Monday, June 25, 2007

Jesse Jackson Loves UNC Baseball


That is not the UNC golf team though it certainly looks like it. It is in fact the back-to-back national runner-ups in Division I baseball, the Tarheels of North Carolina. It appears the only player or staff member on the team that is of non-Anglo ancestry is Kendric Burney. I have a sneaky suspicion you won't have any trouble finding him. In case you do have difficulty here's a hint: he is the guy wearing a football jersey. Now I realize baseball is not the most diverse sport at this time but this seems a bit much. The football staff must have strong-armed Mike Fox into letting Mr. Burney on the squad. Fox is the man in charge of this operation. He is the white guy in the photo. The white guy in the white polo shirt in the very bottom row on the right.

My assumption is that this says more about minorities, particularly African-Americans, playing other sports instead of baseball but the panning of the dugout in last night's National Championship game struck me. After seeing the dugout I decided to go to the trouble of looking at every player's bio but the names alone could have given their ethnicity away. Reid Fronk, Hunter Rome, Chad Flak, Matt McNichol and even equipment manager Nate Yarbrough are just some of the examples. Again, Coach Fox must be doing something right, his team has had great success. You just have to wonder if Mr. Burney wishes he could have taken a headshot with his baseball jersey on so he wouldn't stand out so much.

(Photos from UNC-Chapel Hill Athletics.)

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think I saw recently that 2% of D-1 baseball players are African American. So that means the Tar Heels are just about equal to everyone else.

nation_of_islam_sportsblog said...

Sir, I agree wholeheartedly.

Young Mr. Burney most certainly be dissappointed by having himself depicted in the UNC football uniform.

This is the ultimate injustice, slight, malfeasance and downright lack of respect.

A member of a back to back championship runner up team being forced to wear the uniform of a football program that has won a total of 9 games over the course of three years.

I wonder, will UNC baseball force Mr. Burney to wear a Duke football jersey next year?

That seems like the only insult that would be lower.

Anonymous said...

They made the finals two years in a row. They just got the best players they could, right now they're white.

MJenks said...

Actually, given the 1/39 ratio, at 2.5%, UNC is about 0.5% ahead of the national average.

Anonymous said...

Is it true that the blacks can't swim?

Anonymous said...

those are some ugly ass white people.

Anonymous said...

Black baseball players rather be paid to play - they go to the minor leagues.

Anonymous said...

hey mr. dumb blogger,

if you're gonna insult the back-to-back nc runner-up, at least spell the players names right.

burney plays BOTH football and baseball at unc, as he's a serious athlete. i guess according to you we should recruit more black baseball players? we've signed a few but some have gone pro throughout the past few years. great post though, i can't wait to check back and see what kind of deep insight you have next year.

J Smith said...

The thing that caught my eye the most is that there is only 1 minority player. Mr. Burney is African-American but every other being involved with the team is white. Again, I realize this is not unique to baseball right now but there can't be a team more white than North Carolina. I only followed the OSU team (back-to-back national champions) this year so perhaps they are the unique team with a few minority players. One doesn't have to be African-American to be considered a minority. I even tried to see if I could notice any mixed race players but it didn't appear so.

For the record all players' names were spelled as they appear on the school website. Not sure how accurate the site can be if I can't locate season stats to confirm UNC has finished 2nd twice now because of fielding meltdowns and coaching decisions rounding 3rd base in the Final.

Anonymous said...

you guys distorted these pictures to make these guys look like idiots. i mean look at the foreheads of some of these players and the facial construction. you edited the photos its obvious. it is kindof funny though, the whole football uni shindig. go tarheels

Anonymous said...

To call out a school that recruited Charlie Scott is pretty damn funny.

Anonymous said...

maybe the guy wasn't available on picture day, so they used his football picture instead.... or maybe they forced him to wear a football jersey because he is black.... you're a fucking idiot.