By Ray McNulty
Scripps Howard News
Maybe it goes all the way back to Joe Louis and Jesse Owens, a beloved heavyweight champion and a proud Olympic hero.
For sure, though, Jackie Robinson made the greatest impact, shattering the color barrier in baseball on that April afternoon in 1947, when the summer game was still our national pastime.
He changed things. He changed everything, really, at least when it comes to black and white and sports in America. And in doing so, he changed the way we, as a nation, think about race.
Or started to, anyway.
It was Robinson, a sharecropper’s son, who took the first meaningful steps on a journey that culminated Tuesday at the U.S. Capitol, where Barack Obama took the oath of office as our 44th president.
It was sports ó as much as any segment of our society, as much as any piece of legislation, as much as any other part of our vast culture ó that made it possible for a black man to be elected to the highest office in the land.
I believe that.
I believe this country changed when Robinson grabbed his mitt and ran onto the diamond at Ebbets Field for the first time.
I believe this country changed when the Cleveland Browns handed a football to Jim Brown, who ran all over the NFL for nine years and became the most dominant football player of his time.
I believe this country changed when Willie Mays ran out to center field and became the “Say Hey Kid,” the most complete baseball player ever ó and when Hank Aaron, a man of quiet dignity, hit his 715th home run to break the most famous record in sports.
I believe this country changed again when Muhammad Ali, with his fast hands, fast tongue and faster wit, combined his brash presence in the ring with an unwavering social conscience to become, as much as anyone, the face of the tumultuous 1960s and early 1970s.
I believe this country also changed when Arthur Ashe, a black man playing a white, genteel game, taught us the true meaning of class and poise, character and conviction, courage and grace.
I believe this country changed forever when Doug Williams and Tony Dungy, black quarterback and black coach, won Super Bowls 19 years apart.
They were pioneers.
All of them.
They also were ambassadors for their race ó whether they wanted to be or not ó going out into a nation where most of the wealth and power belonged to white men.
And they changed us.
We cheered for them, admired them and even envied them.
What American kid growing up in the 1950s and 1960s didn’t want to be Willie Mays? The change didn’t come easily, or quickly. Nor is it complete. Racism still stains our national fabric, despite what happened last November. But so much progress has been made in so many arenas, on the athletic field and off.
And it wasn’t only pro sports that brought us closer, white and black, all across the Fruited Plain.
For many of us, especially those of my baby-boom generation, our first real interaction with peers with different pigmentation came while playing youth sports or on high school teams. Those relationships knocked down barriers, moved us past stereotypes and changed the way we thought.
So did sports movies, such as “Brian’s Song,” the 1971 true, tear-jerking story of the friendship between Gale Sayers and Brian Piccolo.
And then came Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, fierce rivals, white and black, who became fast friends and made us all feel a part of it.
By the time Michael Jordan showed up in the 1980s, followed by Tiger Woods in the 1990s, their skin color didn’t prevent them from becoming the most successful pitch men in sports history.
White guys wear Hanes.
White people buy Nikes.
Maybe we’re not yet completely colorblind. Maybe we’ll never be. But politics aside, Tuesday is a feel-good day in America.
Barack Obama, a black man, is our president. And sports, from Jackie to Tiger, maybe all the way back to Jesse and Joe, helped make it happen.
I believe that.