How could anyone living in 2010 truly believe that this would be acceptable?  It took only a few minutes of thought to answer my own question – no one.  No one living in 2010 would believe that an all-white sports league would be acceptable.

I think the whole thing is a lie.

I’m not laying accusations of fabrication at the feet of the news outlets that ran the story nor am I finding fault with the Augusta Chronicle. After doing a little research, though, I can’t help but think the paper might know a thing or two about the central figure in this story that would give them cause for suspicion.

Don “Moose” Lewis is the creator and star of this controversy.  He is quoted in the Chronicle’s story as not being racist or prejudiced at all but, rather, looking out for the minority white athlete.  Ironically demonstrating the exact racism which he claims to be no part of, he states that his league will be focused on fundamental basketball, as opposed to the “streetball” that non-whites prefer to play.  Before his words make you vomit, let me tell you a little bit more about Moose and his history, and maybe his intentions will begin to clarify.

Lewis has apparently been trying for at least a decade to get a basketball minor league up and running, with little success.  His background is boxing promotion and, interestingly, professional wrestling.  I found information, including part of a press release, about Moose’s ideas from back in 2004:

“Mix in the best of the Harlem Globetrotters, the XFL and its cheerleaders, and professional wrestling – and you have the red, hot, GBA! You will see players “high-fiving” each other, teams with their respective music, disc jockeys spinning club music, players at the end of the game tossing their jerseys into the stands, players screaming after a successful shot or key play, players in the stands at halftime, music artists at intermission, and ticket stubs redeemable for discounts on merchandise and admission to entertainment establishments.”

I also found a bulletin board on which Moose used to contribute, and his own posts paint a picture of a man who has a poor sense of humor, a careless insensitivity, and a record of failure.  The latest controversy doesn’t even appear to be the first time that he has suggested the creation of a whites-only league.

So, if 2010 is not the first time Lewis has tried to create an all-white league, but last time it was just a joke (sponsored by a sheet company! Hilarious!), are we to believe that he is serious now?  Are we meant to infer that he’s telling the same bad joke twice, hoping that we’ll now find it funny?

His comedy extends past cloddish racism and into creepy sexism as well.  In 2008, he tried to establish a women’s minor league.  Some of the teams that your daughter could have hoped to join: the Harlem Harlots, the New Jersey Nasty, and the Charlotte Shame.  I’m not kidding.  He also issued a press release (he later claimed it to be the work of hackers) in which he stated that his female players would take the court in bikinis, which would be auctioned off immediately following the game.

Moose Lewis is a modern P.T. Barnum, hoping to cash in on the fools born every minute.  Though a racist he may be, his purpose in the latest news is not to defend his all-white fantasy, but rather to make people aware of his name.  He seeks notoriety, because he knows notoriety to be the easiest form of free publicity.  He wants to be known, to further his career aspirations.  A lot of people fell for it on January 20^th, and I’m fueling it now by calling him out.

By the way, I forgot to mention that you can have an all-white team of your very own in your city.  All you have to do is send Moose $10,000.  I’m not lying.

Jake Negovan strives to shine a light on truth and hypocrisy when the mainstream media overlooks those small details. “…For the People,” Jake’s column is his platform to address the issues that our country faces as we continue growing toward a society of equality.

Growing up in a family that worships the Alabama Crimson Tide, I have revered Coach Bryant my whole life. When the people looking at my computer asked me that ridiculous question, I simply replied “yes”. I did so because it amused me, but also because few people will sit still long enough to hear my history lesson of the man, Coach Bryant, and his true legacy: the one where he, a loudly outspoken man, quietly helped to finally defeat one university’s tradition of athletic segregation in a program that was not quite ready for it.

Coach Bryant coached at the University of Alabama for 25 years (1958-1982). At that time, my Uncle, Sam Chalker, both an Alabama native and a Crimson Tide fan, lived in Birmingham. When I asked him what football at Alabama was like back then, he said, “At the time SEC football was a cultural thing. We were the South. We’d lost the Civil War, we were considered to be backwards, ignorant, racist rednecks by people in the Northeast and the West. Football was our point of pride. Football was our revenge for the Civil War. The general attitude at the time was ‘You may be smarter than us and maybe even have more money and class, but by God we can play football’”.

In the fall of 1970, the University had already been integrated for seven years (see the Stand in the Schoolhouse Door, courtesy of then Governer George Wallace.) Bryant and the Tide had long been playing integrated teams, and Bryant was well known for his insistence that his players treat ALL of the opposing team’s players, black or white, with class and integrity. It was equally well known that throughout the years that Bryant had been trying to figure out how to integrate his football teams at Alabama, he was met with constant, stiff resistance from Governor Wallace, who was in charge of the University’s (and thus the athletic program’s) funding. Where Coach Bryant was constantly frustrated by talented black football players being recruited out of his state to go North and West to play on integrated teams, Governor Wallace just saw their skin color.

All of that changed on September 12, 1970, when Coach John McKay and his integrated USC Trojans came to Legion Field in Birmingham to orchestrate perhaps one of the most lopsided defeats in Alabama history.

My Uncle Sam, who was in the stands that day, recalls the entire home crowd being absolutely stunned by a black USC running back named Sam “The Bam” Cunningham, who, as my Uncle puts it, “ran around us, over us, and through us, just like a turkey through the corn”. The Bam was joined on the field by another talented black running back, Birmingham native Clarence Davis. Cunningham, Davis and the rest of the Trojan’s offense left the ‘Bama fans both shocked and humiliated as they carved through the vaunted ‘Bama defense like “a hot knife through butter”. USC won that game that day with an easy 42-21 victory.

I realize that it’s a simplistic and romantic view of a complicated situation to propose that Sam Cunningham and his team’s victory was the reason that Alabama football was finally integrated. But, what few people know about that day is that there was already a black player on the Freshman team roster named Wilbur Jackson, who actually signed with the Tide in 1970 but couldn’t yet play varsity ball. Moreover it is worth noting that USC came to Birmingham that day on invitation from Coach Bryant himself. It has been part of the Coach’s mythos that he asked his friend McKay to come to Alabama and deliver a lesson in the form of a sure loss at the hands of an integrated team. From everything I have ever learned about the man, I do not believe this to be the case. Coach Bryant didn’t know how to be anything but a winner, and would never have gone into a game expecting to lose. I do believe, however, that he saw an opportunity in the loss to USC, and he took it and set about integrating his team. My Uncle called it “serendipity”. Several sports writers in the ensuing years have called it opportunism. I call it genius.

The very next year, when the Tide went out to California to play the rematch, Coach Bryant brought his first black starter, junior college transfer John Mitchell, along with Bama’s newly installed Wishbone Offense. The Tide won 17-10 in a major upset.

This year on Friday, September 11^th, my fellow Alabama fans will have noted that it was Coach Bryant’s birthday. And in honor of his birthday, I’d like us to think about this:

While some may say that Coach Bryant’s legacy rests in rock solid numbers like 6 national titles, 13 SEC titles, and an overall record of 232-46-9, I believe that to be the less important part of it. The most enduring part of his legend is the fact that now, today, like Bryant back then, Bama fans don’t care if you’re black, white, brown, or orange with yellow polka dots; as long as you can play championship football, you’re our guy.

On opening weekend, when Bama’s star running back Mark Ingram was running ALL OVER Virginia Tech’s defense? Every Crimson Tide fan in the world was on his side and nobody cared about the color of his skin…

Thank you for listening and Roll Tide.

Shanna Hinton is a columnist for redbrownandblue.com and a lifelong Alabama Crimson Tide Fan striving to represent the ‘Bama fanbase in Texas.