The American Basketball Association (ABA) first ignored the highly publicized plans of Don “Moose” Lewis to start a basketball league devoid of blacks, but now they’re taking a different approach.
The ABA now feels “Moose” is serious about the effort and has released a statement of condemnation over the proposed all-white professional basketball league.
“The organizer of this effort is apparently serious, therefore it is worthy of our response and we would hope a similar response from every professional sports league and organization in America today condemning such an outlandish suggestion!” stated Joe Newman, ABA CEO.
Newman noted that The American Basketball Association and its member teams want to make it very clear that there is no room in the U.S. — in sports or otherwise — for exclusionary thinking.
“This is especially true in a game that is truly played globally by literally every ethnicity on the planet,” Newman said. “We choose not to mention the organizer’s name or the name of the league in making our statement. The idea of such a league in modern-day America and the world does not deserve such publicity.”
Newman said the ABA is proud to promote its stance as the largest professional basketball league in the country with over 50 teams playing this season and continuing expansion both in America and overseas.
He added that the ABA is equally proud to say it is also the most diversified professional sports league in history, with over 70 percent of its owners being African-American, Asian, Hispanic or women.
Newman further states, “The backbone of the ABA’s current growth and future has been inclusion and will continue to be. Have we incurred failures along the way? Absolutely, but we believe in providing opportunity and a chance for success, something that has long been denied multiple minority groups in our country.”
Diversity has always been the goal, according to Newman.
“When the ABA was founded by Dick Tinkham, co-founder of the original ABA, and the Indiana Pacers and me, the goal was inclusion,” Newman said. “Unless we could diversify ownership and management, we would not re-create the league. From day one, we set out to do that.”
Newman said it has worked.
“We do not look at individuals who have failed; we look at individuals who had an opportunity to succeed and have succeeded,” Newman said. “We believe the ABA has changed the paradigm of professional sports and proven that the one common denominator for success is ability, not race or color.”
Newman added, “The players who want to play in an all-white league should spend more time dribbling the ball and practicing shooting, and then play the game of basketball, not the game of racism.”
Dick Packer, vice president of special projects and market expansion of the ABA, believes the mission and goals of the ABA in growing its member teams both in the U.S. and their developing relationships abroad would be to choose not to dignify any response to the announcement of such a league.
“We believe you are either part of the solution, which we choose to be, or in the case of the announcement of this league, part of the problem still to overcome,” Packer said.
Packer isn’t the only one who feels that way.
Gerald Watson II, president and CEO of Detroit Hoops ABA Pro Basketball, Hoops Dreams Foundation, said, “It is amazing to me that we are living in the 21st century and have the first African American president in the United States and yet have someone like the owner of this league trying to move this country backwards.
The organization was adamant about not mentioning the organizer’s name. If situations of this nature were handled likewise across the board, much free publicity for ignorance and nonsense would be eliminated … a concept worth exploring. –gerald radford
