrantz. She knows the meaning of being the "first African-American woman" in a number of different arenas. She was the first to make the U.S. Olympic rowing team and the first to win a rowing medal in 1976. Now considered by many as the most powerful woman in sports through her leadership positions on the International Olympic Committee, DeFrantz was excited to see all these youthful African-American barrier breakers.

"I wanted to swim competitively when I was their age, but an African-American girl had no outlet to swim," she said. "My being a competitive athlete prepared me for everything that followed in life. I think it is great that these kids are getting this opportunity."

Said Wayne Humphrey, vice president of government relations for Central Florida YMCA: "When you look into their eyes, you can see they believe they have a future. Their aspirations and their hope is grounded in their experience as swimmers, as people and as future leaders."

This isn't the only program to get African-American kids in the pool. When teenager Joshua Butts drowned in a lake two years ago, his mother, Wanda Butts, started The Josh Project to teach inner-city children in Toledo, Ohio, how to swim. The program serves 60 kids at a time, is growing in popularity and has a long waiting list.

In 2001, Muhammad joined with the Atlanta Boys & Girls Club to launch Swim for Life. The programs provide swimming opportunities for inner-city youth to teach kids how to be safe in the water and also spark their interest in swimming. Muhammad called swimming a "crucial life skill."

"No one dies from not being able to play basketball," he said.

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Eric Kelley, UVA Athletics

White has aspirations of making the U.S. Olympic team this summer.

Five years ago, USA Swimming was in the process of creating a national campaign to increase the minority presence in swimming, and it launched its Make a Splash program in 2004 to increase exposure to swimming in minority communities. At the time, Swim for Life lacked funding. USA Swimming invested $1 million and the Atlanta Falcons Youth Foundation gave $500,000, and they have made Swim for Life the model.

The film "Pride," released in 2007, chronicled the life story of Jim Ellis, the Philadelphia swim coach who has trained many of the nation's best African-American swimmers. Having his story in a popular medium might help increase interest.

Breaking barriers, of course, conjures up images of freedom. Historically, one of the biggest is the underground railroad and the role it played in helping slaves escape during the 19th century. Trice Davids was a runaway slave from Kentucky. In 1831, with his slave master in pursuit, Davids dived into the Ohio River. His owner could not find a boat to go after him. Assuming Davids had drowned, his owner reportedly said he must have traveled where he was going on an underground railroad. Davids made it to Ripley, Ohio, and became a free man. Thus, according to some historical accounts of the underground railroad, one of the most famous institutions in the history of African-Americans was initiated by an African-American swimmer.

Though many obstacles are left to be overcome, these programs and events appear to be the foundation blocks. I look forward to attending next year's National Black Heritage Championship Swim Meet and following the careers of Cross and others ready to take the national stage in a sport that is changing to look more like America.

Tuesday is Jackie Robinson Day, commemorating the 61st anniversary of Robinson's 1947 debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers, which broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball. A few weeks ago, I sat with Rachel Robinson, Jackie's elegant and extraordinary wife who works to carry on his legacy, at the Jackie Robinson Foundation Banquet at the Waldorf in New York City. She knew that the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports at the University of Central Florida was about to publish the 2008 MLB Racial and Gender Report Card, as we do annually near the start of the baseball season, and she asked how it looked.

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Getty Images

Jackie Robinson would be confused by the declining numbers of African-Americans in baseball uniforms these days.

We released that report Tuesday morning. MLB received its highest grade ever for racial hiring practices (an A-minus) and an improved -- but hardly great -- grade for gender (C-plus).

I think Jackie Robinson would be pleased that at least part of his dream of increasing the numbers of African-Americans in baseball, on and off the field, has been achieved. When he passed away in 1972, African-Americans were growing in numbers on the field, but front offices and league offices were run almost exclusively by white men. Jackie no doubt would have figured that growth on the players' side would continue, although he likely would have had a less clear picture for the prospects in management. So he'd be surprised that now, more than three decades later, the trends in African-American presence in MLB have taken the opposite direction. In 1972, Robinson could not have foreseen how the emergence of Latino, and to a lesser degree, Asian ballplayers has changed the game. But since Robinson was all about inclusion, I believe he would welcome that development.

As Rachel is now, Jackie would be concerned about the declining percentages of African-American players in Major League Baseball. The game has the lowest percentage (8.2) of African-Americans in the two decades that we have published the Report Card. That number is less than half what it was in 1997 on the 50th anniversary of Robinson's debut with the Dodgers, when African-Americans made up 17 percent of the players, and less than the percentage of blacks in the general population of the U.S. (12.3 percent).

