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The Role Of Minority Athletes In Professional Sports

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In order to play sports, you need to be athletic or talented. However, that’s not all you need to be when you played professional sports. Before athletes like Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, Earl Lloyd, Kenny Washington, and Jon Taylor there were no minority athletes playing professional sports or participating professional sporting event competition. It wasn’t until 1900 when Constantin Henriquez de Zubiera became the first minority athlete to compete in the 1900 Olympic games in France. But in 1908 Jon Taylor became the first African-American to win a gold medal in the US relay team. In 1946, Kenny Washington became first African-American football player. A year later, in 1947, Jackie Robinson broke baseball barrier. Then in 1950, Earl Lloyd became the first African- American basketball player. However, it took a long time for minority and African American athletes to gain respect from fans and other athletes. …show more content…
Disabled athletes do not get the same respect as the non-disabled athletes. While sporting events began in 760 BC for non-disabled athletes. For disabled the first sporting competition took place in 1924, which was the silent games. Then later became the Deaflympics. In 1952, was the first international wheelchair competition. After that, the International Cerebral Palsy Society games takes place in 1968. Then the Paralympics were created in 1989. Now disabled athletes are able to compete against other disabled athletes at professional sporting events. However, like minority athletes, it took a long time before disabled athletes were able to participate in sporting

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