Jimmy the Greek Is Not Alone

For what it’s worth, the theories advanced by Jimmy (the Greek) Snyder on why blacks excel in sports are not new. You could have read the same thing in Sports Illustrated in 1971.

In the Jan. 18 issue, author Martin Kane, quoting researchers, said of the black athlete: “His bones are denser, and therefore heavier, than those of whites. He has more muscles in the upper arms and legs, less in the calves.”

Among the athletes quoted was Lee Evans, world record-holder in the 400 meters.

Asked why blacks excel, Evans said: “We were bred for it. Certainly the black people who survived in the slave ships must have contained a high proportion of the strongest. Then, on the plantations, a strong black man was mated with a strong black woman. We were simply bred for physical qualities.”

U.S. figure skater Caryn Kadavy is being advised in Olympic preparations by Toller Cranston, a bronze medalist for Canada in the 1976 Winter Games. He’s not picking Kadavy to win, however. Nor is he picking the defending champion, Katarina Witt.

“Debi Thomas is virtually unbeatable,” he told the Calgary Sun.

Now-it-can-be-told dept.: Maybe nobody ever looked as cool and composed on the ice as Peggy Fleming, winner of the gold medal at Grenoble in 1968, but she says: “I look at the tapes. I look calm as anything. Inside, I was just going, ‘Aughhhhhhhh! Get me out of here! Yikes! Yikes!’ But I knew I couldn’t leave the building until I’d been through my routine.”

Trivia Time: Who scored the winning basket for North Carolina State when it won the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. title in 1982-83? (Answer to follow.)

Former pitcher Bill (Spaceman) Lee, on the designated hitter rule: “It serves one useful purpose. It relieves the manager of all responsibility except to post the lineup card on the dugout wall and make sure everybody gets to the airport on time.”

Larry Bird scored only six points in the National Basketball Assn. All-Star game, but East Coach Mike Fratello told the Boston Globe: “Larry Bird showed me more in that game than most people could have possibly noticed. I was really impressed with the way he subjugated himself.

“You’ve got to love seeing a man do all he did--come up with a couple of key steals, get back on defense continually and break up about five fast-break opportunities. To me, he was like an overseer of the game. He saw what we needed, and he acted accordingly.”

Add Bird: Asked why he never took off his warmup jacket while winning his third straight Long Distance Shootout, he said: “It was cold out there. I practiced in it, and it didn’t affect me at all.”

Trivia Answer: Lorenzo Charles. He grabbed an off-line shot by Dereck Whittenburg and put it in to beat Houston, 54-52.

Quotebook

Author Joyce Carol Oates, on the difference between boxing and other sports: “One plays football; one doesn’t play boxing.”