The reasons for the decline are complex. MLB has struggled with an image problem that it hasn't welcomed African-Americans into front offices since Los Angeles Dodgers VP Al Campanis went on "Nightline" on the 40th anniversary of Robinson's debut in 1987. In an answer that stunned host Ted Koppel, Campanis responded to Koppel's question about why there were so few African-Americans running the game by saying blacks might not have "the necessities" to do more than play the game.

Another contributing factor, perhaps, is that Barry Bonds, arguably the biggest African-American baseball star of his generation, is one of the most vilified athletes ever -- deservedly or not -- in spite of the fact that he broke one of the most revered records in the history of Major League Baseball. The media paid far more attention to Bonds' widely assumed steroid use than it has to other African-American stars such as the Indians' C.C. Sabathia, who won the AL Cy Young Award in 2007 and who has been outspoken about the decline of African-American players.

If you are a young African-American athlete trying to decide what sport to pursue, you find superstar role models far more often in the NBA and NFL who may inspire your decision. You may also struggle to figure out how and where to play baseball, if you come from an urban area where there are few fields. If your family doesn't have the resources, you might not be able to buy the equipment or pay the fees to join a youth travel team. And if you want to win a college baseball scholarship, these numbers might stop you in your tracks: NCAA Division I-A programs average 100 full scholarships for football, 13 for basketball and only 11.5 for baseball. Many of the latter are split into partial scholarships to share among several players.

The overall effect is that the pipeline feeding African-American players into the major leagues is even less populated than Major League Baseball itself. Less than 7 percent of the players at the college level are African-American, and the numbers decline even more at the high school and youth sport levels. Meanwhile, African-Americans make up nearly 80 percent of the players in the NBA and nearly 70 percent of the players in the National Football League, and they dominate as well at the college level.

The economics of the game might also be a factor. Baseball teams often sign three or four Latin American players for every young African-American prospect. Baseball has made significant efforts to try to fill the void. The new Compton Academy, modeled after baseball academies in the Dominican Republic and other places, should be helpful, as will MLB's longstanding Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) program. But in spite of those efforts, it appears that baseball will virtually skip a generation of African-Americans. If there are to be increases, they will come in the future and not in the short term.

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Rich Pilling/Getty Images

Rachel Robinson, Jackie's wife, is working to carry on the legacy her late husband started on April 15, 1947.

Jackie Robinson was about opportunity for all, so I am sure he would like the fact that 40 percent of MLB players now are players of color (29 percent Latinos), which is near baseball's all-time high. He wouldn't be content, but he would see it as progress that there are four African-Americans and four Latino managers at the helm of their teams. That is two more African-Americans than started the 2007 season.

However, there is no doubt Jackie would be dissatisfied that there are only two African-American and one Latino general managers at the major league level, in spite of the fact that that is an all-time high for MLB. The only Latino GM is the New York Mets' Omar Minaya; Ken Williams of the Chicago White Sox and Tony Reagins of the Los Angeles Angels are the only African-American GMs. This is baseball's worst area, and MLB is way behind both the NBA and NFL.

Robinson might have a smile on his face if he showed up at Major League Baseball's offices today and saw that 28 percent of the staff are people of color and 42 percent are women. Likely, he would give commissioner Bud Selig a pat on the back for that. But he would be on Selig's case about the fact that those percentages are significantly lower at the team level. And in a nod to Rachel and the issue of equity for women, he would surely tell the commissioner that he would never accept a C-plus as a grade from one of his own children, and that he hopes MLB will soon fix the lack of opportunities for women.

We are fortunate that the Robinson legacy is alive today. He changed America. Baseball, like America itself, is not perfect, but it is surely better because he helped inspire it to be. Thank you, Jackie and Rachel.

As the Sweet 16 approaches, the glory and dreams of alumni, fans, students, faculty, administrators, and especially the student athletes of the 16 men’s and women’s teams that have survived to this point have raised spirits throughout the country.

With the television, print and Internet coverage, the excitement comes with a fever pitch. But the question I ask at this time each year is “What happens to those student athletes whose eligibility expired when their teams were beaten, and even still what about those whose eligibility will end after the Final Four for those that get there?” Their fate depends largely on their school’s commitment to the balance between academics and athletics.

Last week, the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport released a study of the graduation rates of all the teams in the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. I am happy to say that the report has consistently shown annually increasing graduation rates across the board, a shrinking of a gap between African-American and white student athletes’ graduation success rates, as well as the consistent academic excellence of female student athletes, both African-American and white.

