Of race and sports

[unusualmusic_lj_archive]

ESPN Poll exposes the reality of race in America

But back to polling…

ESPN Sportscenter and ESPN.com recently queried their audiences, ”Which is the better pair of current sports siblings?”

Two choices were offered: (See picture above)

A) Peyton and Eli Manning

B) Venus and Serena Williams

As of Saturday July 5, 62,293 votes had been tallied, 69% of which were for the Manning brothers. You should see where Mo’Kelly is going with this. Mo’Kelly won’t resort to cheap taunts of racism to support his points.

But…

Mo’Kelly will dare anyone to reasonably explain how the Manning brothers are anywhere NEAR the accomplishments of the Williams siblings, yet are considered “better” by more than a 2-1 ratio.

The following are the facts and are inarguable in nature.

Venus Williams –

16 Grand Slam titles (7 singles, 7 doubles, 2 mixed)

· 5 Wimbledon titles

· 7 runner up Grand Slam finishes

· 47 titles overall, (37 singles)

· 21 singles runner up finishes

· 482-115 for her entire career

Serena Williams

17 Grand Slam titles (7 singles, 8 doubles, 2 mixed)

· 2 Wimbledon titles

· 42 titles overall (31 singles)

· 382-81 for her entire career.

To put that in its proper tennis dominance perspective, imagine TWO Martina Navratilovas at the same kitchen table. The real question is if it weren’t for canceling each other out, might one or the other have ended up being the single greatest tennis player of all time?

Peyton Manning

1 Super Bowl win (1 total appearance overall)

Eli Manning

1 Super Bowl win (1 total appearance overall)

Mo’Kelly takes the ESPN poll MORE seriously than any CNN/Gallup poll in this instance, because the ESPN poll arguably more accurately reflects the HONESTY of Americans. More than 2/1 have greater "respect" for the accomplishments of the Manning brothers, even though they are nowhere close to the Williams exploits. No, Mo’Kelly won’t use the “R” word, but he will continue to cite statistical fact. Feel free to further “justify” it any way you want. Mo’Kelly will stick to the facts.

The fact of the matter is that the Mannings (although incredibly talented) haven't scratched the surface of the Williams greatness. Not to mention, prior to the Super Bowl (and even arguably afterwards) Eli Manning was considered a marginal QB at best. If all four athletes retire today...Only three make their respective Hall of Fames and guess who doesn't?

Remember, even Trent Dilfer has ONE Super Bowl ring as a quarterback. Try and name 'all' of the "marginal" tennis players who have won Wimbledon multiple times. Mo'Kelly will give you all week to field an answer.

Exactly.

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Comments

[vlredreign.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'm gonna put this forward, because I don't think it has a thing to do with racism.

It has to do with the simple fact that football is and probably always will be more popular than tennis. So I would think that if the numbers end up being in the Manning's favor, that would be it.

[unusualmusic.livejournal.com]

Blink. Funny, I didn't see you guys at all! I think he does address that, in the rest of the essay...

[unusualmusic.livejournal.com]

I think that gender is probably a very huge part of the equation. In fact, the more I think about it, I would see this as gender, compounded by race, maybe leavened with the popularity of tennis relative to American football, and then of course multiplied by the fact that these people who participated were not scientifically or statistically a valid sample.

[mothwentbad.livejournal.com]

It's probably a pointless question, but there are probably some other factors in there, too.

- Gender. Big manly men do manly stuff. Women are scary and unfeminine when they do sports.
- It's tennis. Even if they were white males, it'd still be hard to get the bulk of ESPN watchers behind them. If they were golfers, you'd have trouble getting half of them to think of it as a sport in the first place.
- There are all kinds of tennis tournments, but there's only a once-annual Superbowl. I don't know what other stats may have been useful here on the football side.
- Tennis is either singles or doubles, compared with the much larger 11 at a time in football. Teasing out who's really the best and by "how much" might be hard.

I think a lot of folks would name Michael Jordan as the best athlete ever, but he was lucky enough to be male and play basketball.

I don't really know enough sports to testify to the relative merits of all the athletes, but at first glance, it looks to me like the biases you cite are pretty important. But race by itself should only be good for another 5-10%, where the figure tends closer to 10% the more they look like Sharpova. I made those stats up on the spot and with no method, though.

[unusualmusic.livejournal.com]

Its not my work, actually. Its by a blogger named Mokelly. I am linking to it. He did touch on the gender stuff in the rest of the essay as well.

[unusualmusic.livejournal.com]

I do agree though that gender is probably a very huge part of the equation. In fact, the more I think about it, I would see this as gender, compounded by race, maybe leavened with the popularity of tennis relative to American football, and then of course multiplied by the fact that these people who participated were not scientifically or statistically a valid sample.

[mothwentbad.livejournal.com]

Even if there were a women's professional football league, then what would you do? Expect everyone to make the appropriate statistical controls in their heads? There's just all kinds of unpleasant stuff in the mix.

[mothwentbad.livejournal.com]

Er, actually, I think there is, but pretty much nobody has ever heard of it. I don't know whether it's professional or not, but there is such a thing. I'm probably not going to check, though.