Sport: The Black Dominance

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University of California Sociologist Harry Edwards, the theorist and leader of the black athletic revolt that culminated in open protest at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, emphasizes blacks' limited access to other careers and describes the process that follows. He told TIME Correspondent Edward J. Boyer: "With the channeling of black males disproportionately into sports, the outcome is the same as it would be at Berkeley if we taught and studied nothing but English. Suppose that everyone who got here arrived as a result of some ruthless recruitment process where everyone who couldn't write well was eliminated at every level from age six all the way through junior college. It would only be a short time before the greatest prose—the greatest innovations in teaching, learning and writing English—came out of Berkeley. It is the inevitable result of all this talent channeled into a single area. The white athlete who might be an O.J. Simpson is probably sitting somewhere behind a desk."

Still, although the social reasons for black athletic excellence may be perfectly sound, many scientists feel that blacks have some physical advantages too. Alvin Poussaint, a black psychiatrist who is dean of students at Harvard Medical School, attributes these advantages to the grim selectivity of slavery. Says he: "First of all, they selected for slavery only those with a lot of brawn and ability to work hard: only the best. Second, only the strongest survived the long voyage. We may already have a very selected group of blacks in this country." While recognizing that great physical differences exist between members of the same race—as is notably evident when 7-ft. 2½-in. Kareem Abdul-Jab-bar and 5-ft. 10-in. Tiny Archibald confront one another in an N.B.A. game —scientists have also found that, on the average, there are measurable differences between the races. .

Pioneering studies by Dr. Eleanor Metheny, who conducted careful anthropometric studies of American blacks 40 years ago, broadly outlined the differences between whites and blacks. Metheny found that, in general, blacks had longer legs relative to total body length and that lower legs were proportionately longer, while thighs were shorter but more muscular than those of whites. "In jumping, the longer leg is evidently an advantage," Dr. Metheny wrote, "since [he] could raise his leg higher. Applying the principle of the lever, the longer lower leg can develop greater velocity at the end and serves as a longer lever with which to push off the ground, thus increasing the distance over which the force can be applied." The same general rules, Metheny found, applied to blacks' arms: on the average, blacks' hands are larger than those of whites, their arms longer, and a short, heavily muscled upper arm propels a long lower arm. Once more, the combination of leverage and musculature favors blacks in throwing.