This year more than 60 percent of the men’s basketball teams and 98 percent of women’s teams graduated more than 50 percent of their student athletes. The 50 percent mark seems to be the standard goal among NCAA Division I schools. On the high end, nearly 35 percent of men’s teams and more than 80 percent of women’s teams graduated 70 percent of their student athletes. Many faculty members and academic administrators would love that 70 percent to be the real goal for all programs. The fact that more than 20 of 65 men’s tournament teams and more than 50 of the women’s teams had done this shows that it can be done and not just by elite schools.

Women’s basketball student athletes have done significantly better than their male counterparts. This year was no different. More than 10 schools had 100 percent graduation rates among the women’s teams. Only Western Kentucky matched the perfect mark among the men’s field.

The difficulty for me is, even as these graduation rates improve, the gaps between African-American and white student athletes’ successes academically is still too big. Here are some examples:

•  34 percent of the men’s tournament teams had a 30 percentage point or greater gap between the graduation rates of white and African-American basketball student athletes.
•  44 percent had a 20 percentage point or greater gap between the graduation rates of white and African-American basketball student athletes.
•  61 percent of the men’s tournament teams graduated 70 percent or more of their white basketball student-athletes, while only 30 percent graduated 70 percent or more of their African-American basketball student athletes.
•  83 percent graduated 50 percent or more of their white basketball student athletes, but only 57 percent (43 schools) graduated 50 percent or more of their African-American basketball student-athletes.

Purdue would be in the
men’s Final Four if the
tournament were based
on graduation rates.

African-American basketball players graduate at a higher rate than African-American students who are not student athletes. But the graduation rate for African-American male students as a whole is only 37 percent, versus the overall rate of 61 percent for male white students, a horrible 24 percentage point gap. The graduation rate for African-American female students as a whole is 48 percent, versus the overall rate of 66 percent for female white students, a disturbing 18 percentage point gap. Our predominantly white campuses too often are not welcoming places for students of color, whether or not they are athletes.

In addition, schools are recruiting many African-American basketball players from urban areas. Too many urban schools are underfunded and cannot deliver the resources that would level the academic playing field. This makes it far more difficult for student athletes and students in general to be successful. In the meantime, admissions officers need to admit only students who can succeed academically. The use of academic progress rates to measure schools’ success in retaining scholarship athletes and keeping them eligible in each sport is making this more likely.

Soon we will have the fourth year of APR reports, the reform package that NCAA President Myles Brand helped implement, which has so much promise. For the first time, the NCAA has sanctions for schools that do not meet the academic standards and incentives for those that consistently do well.

As I travel to various campuses speaking to college student athletes, athletic departments and student bodies, I am regularly told that as a result of the APR, athletic departments are more likely to admit only student athletes who they are confident can succeed. While I have said this should have been the case throughout the history of college sport, reality shows that it has not been that way. Now they do not want to get penalized and lose scholarships. This package hopefully will bring about improvement.

I hope that in the future the APR, like the graduation success rates, will include a breakdown by race to make sure that some schools do not use their overall success with white basketball players to mask whether their African-American students are not keeping pace. Brand has been a great leader on this and other issues, and I have full confidence that he will succeed further toward success in the near future.

Right now we do not know who will make it to the men’s and women’s Final Fours. But if it were based on graduation rates, the men’s bracket could include Butler, Davidson, Notre Dame, Purdue and Western Kentucky, while the women would be harder to choose since more than 10 teams had a 100 percent graduation rate.

I remember talking to Dean Smith about Charlie Scott nearly 25 years after Scott became the first African-American scholarship athlete at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Coach Smith had called me after he read that the Center for the Study of Sport in Society, which I had founded at Northeastern University, had started a program that was using former athletes to train young people to deal more effectively with racial tensions and conflict. It was called Project Teamwork and went on to be called "America's most successful violence prevention program." Coach Smith was inquiring about it because he thought Scott would be a perfect leader for Project Teamwork. Amazingly, Smith made the call during the week that UNC was about to play in the Sweet 16 at the 1990 NCAA Tournament. What coach calls someone during that week to talk about a player who had left his program decades before?

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Vernon Biever/WireImage

After he left North Carolina, Charlie Scott spent two years in the ABA and eight years in the NBA, including three seasons with the Phoenix Suns.

I was a college senior when Scott enrolled at North Carolina, and Joe Lapchick, my dad, had just ended a 50-year career in basketball. He said that Dean Smith was the perfect coach to break the racial barrier at UNC; and that from what he had read, Charlie Scott was a great choice. As a New York City product, Scott was well-known to my father, the former coach of St. John's and the Knicks. Scott was not only a great player, but was also valedictorian as a high school senior. That was unusual at the time for a student-athlete, whether he was white or black.

