Learning About Racism and Glory Road

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Racism has been a major issue in this world throughout history and still occurs today. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, racism is the poor treatment of or violence against people because of their race. There are numerous movies that focus on the subject of racism, and Glory Road is a movie that depicts racism very accurately. Glory Road achieves this by vividly explaining the attitudes of the players and how they had to fight to break down the barriers of discrimination in order to have a successful season. Glory Road is a motivational underdog story about Texas Western’s 1965-1966 Men’s Basketball team. The film emphasizes how serious racism was during the 1960’s, and focuses on the discrimination the team had to go through along the way due to the simple fact that most of the players on the team were black. Coached by Don Haskins, Texas Western was the first team in history to win the NCAA championship with an all-black team on the floor (Ott). When Coach Haskins was hired to take over the program, he realized that the team he was inheriting was a losing team and was full of weak players. Therefore, he focused on recruiting African-American basketball players from the North in order to have a successful season with great basketball skill (Clark). Haskins was also certain that it would be nearly impossible to recruit the talented white players. Initially, Haskins received a substantial amount of criticism for recruiting black players in a sport where white players were the norm. Interestingly, once the team began to win, his critics became his supporters. It was not difficult to find African-American athletes because they were more than happy to receive a scholarship to play basketball as well as get a c... ... middle of paper ... ...anguage :Will the NFL Ban the N-Word?” The MMQB, 19 Feb. 2014. Web. 29 Apr. 2014. Fitzpatrick, Frank. “Texas Westerm’s 1966 title left lasting legacy.” ESPN Classic, 19 Nov. 2003. Web. 27 Apr. 2014. “Freedom Rides.” History,com, 2010, Web. 22 April 2014. Long, Michael. “Making Way for Jackie Robinson: The Quiet Fight of the Brown Bomber.” Huffington Post, 2 April 2014. Web. 6 April 2014. Ott, Tim. “African-American Firsts in Sports.” Biography.com, 31 Jan. 2013. Web. 27 Apr. 2014. "Racism." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014. Singer, John. “Understanding racism through the eyes of African American male student- athletes.” Race Ethnicity and Education 8.4 (2005): Abstract. Web 29 Apr. 2014. Washburn, Jon. “What if…Kentucky had beaten Texas Western in the NCAA Championship Game?” Midwest Sports Fans, 27 March 2012. Web. 6 April 2014.

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