Orville Taylor | World Champions; not local champs

It might be shocking to him that hardly anybody in Jamaica knows of Stephen A. Smith. In fact, among the majority of the 4.5 billion people who live in Asia, his name wouldn’t even ring a bell.

And what is, perhaps, sad is that so caught up in his parochial reasoning as an opinion sport journalist, he may never have read a Jamaican or Indian newspaper or a story about the two greatest track and field world champions currently active. Indeed, as one of the most influential commentators on sport in the United States (US), his devaluation of the achievements of Noah Lyles and thus Sha’ Carri Richardson shows a level of irresponsibility among black intellectuals, and I use the term loosely to accommodate him, to uplift and guide the legions of other African-descended populations in the right direction.

Lyles, inspired by the legendary Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, admitted that he and his brother Josephus, were upset over the success and domination of the Jamaican sprinters who gave very little space on the podium for any other nationals between 2008 and 2017.

For the better part of that decade, Jamaican male and female sprinters ruled the roost. The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), now renamed World Athletics, introduced the self-explanatory World Athletics Championship in 1983. Not different from the World Cup of Football, World Netball Championships, World Cup of Cricket, World Hockey Cup, and World Swimming Championships, among others, it is precisely that: an international competition among nations. And at last count, global meant almost 200 nations states.

WORLD CHAMPIONS

Lyles and Richardson are world champions, just as Usain Bolt, Veronica Campbell Brown, or Shelly-Ann Fraser Pryce, and of course, the door-opener Bertland Cameron. Lyles has every right to call himself a world champion and to even throw shade and dim the light on the American propensity to refer to its winners of its domestic league as ‘world champions’. According to Lyles, “You know what hurts me … is that I have to watch the NBA [National Basketball Association] Finals, and they have ‘world champion’ on their head. World champion of what? The United States?” … “Don’t get me wrong, I love the US — at times — but that ain’t the world. That is not the world. We are the world. We have almost every country out here fighting, thriving, putting on their flag to show that they are represented. There ain’t no flags in the NBA.”

Lyles is spot on. A peeved Smith referred to the young man as “ignorant” and sought to declare that the NBA has players from 40 countries. Some 214 federations are members of World Athletics. Unless one adjusts the 40 according to the currency exchange rate, this is not even 19 per cent.

Not only is Smith’s stance absolute nonsense, but it is the kind of parochial isolationist outlook that black people, and in particular African Americans, cannot afford to have. As inconvenient as it may sound to someone like Smith, inasmuch as it is perhaps the greatest country on Earth, the USA is not the world, despite the iconic eponymous song of 1985.

To its credit, the American domestic basketball league has the best set of players, who it allows to play basketball in the US. Admittedly, it calls itself the ‘National’, not world. Similarly, its local baseball competition comprises two conferences: the National League and the American League. No question there about its endogenous nature. Yet the final of Major League Baseball is called the World Series, and of course, the NBA champions are world champions.

BLOWN AWAY

As a member of the 11,505-strong, American Sociological Association, I was totally blown away by the sheer size of the annual conference. On the other hand, the International Sociological Association has 6,000 members. However, it is more representative of global membership and perspectives. Therefore, appropriately, it is a world organisation. A constant issue with the Association of Black Sociologists (ABS) is that I have had to constantly explain, usually with the bracketed word (American) at the beginning, that the ABS really does not comprise black sociologists but ostensibly, African Americans. Most of our membership live and work in the United States, and for many years, the idea that we flew from Jamaica to a conference in the USA seemed enigmatic. My frequent chuckle would be that Jamaica is actually closer to the US than parts of the US.

With an afterthought apology, Smith concedes that the use of the word ignorant to describe Lyles was harsh. Truth is, Smith should blissfully simply have kept it for himself and to himself. Nineteen per cent is a joke.

Nationals of more than 105 countries play Premier League soccer. Yet no once calls them a world league. It would certainly surprise Smith, and some of his ESPN colleagues, that cricketers Chris Gayle and Mahendra Singh Dhoni are bigger stars than Steph Curry. Having competed on the track and field circuit in Europe, Africa, Asia, South America, and the Caribbean, that is the rest of the world, Lyles knows what it feels like to be a truly global star.

He is champion in one of the sports that his country is the best in the world. For more than two decades, the American women soccer team, the best team in the world, has cried for domestic recognition and appreciation. Unlike boxing, tennis, or judo, it is not about matchups. Except for the relays, it is not a team sport. We know who is the best. Neeraj Chopra throws the javelin farther than anyone else, Yulimar Rojas jumps longer than anyone else, and Bolt won the 100 metres in 9.58 seconds. There is no ‘draft’ to pick favourites.

Smith, and others like him, should use their platform to educate not just the rest of the sporting world, but themselves as well. There is a lot outside of North America that black people need to know, and the world needs more black heroes.

Dr Orville Taylor is senior lecturer at the Department of Sociology at The University of the West Indies, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com.