Nigerian Edwin Okoroma, who integrated the soccer team in 1963, was UNC's first black student-athlete. Willie Cooper played on the freshman basketball squad from 1964 to '65 before deciding to leave the team. However, in 1966, Scott became the first African-American scholarship athlete in North Carolina's history, and the first great African-American player in the history of the Atlantic Coast Conference.

When he came to UNC in 1961, Smith was persuaded by the assistant pastor at his church to actively pursue and recruit an African-American player. Smith was to become a great advocate for African-American students and student-athletes. In doing so in the early 1960s, Smith faced racial intolerance. He also had to find a player who met UNC's rigid academic standards. Smith was one of the few coaches at that time who pointed out that the SAT exam was biased against African-Americans. Smith found a gem in Scott, but to get him, he had to compete against Duke, NC State, Wake Forest and Davidson.

Scott, who had left New York City to finish high school at the Laurinburg Institute in North Carolina, began to develop trust in Smith during his recruiting trip, when the coach asked him if he wanted to attend a service at his church. I was a committed Catholic boy who at about this time attended church in Chapel Hill. I was told the church was integrated, but I stopped going after I saw the African-Americans attending the mass line up for communion after the white people left. But Smith's church was one of the few fully integrated churches in the area. That impressed Scott. While most casual acquaintances and fans called Scott "Charlie," he preferred "Charles." Smith always addressed him as "Charles." Choosing North Carolina was a slam dunk for Scott. He enrolled and began defining the modern-day UNC basketball legacy being built by Smith.

This was an era when freshmen were ineligible for the varsity. Scott was a star as soon as he got the chance in his sophomore year in the 1967-68 season. He refused to allow racist remarks from fans on the road to take away from his game and his team.

Scott led the Tar Heels to their second and third consecutive NCAA Final Four appearances in 1968 and 1969. During the NCAA Tournament in 1969, Scott scored 32 points and hit a jumper at the buzzer to beat Davidson and send the Tar Heels to the Final Four.

His junior and senior years were marked by perhaps the biggest slights of Scott's career. Widely regarded as the best player in the ACC, he was not given player of the year honors in either season. He was passed over in both years when the award was given to John Roche of South Carolina.

"That was about the only time in college that I felt things were done in a prejudicial manner," Scott told a North Carolina newspaper, the News & Record. "And what concerned me more was how the media handled it. Nobody ever said anything about it, never challenged what took place. To me, that's just another form of hypocrisy."

Scott had hardly been immune to the sting of racism. Before enrolling at UNC, Scott and two of his friends at Laurinburg Institute, his high school in North Carolina, went for a walk off campus. Some police officers made them get into a squad car as suspects and took them to a house where a white woman claimed she had been the victim of a gang rape by three African-American men. It was a horrifying moment. Scott recalled seeing bystanders holding shotguns. The students' fear was palpable as they waited for the woman's verdict, knowing that such identification had been a death sentence for other young African-American boys and men throughout American history. Fortunately for Scott and his friends, the woman said they were not the ones who raped her and they were released.

Scott refused to join an African-American players' boycott of the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, believing it would have been counterproductive. He won a gold medal and became only the second Tar Heel to play on an Olympic basketball squad.

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North Carolina/Getty Images

Dean Smith, shown here with Phil Ford, was a pioneer in bringing African-American players to North Carolina and the ACC.

He was a two-time All-American and an All-ACC selection three times, while averaging 22.1 points per game at UNC. He is the fifth all-time leading scorer in Tar Heels history (he is about to be passed by Tyler Hansbrough), and was one of a dozen North Carolina players on the ACC's 50th Anniversary Team.

Scott chose to start his pro career in the American Basketball Association for the Virginia Squires, where he was rookie of the year in 1971 and a two-time All-Star in his two seasons in the league. Scott played in the NBA from 1972 to 1980 after he left the ABA. He was an NBA All-Star in his first three seasons and helped Boston win a championship in 1976.

Scott's post-playing career started with selling high-end shoes to celebrities before he joined the sports apparel company Champion as a marketing director. When Smith made that phone call during Sweet 16 week 18 years ago, the position on Project Teamwork had already been filled, and Scott was happy with his career. But the call came about because Smith and Charles Scott had already broken barriers together on Tobacco Road.

