I played with the Birmingham Black Barons. I was making 500 at 14. That was a lot of money in those days.
LaDainian Tomlinson, Hines Ward, Marion Barber, and a host of other black stars help the NFL shine brightly week after week.
When no other schools in the Southeastern Conference or the former Southwestern Conference would award them athletic scholarships, African Americans had been recruited by and playing for Texas Western since the 1950s.
I mean, the greatest athletes in the world are African-American.
When I went to Brooklyn in 1948 Jackie Robinson was at the height of his brilliant career.
If you look at the NBA, it's the richest and wealthiest group of African-American men in the world.
If I look at my era, you looked at the black players who were playing then and there weren't many - Clyde Best... Certainly as each generation has gone, there have been role models for young black players to aspire to.
I guess what really made me a Dodgers fan from the beginning was that the team had Jackie Robinson, the first 'Negro' in the major leagues.
Under Armour's success depends in part on endorsements from celebrity athletes, many of whom - like Stephen Curry, the basketball star - are African-American.
I'm pretty close with a majority of the black tennis players.
Many of the greatest black athletes of all time played baseball for no money and no recognition. I'm just sorry many major league fans never got to see them play, because many of them were awesome.
I don't think it's the intent of baseball not to have black ballplayers, but we have to find a way to get these kids back. We lost them to football. We lost them to basketball. We lost them to golf. People don't see how cool and exciting this game is.
Have you seen any African American athlete that appeals to the urban market actually bring that market to the MMA?
There's not that many African-American quarterbacks, so we have to do a little bit extra. Because the percentage of us playing this position, which people didn't want us to play... is low, so we do a little extra.
I was glad to play in the Negro Leagues. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.
Joe Louis and I were the first modern national sports figures who were black... But neither of us could do national advertising because the South wouldn't buy it. That was the social stigma we lived under.
