A couple of nights ago, I decided to refrain from my studies by taking a little break to wind down and relax. I turned on the TV and suddenly remembered I hadn’t watched a sports documentary I recorded earlier in the week.
As I scrolled through my DVR menu, I found the ESPN “30 for 30” documentary I was looking for. The film, “The Ghosts of Ole Miss,” chronicles the undefeated season of the 1962 University of Mississippi football team.
More importantly, though, the film chronicles how that team became one of the most under-appreciated national champion squad in the history of college football because of intense riots that erupted on the campus due to the admittance of James Meredith, the first black student to attend the university.
The film told an excellent and disturbing tale — about how race relations and sports have often become entwined. And whether those relations are good or bad, the sports world has often mirrored the real world when it comes to race and acceptance.
The film is a reminder about how far we’ve come, and how far we still have to go. While watching “The Ghosts of Ole Miss,” I couldn’t help but think about how sports can shield us from issues like racism, yet reveal the darkest parts of our humanity.
That’s one of the beauties of sports: It is a powerful tool during good times and bad times.
About 15 minutes into the film, I hit the pause button on my remote, and started thinking about the pivotal role sports has played in race relations in our country.
I suddenly found myself thinking about the great Jackie Robinson, and the courageous journey he took to integrate Major League Baseball. When Robinson became the first black player in the Majors for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, he had to endure months of hate mail, racially laced taunts from fans and players and other horrors that I can’t possibly fathom.
But despite all of the negative pressures placed on his shoulders, Robinson was able to overcome the obstacles and prove to others that the color of your skin has nothing to do with your ability to play sports.
Robinson’s story is, of course, the most popular and well-known. There are many other examples of race and sports colliding, but I would need at least six pages to opine some more.
After I did some thinking, I hit “play” on my remote and finished the film. Once I finished, I did some more thinking. I thought about how all the players on that team, all white, of course, did not condone the violence that took place on that dreaded day. I was surprised to discover that many of them welcomed Meredith on campus.
I also thought about how, 50 years after the University of Mississippi became integrated, bigotry and hatred still permeate our national landscape, and sports are often caught in the middle of it.
In the case of “The Ghosts of Ole Miss,” one sports team came together to embrace change and help others forget about one of the darkest chapters of civil rights in this country’s history. The film served as a reminder that the world of sports is not immune from important issues like racism.
For those of us die-hard sports fans, we rely on the love of our teams to unite us. We celebrate when they win, and we cry in agony when they lose, regardless of the ethnicity, sex, creed or race of the athletes. It should be this way all the time — in life and in sports. We, as fans and people, can learn a lot from the 1962 Ole Miss Rebels.