By now, many in sport celebrate the lives and courage of the first African-American pro athletes to break the color barriers, especially during Black History Month. Pretty much everyone knows the story of Jackie Robinson in Major League Baseball. And more and more often, we read about Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton, Earl Lloyd and Chuck Cooper in the NBA, Kenny Washington and Woody Strode in the NFL and Willie O'Ree in the NHL.

Yet few have any idea about the African-American college athletes who were the pioneers. I recently wrote a book called "100 Pioneers: African-Americans Who Broke Color Barriers in Sport," and in it, I wanted to include stories about the first African-American male and female athletes in the SEC, ACC, Big 12, Big Ten and the Ivy League. When I contacted the schools in those conferences, very few could identify their first African-American female student-athlete. In several cases, they couldn't easily locate much information about the male pioneers, either. Surprisingly, many schools weren't in contact with their still-living alumni who broke those barriers. I could tell from some of the schools' responses that their pioneering African-American student-athletes had not been on their radar screens.

Unlike the professional athletes -- who were older and, perhaps, more worldly when they broke their barriers -- these college students were 17 or 18 years old when they came to our institutions of higher education to face a world of all-white athletic departments and classrooms.

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AP Photo/Bob Daugherty

After his career at the University of North Carolina, Charlie Scott signed with the Washington Capitals in March of 1970. At the right is then-Caps president Earl M. Foreman.

Most arrived on campus because a coach thought their great athletic gifts would win over the student body and faculty. Often, it was the first time the African-American student-athletes were together with whites on an equal plane. They encountered tensions and threats, faced hateful crowds and, on occasion, even teammates who did not want to be in the huddle with them. Sometimes, they played in stadiums that flew the rebel flag.

In part, the history of the civil rights movement was played out on those fields and in those campus arenas.

Generally, the conferences north of the Mason-Dixon line integrated much earlier than the SEC and ACC. William Henry Lewis was an African-American All-American football player at Harvard in 1892 while attending Harvard Law School. William Edward White played baseball on Brown's 1879 team.

Preston Eagleson played football at Indiana University in the 1890s and became the first African-American to earn an advanced degree there. Julian V. Ware and teammate Adelbert R. Matthews, both African-American, led the University of Wisconsin to its first Big Ten baseball championship in 1902. Tackle Gideon Smith helped the Michigan Agricultural College, now Michigan State, have an undefeated football season in 1913 in which it beat the University of Michigan, its archrival, for the first time by a score of 12-7.

From 1891 to 1894, George Flippin, the son of a slave, was enrolled at the University of Nebraska as its first African-American student-athlete. He played baseball, threw the shot, wrestled and played football, and later became a doctor. Sherman, Grant and Ed Harvey all attended the University of Kansas, beginning when Sherman enrolled in 1888. Sherman and Grant played baseball there; Ed played football and baseball. The three brothers, who also were sons of slaves, went on to become an attorney (Sherman), a doctor (Grant) and a civic leader (Ed).

But the schools below the Mason-Dixon line did not integrate easily or early. A game in Stillwater, Okla., involving Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State) and Drake in 1951 must have sent a chill through any African-American athlete thinking of competing for one of those schools.

At the time, unbeaten Drake was led by the nation's top rusher, African-American running back Johnny Bright, who had enrolled at Drake even though African-Americans could not live on campus. Wilbanks Smith was an Oklahoma A&M defensive tackle and was white. Segregation was the law in Oklahoma. Smith went after Bright twice. The second time, he broke Bright's jaw with a punch captured on film by a Des Moines Register photographer. Behind at the time, A&M came back to beat Drake, which had to play the rest of the way without its star player.

The SEC, with its deep Southern roots, perhaps not surprisingly was the last major conference in America to be integrated. Some member schools not only fought to keep African-Americans off their own teams but refused to compete against other teams that included them on their rosters. In 1956, the state of Louisiana passed a law banning interracial sports competition, which was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1959. In Mississippi, legislators threatened to stop funding schools that competed against integrated teams. For that reason, Mississippi State skipped the NCAA tournament in 1959, 1961 and 1962.

The Supreme Court had mandated the integration of public schools in the landmark Brown v. the Board of Education case in 1954. Five years earlier, the University of Kentucky admitted its first African-American students, but it took Kentucky another 17 years to put Nat Northington and Greg Page, two African-Americans, on its football team in 1966. They were the first African-American student-athletes in the football-dominated SEC.

It was slow going from there in the SEC, but by 1971-72, every SEC school had at least one African-American student-athlete. Collis Temple Jr. was handpicked by basketball coach Press Maravich and former Louisiana Gov. John McKeithen to integrate sports at LSU. It was another four decades before Sylvester Croom was hired as the SEC's first African-American head football coach at Mississippi State and Damon Evans was named athletic director at Georgia.

