Wednesday, February 27, 2008

17. Basketball

The last great landmark of any culture is it's specialty sport. Everyone remembers the Greek olympiads, and the Asian martial artists. Africans needed their own sport.

Though it was invented by some cheesy white coach for the exclusive, racist YMCA, the peach baskets were quickly replaced as were the predominantly white players.

Just like the well-toned Cubans and Dominicans have begun to dominate baseball's top player charts, basketball was quickly dominated by the tall, lean forms of African men. Naturally built to be the best players, the sport was quickly adapted and made their own. The idols influenced new generations and kept the momentum going to keep more black players in the league than any other race.

The uniforms changed to reflect their culture and the rules were even modified to fit the playing styles of the black players. To this day, it is the number one sport played outdoors by young black boys. While yuppie white folks go out to play tennis, young black kids prefer basketball courts and the squeak of sneaks on the blacktop.

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