se. In 1974, the year after O.J. Simpson became the first player to run for more than 2,000 yards in the NFL, Frank Robinson became baseball’s first black manager with the Cleveland Indians (Leavy, 133). The same year Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s homerun record, but, for all their success in sports, blacks still faced a great deal of racial discrimination and double standards for white and black athletes. As Aaron stated in his book, “As the hate mail piled up, I became more and more intent on breaking the record and shoving it in the ugly faces of those bigots. I am sure it made me a better hitter. But it also made my life very, very difficult” (Leavy, 134).
In the 1980s, Athletes like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Walter Payton, and Doug Williams would help change the face of sports for black athletes, changes that would never revert back to the days of exclusion and racism. Williams was the first black to quarterback a Super Bowl team. One of the reasons blacks may excel in sports is because they have to. While many black athletes are considered to be among the elites of sports, they almost alw
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