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Kentucky/Collegiate Images/Getty Images

In the late '60s, Nat Northington was one of the first two African-American football players at the University of Kentucky.

The big breakthrough was the now widely discussed football game in 1970 between the University of Southern California, coached by John McKay, and Alabama and its legendary coach, Bear Byrant. USC not only featured superstar fullback Sam "Bam" Cunningham, but had an all-African-American backfield, the first in Division I football. Cunningham was joined by quarterback Jimmy Jones and running back Clarence Davis. After USC whipped the Crimson Tide 42-21, full integration was only a matter of time.

The first African-American basketball player in the ACC was Maryland's Billy Jones in the 1965-66 season -- nearly a decade after Jackie Robinson had retired! (Maryland's Darryl Hill had integrated ACC football a few years earlier.) Basketball great Charlie Scott was not the first African-American athlete at the University of North Carolina, nor was he the first who played basketball there. But he was the first to receive an athletic scholarship from UNC-Chapel Hill.

No matter where the school is located or when the walls fell, though, all these college pioneers encountered various forms of racism that might have stopped less courageous men. Almost all went on to successful professional careers. They became doctors, lawyers, documentary filmmakers, elected officials, professional athletes, coaches, college professors, entrepreneurs, and high school teachers and administrators. Many served our nation in the military. A substantial number earned advanced degrees.

These trailblazers created paths of enormous opportunities for future African-American student-athletes, who now comprise 58 percent of all Division I male basketball players, 45 percent of all Division I football players and 44 percent of all Division I female basketball players.

I hope that Black History Month and discussions about pioneers at colleges and universities around the country will help our schools honor their contributions in the years ahead, and that these men and women will be brought back to campus and acknowledged for their part in their schools' histories.

Today's student-athletes need to know how their own opportunities were created.

Suspensions and firings resulted after a strange few days of offensive remarks and images from people in the media. It all started with Kelly Tilghman, Golf Channel’s anchor for the PGA Tour. She seemingly suggested as a joke that young players should take Tiger Woods and “lynch him in a back alley” in order to open opportunities for them to win championships. Not much was said for the few days after that until the media picked up on it and then Golf Channel suspended her for two weeks.

Extensive coverage followed. Golfweek magazine’s editors decided that their cover should show a picture of a noose representing the image of lynching.

Bucky Waters, a former college basketball coach, thought he was praising Connecticut basketball player Jerome Dyson during an ESPN broadcast. He said of Dyson, who had nine steals in a game against St. John’s, “I bet there weren’t any hubcaps left in the parking lot.” Later, he said that Dyson “just stole everything — fillings, hubcaps, the works.” As if that was not enough, he went even further: “It was a holdup, it was a mugging and I don’t know if he is going out after this and hit a couple of convenience stores or not, but he had some night here.”

The usual apologies were made. Tilghman’s colleagues said she was a good person and a friend of Woods’. UConn’s assistant athletic director said Waters was a fine person. Unlike Golf Channel, ESPN reacted immediately and suspended Waters for a game. He also apologized directly to the University of Connecticut.

In my mind, ESPN did the right thing but could have gone further by immediately making its decision public. Instead, it was reported in The New York Times in an article by Richard Sandomir on Jan. 17. ESPN told Sandomir that it was a private matter.

Just about the same time that the Waters story was breaking, Golfweek decided that it would create an additional sense of drama by placing the noose on its cover. The title read “Caught in a Noose — Kelly Tilghman Slips Up and the Golf Channel Can’t Wiggle Free.” The editor was fired almost immediately.

These incidents brought up a study that we did at the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport for the Associated Press Sports Editors when we analyzed the diversity of the print media.

Media controversies focused on (clockwise
from top-left) Golfweek, Tilghman, Waters
and Woods.

The study examined 303 American and Canadian newspapers, and the lack of diversity was stunning. Ninety-five percent of the sports editors, 87 percent of the assistant sports editors, 90 percent of the columnists, 87 percent of the reporters and 90 percent of the copy editors were white. All of those key positions were also 95, 87, 93, 90 and 87 percent male, respectively.

