There were two incidents in my football playing days that I thought of when I heard Rush Limbaugh was part of a group vying for ownership of the St. Louis Rams. One happened to me in high school, and the other in college.
It was a late fall game where Sidney High School was playing Walton. We were on the comeback and our coach, Mike Brazee, came into the huddle to tell us he would kiss the goal line if we punched it in. Our center was a guy that was openly hostile to me – I was the only black player on the team, maybe even the only black player in our Class C league of teams located in the foothills of the Catskills, in upstate New York. Our center was not only hostile: he was racist. In that moment, though, when the coach looked to me to punch the ball through the goal line, I recall him turning to me. In that instant there was nothing between us but camaraderie, teamwork and, dare I say: brotherhood. Football had brought us together. We had finally gotten on the same page, looked past our animosity and the racial barrier and saw one another as humans. (...continue reading)
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