Racial but not racist

It's become a math equation: white coach plus comments about black athletes equals media backlash.

Air Force Academy football head coach Fisher DeBerry, a white 67-year-old man, recently made the claim that "...Afro-American kids can run very, very well. That doesn't mean that Caucasian kids and other descents can't run, but it is very obvious to me they run extremely well."

From my point of view, he might as well have said that the sky is blue and that the grass is green. But his comments made some see red and even propose a solution to the problem: termination.

At first glance, a good chunk of those in the media world saw DeBerry's statements as racist. They weren't, however. He wasn't trying to hurt anyone. DeBerry even cushioned his statements by saying that he wasn't trying to pit races against each other while pointing out what he feels is obvious.

DeBerry wasn't looking to demean the talent of black athletes. In fact, he was complimenting the speed of those on Texas Christian University's team after it obliterated Air Force 48-10, as he went on to say, "(TCU's) defense had 11 Afro-Americans on their team, and they were a very, very good defensive football team."

DeBerry has since apologized for making the statements but the problem wasn't that he made the claim. It was that he had the gumption to make it publicly.

In a broader sense, he was merely pointing out what many think but are too frightened to say in a public forum. Many have thought the same thing that DeBerry vocalized but have kept it to themselves and their social circles out of fear of backlash.

Sports Illustrated writer John Walters recently did an analysis of the AP Top 25 teams' season-opening starting lineups. Walters looked at the race of each team's seven "speed" positions: tailback, two wide receivers/flankers, two cornerbacks and two safeties. The results showed that only 12 of 175, or 6.9 percent, of those starters are white.

This piqued my interest and compelled me to do some research of my own. Utilizing our stack of media guides and the Web sites from the respective schools, I recorded the race of the same "speed" positions as Walters for each Mid-American Conference team's most recent game, which, with the exception of Eastern Michigan, was on Oct. 29.

Not surprisingly, my findings were similar to that of Walters. Ten out of 84, or 8.4 percent, of the MAC "speed" position starters were white in each team's most recent contest and five out of 12 teams' starting seven speedsters lacked a single white representative.

I'm not saying that whites are being discriminated against and schools need to expand on the number of whites in those positions. The best candidate for the job should be the one that is starting and I would hope that collegiate football coaches have their best players starting in the correct positions.

Wouldn't it be a correct assumption that the predominately black starting lineups shed light on the fact that DeBerry wasn't all that inaccurate in what he said?

Air Force athletics director Hans Mueh doesn't agree with that assumption. Mueh has said that DeBerry's remark is "totally against anything the Air Force stands for." I guess the first amendment and personal observations aren't allowed by those employed by the Air Force.

This whole spiel has been an overblown reaction to a coach's statements on a touchy subject. He was merely pointing out an observation that he and many others have made on a private level. Race was a great portion of DeBerry's claim but his intent wasn't what the media made it out to be, as he himself said in a press conference on Sunday: "I want everyone to understand that I never intended to offend anyone."

DeBerry's claim may have been racial, but it wasn't racist.