In contrast, so many of the groups of athletes we are covering, especially in basketball, football and baseball, are disproportionally African-American or Latino. While this is hardly true of the PGA Tour, Woods is the dominant player on the tour and is the person who was the subject of the comment about lynching in a back alley. The history of lynching is certainly something that conjures up the worst horrors of racism among African-Americans. While white Americans, including Tilghman, may not be sufficiently aware of that history, it is no excuse for her comments nor later for the use of the noose on the cover at Golfweek. Widespread media coverage and live TV commentary showed that the editor, Dave Seanor, was mistaken when he told The Orlando Sentinel that he did not believe that the cover would offend African-Americans. Seanor had said that he intended to spark intelligent conversation on the hottest topic in golf. There is no question that he has extended that conversation but perhaps he could have done it in a different manner. Now that he has been fired I am sure he wishes that he had.

I do not believe there is any specific remedy that can take care of such issues at Golf Channel, Golfweek or ESPN. Having worked in the world of sports for nearly 35 years, I have no doubt that the stereotypes and insensitivity that were on display this week exist in other parts of those three organizations. They are too common — and often are hidden — in all sectors of America. ESPN has obviously done the best job of hiring more women and people of color in on-air positions. Clearly, Golf Channel, Golfweek and all of America’s newspapers need to open the doors of opportunity to bring more women and people of color into the decision-making positions. If there was a senior editor at Golfweek who was African-American, I am confident that the picture on the cover would not have been a noose. If diversity management training was done throughout the media, we would be more sensitive to the terms. None of it is a guarantee.

However, as long as we keep conjuring up these images in the world of sports where we have made so much more progress than in some of the other areas of our society, it will stand in stark contrast to the fact that we have an African-American and a woman as the leading Democratic candidates for the presidency in 2008. Sports has usually been ahead of the curve and finds itself, as a result of these three incidents, suddenly and, I hope, temporarily, standing behind the curve in terms of race and sports in America.

It is time for an adjustment.

Much of Tony Elliott's life was dominated by murders, guns and drug addiction. Because he played in the NFL for seven seasons, the images recall too many current stories about out-of-control athletes. But his 6-foot-4, 300-plus-pound frame, often draped in a mink coat, drew the immediate attention of students who met him. The stories he told left them mesmerized and reflective about choices they would make in their own lives. This was the Tony Elliott I knew well since his early days with the New Orleans Saints.

For a huge man, Tony Elliott's death resulted in only small story in the Connecticut Post when he was found dead Monday in his bed in Bridgeport at age 48. The story had fragments of his athletic life, including that he was MVP in the state of Connecticut his senior year. The Times-Picayune of New Orleans ran four paragraphs, concluding with, "Elliott was a fifth-round draft choice of the Saints in 1982 from North Texas State. He played with the Saints through 1988, while overcoming a drug addiction." The drugs, his downfall, were barely noted in the stories.

Bridgeport councilman Warren Blunt said Elliott's death was a tragedy because he had so much to offer kids, alluding to Elliott's desire to become a coach despite being confined to a wheelchair since February 2000, when he was shot by a person police believe was a drug dealer. Blunt added that Elliott had a "magnetic personality and loved to share stories with people."

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Ed Mahan/NFL Photos/Getty Images

By telling about his own troubles with drugs, former New Orleans Saints defensive tackle Tony Elliott made an impression on the lives of young people.

Blunt was right. I watched Elliott electrify high school and middle school students for nearly a decade because of that enormous personality and his incredible storytelling ability. He spoke the truth about his tragedy-filled life.

I will always have an image of Elliott in a gym full of kids. As a speaker, I know it is the worst setting to get the attention of an audience. But he commanded their attention like no one else I have seen. He was sure to enter a room wearing his full-length mink coat draped over his huge frame. Kids stared but that concentration could only last so long. He began by talking about how he stared down the barrel of a gun in search of drugs at the lowest moment of his life. Students turned in the bleachers and locked into his story.

Elliott would tell audiences about when he was 4 years old and came downstairs in his Bridgeport home after hearing his mother, Ruby Elliott, screaming. He'd say he found his father, Bobby Elliott, plunging the last of 17 stab wounds in her body as Ruby fell to the kitchen floor in a pool of blood. Tony Elliott later learned that Bobby was not only Ruth's husband, but also her pimp.

Bobby Elliott went to prison, and Tony Elliott was reared in a combination of state homes and relatives such as his uncle Wilbert who became a father figure for Tony. His father was released from prison when Tony was in middle school. By that time, Elliott was developing both as an athlete and as an alcoholic. Elliott told audiences: "I have an addictive personality. That was my seed of personal self-destruction."

By middle school, Elliott chose to get a new family by joining a gang in Bridgeport. He got their love and added their trouble to his. As he told this story, all eyes were on him. He knew he had students then. Put in a state boys home, cocaine and marijuana became part of Tony's growing arsenal of addictions.

