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Sports
Redone and re-opened, Rucker Park carries on its legacy
By VINCENT DAVIS Special to the AmNews
Rucker Park ribbin cutting
This past Saturday at Rucker Park, located at 155th Street and Eighth Avenue in Harlem, an official celebration of its renovation and reopening was held. The iconic courts had become worn over the many decades of use, unleveled and sunken in some areas.
Since August, work crews from the Department of Parks and Recreation, as well as private contractors, restored and reconstructed the park and courts at a cost with funding from the National Basketball Players’ Association at a cost of $520,000. New bleachers, a state-of-the-art outdoor scoreboard and fiberglass NBA backboards with break-away rims now highlight the venue.
“This is a great day for Rucker Park and Harlem,” said Bob McCullough, a member of the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame and one of the organizers of the event. “They’re both known throughout the world for their many contributions. This will further extend their basketball legacy.”
Gus Wells, the chief executive of the Entertainers Basketball Classic, which is held at Rucker Park during the summer, said the park’s history is “more than about basketball.” The grey skies that lingered above Upper Manhattan early Saturday afternoon were brightened by the shine of Rucker legends Julius “Dr. J” Irving, Nate “Tiny” Archibald, Joe Hammond and Pee Wee Kirkland. Also in attendance were family members and friends of the illustrious Holcombe Rucker, after whom the park is named, and Greg Marius, the late founder of the Entertainers Basketball Classic. The court at Rucker Park bears Marius’ name. Other prominent figures commemorating the day were Michelle Roberts, executive director of the NBA Players’ Association since 2014, who was instrumental in spearheading the occasion, rap artist Fat Joe, and basketball luminaries Rod Strickland, Freddie Crawford, Tom Hoover, Carl Green and Smush Parker.
(Bill Moore photo)
The Jon Gruden scandal underscores society’s diverging prism
By JAIME C. HARRIS AmNews Sports Editor
The United States is in a period of dramatic cultural change that has seen homophobia and misogyny take its place, and arguably surpass racism against Black men and women, as deleterious acts of bias that subverts one’s career opportunities, social standing and legacy.
All are reprehensible. But while racist tropes and connotations voiced or written by high profile public figures ascribed to Black folks are still met with widespread indignation and stern rebuke, such incidents are often survivable. Obligatory censures are issued while seven-and eight-figure salaries and powerful positions are retained. Not so much when it is homophobic and misogynistic slurs.
Jon Gruden is the latest catalyst of the “what if?” hypothetical discussions only four years into a 10-year, $100 million contract with the team before inevitably being fired by owner Mark Davis. Gruden stepped down less than an hour after a New York Times report exposed emails the Sandusky, Ohio native had purportedly sent, many to erstwhile Washington Football Team president Bruce Allen dating back to 2011, using explicit racist, antigay and misogynistic language. The scandal came to light last Friday when the Wall Street Journal reported that during the 2011 National Football League player lockout, Gruden, who at that time was working as a broadcaster for ESPN after being let go as the head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in January of 2009, emailed Allen ranting about NFL Players Association President DeMaurice Smith. “Dumboriss [sic] Smith has the lips the size of michellin [sic] tires,” wrote Gruden. On Monday, Smith, who is a Black man, tweeted: “The email from Jon Gruden—and some of the reaction to it—confirms that the fight against racism, racist tropes and
intolerance is not over. This is not about an email as much as it is about a pervasive belief by some that people who look like me can be treated as less.” Gruden put forth penance to the Wall Street Journal on Friday, in part stating, “I don’t think he’s dumb…I don’t have a racial bone in my body.” Other leaked emails, which were discovered as part of the NFL’s investigation into the toxic workplace culture of the Washington Football Team that began in July 2020 and led to the league fining the franchise $10 million this past July, revealed Gruden referring to commissioner Roger Goodell as a “fa***t” and “p***y,” chiding the NFL’s public embracing of players engaging in racial justice demonstrations and critical of the league hiring female referees. Gruden deserves the extensive backAMNEWS lash and ostracizing to which he is being 10/07/21 subjected. Frustratingly, we will never know with certainty if the pressure on him would have had the same intensiOn Monday night, former Las Vegas Raiders head coach Jon ty absent his homophobic and misogyGruden resigned after a New York Times report revealed he nistic vitriol. had made racist, anti-gay and misogynistic comments in emails spanning 10 years
AMNEWS 10/14/21
(Wikipedia photo)
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