Dear Bryant Gumbel,

Why did you feel the need to go there?

There are many reasons to rip on the Winter Olympics, but to say you don’t watch them because there aren’t enough blacks participating is ludicrous.

Okay, what you actually said was, "So try not to laugh when someone says these are the world's greatest athletes despite a paucity of blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention."

Does this mean that there are not great athletes playing professional baseball or hockey? How about on the pro tennis or golf tours? Because last time I checked, there was not a whole heck of a lot of blacks in those pro leagues.

What about in pro basketball, where the converse argument can be applied? Since there is a dearth of strong White American basketball players, can we really say that the NBA has the best athletes in the world? Because the numbers are just as skewed there as in the other leagues I’ve mentioned.

Why are you equating the quality of the athlete with their racial and ethnic background? Are you really that closed-minded or were you aiming for a comedic effect?

Let’s look at the sports involved in the Winter Olympics. There’s skiing, snowboarding and multiple variations on the theme of ice skating (either artistically or on an oval track.) You have sliding events (skeleton, bobsled, luge.) Oh, and who can forget curling?

Two things immediately come to mind:

1. Some of these events are definitely niche events that people who live in certain regions of the country are going to have access to. I doubt that there’s a whole lot of curling rinks being built in Atlanta or Charlotte or other cities in the South where there is a huge Black American population. There aren’t too many bobsled runs being built across the United States either.

2. These are all sports that require expensive equipment and lessons; things that a lot of black (and white) people cannot afford. Before this year, the last true rags to Olympics story that came to mind for the Winter Games was Tonya Harding. We all know how that turned out.

Of course, there are exceptions; but by and large, these aren’t things that many of us have exposure to outside of once every four years.

Maybe the USOC could do some more outreach. Maybe they could try to start academies for some of these events that would generate interest in the inner cities and rural areas. But, don’t you think that they would have done that by now if they thought there was demand for such things?

Look, Bryant, the Winter Olympics are a made-for-television event. You know that, I know that, we all know that. And you have the option to not tune in; that’s your freedom of choice at work.

However, if you’re going to explain that decision on national cable television, you might want to have a better reason next time. Otherwise, you are just demonstrating how small minded you are. And the lack of credibility that comes along with that demonstration will be more damaging than you’ll ever realize.

Sincerely,
Dave Singleton