Sports gave him a reprieve from the gangs, but not the drugs. A star player on the Harding High School football team, suddenly people were interested in Tony's future.

He warned students not to believe everyone who seems to care about them. Test them, be sure of their sincerity. Elliott called out a boy in the second row of bleachers during one speech and said: "What's your name?" The boy shyly responded, "Sam." Elliott asked more gently, "Sam do you believe everything people tell you?" Sam cowered with a "no," and Elliott said, "Good. Only trust those who earn your trust."

Elliott went on with the story while Sam slunk back into the bleachers, relieved he was off stage.

"So everyone around me thought my life was great. Harding won the Connecticut championship and I was an all-state and All-American selection. MVP in the state. I was still using cocaine and drinking a lot, but I was being called a role model by the staff at the boys' home and by my classmates at Harding High. Even I began to believe life was good and then my father shot and killed uncle Wilbert after an argument. I had to get away. Colleges wanted me. I was gone."

He spoke to Sam again: "Are you a good student?" "Yes, Sir!" "Good, stay that way. My teachers thought all I needed was football and did not ask me to be a student. I was not ready for a real college."

The students absorbed his every word.

He flunked out of the University of Wisconsin at Madison. But as with all talented athletes, there was almost always a next stop. He enrolled at Pratt Junior College in Kansas where he played well enough to get a scholarship to North Texas State. He called out for a student who played football. Several hands went up. "Listen to me and then be yourself and make good choices. For me, I was being given chances because of my God-given athletic talents. For me, I had three loves: football, cocaine and booze. My college professors were like the ones at Harding. They thought if they passed me, I would play in the NFL and be OK. I never had to study."

In his mind, it suddenly seemed like the professors were all right and he signed for a lot of money with the Saints. He took his $14,000 signing bonus and went back to take care of his friends in Bridgeport. It was a two week cocaine binge. By mid-season, his addiction was tearing him up. He agreed to be sent to the Timberlawn Rehabilitation Center in Dallas for 30 days and returned to the team for the end of the season.

Back to Sam: "Can you believe I dropped the cocaine but smoked marijuana and thought it was somehow OK? It wasn't.

"The season was over and I thought no one was watching. I returned to the streets and the coke. The Saints forced me into rehab again. They were watching. Then my brother was murdered. I was so angry with the world and coke was all I could rely on to blunt the pain. I spent all my money, sold my car, and everything else I owned to get the coke."

I watched the school's staff looking around at the students focus on Tony Elliott and what he was saying. There were no distractions in the gym.

"I lost any moral compass I had because of the drugs. I began to write bad checks. The police were looking for me. I stole a good friend's income tax refund check. I was so out of it that I went to my drug dealer's house to rob him to feed my needs. I was shaken as never before after the dealer opened the door and pointed his Magnum at my face. I hit rock bottom and thought I was going to die. This time I went for help and got it at the Depaul Drug Treatment Center. I was there for three months."

He went into the community to help others, speaking in schools throughout New Orleans. He had learned the importance of honesty at Depaul and disclosed deep personal truths about himself. It was part of his therapy.

The courts placed him on three years probation. Suspended by the NFL, he appealed for reinstatement. Commissioner Pete Rozelle let him rejoin the Saints. That's when I heard Elliott's story. We agreed to meet after the 1985 season.

It was Elliott's first drug-free season and he started every game at nose guard. I hired him at Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society in Boston after hearing him speak in the school setting I described earlier. He engrossed audiences across New England. Teachers praised him and the impact he was having. They told us that his was a personal scared-straight experience for the students. He continued to spend his offseasons with us until his playing career ended.

He went into a series of businesses in New Orleans, seemingly removed at last from the streets; he was showcased as one of football's positive role models on the drug issue on "The Today Show," "Good Morning America," "CBS Sunday Morning" and in many of the nation's leading newspapers.

When he was shot in 2000 he became a prisoner of his own body, but he seemed to escape death's grip over and over again including the shooting that immobilized him. I wanted to believe he had escaped the drug culture, but ultimately it did not matter whether he was personally involved with drugs leading up to the shooting. The streets caught up to him, whether or not he was still part of them. Now he is gone.

But his story taught many children. Because Tony Elliott had used drugs to numb the pain of his life, he felt and comprehended the pain of so many children. They flocked to him. Councilman Blunt was right that Tony had a "magnetic personality and loved to share stories with people." I hope his personality and his stories helped short-circuit the pain that many children who heard him may have faced if Tony Elliott had not scared them straight.