AQB Reviews ESPN's Weekend SportsCentury Programs

NEW YORK (AQB)--With the 20th century finally winding down, ESPN's SportsCentury project heated up this weekend with four original programs, including a pair of two-hour programs that aired on ABC.

Fulfilling our duty, we watched each of the four programs and offer our reviews below. Please e-mail us with comments or Speak Out on our message board with your opinions.

SportsCenter of the Decade, 1960s

SportsCentury's Top 100 Athletes: No. 35 - Secretariat

The Greatest Coaches of the Century

The Most Influential People In Sports

SportsCenter, 1960s: Times They Were A-Changin'
By George Stahl

ESPN's SportsCentury special on the 1960s was far out, groovy, shagedelic. Or in '90s terminology, it was the bomb.

OK, enough with the slang. Literally speaking, SportsCentury of the Decades, 1960s was good, not perfect, but good. The program excelled at showing how athletes during that decade reflected the growing turbulence in the country; however, the show also included a couple of glaring omissions that weakened the overall effort.

The best piece of the show was Robin Roberts' opening look at the three most prominent black gold medalists from the 1960 Olympics - Cassius Clay, Rafer Johnson and Wilma Rudolph - returning home and seeing, as co-host Chris Berman said, "all that glitters is not gold."

Roberts reported how confused the gold medalists were - one day, they were celebrated for being the best in the world; the next, they were forced to return to their segregated lives.

Later in the program, Bob Ley said things hadn't changed much by the time Tommie Smith and John Carlos won medals at the 1968 Olympics, leading to their black power salute on the victory stand. Ley's piece explained how, by raising their black-gloved fists on the victory stand during the National Anthem, Smith and Carlos sent a message to white America that blacks were tired of the oppression.

The piece was well-done, except it did not include any recent interviews with either Smith or Carlos. (Smith was shown in a 1968 interview.) Nor did it include an explanation as to why Smith and Carlos did not appear. As far as ArmchairQB.com can tell, the two are still alive and, according to a San Francisco Examiner story from October 1998, are teaching track in Southern California.

So has the negative, even hostile, reaction to their salute forced them into seclusion? Are they unwilling to discuss the events publicly? If so, that certainly would have been an interesting footnote to mention.

The most prominent athlete of the 1960s also didn't appear as he is in the 1990s. However, everyone knows that the Muhammad Ali of 1999 is, unfortunately, a lot different than the Muhammad Ali of the 1960s.

The program, though, did a terrific job of documenting Ali's towering influence on the sports world and on the country during that turbulent decade. Fittingly, it was the best athlete in the most violent of sports that epitomized one of the most violent decades in the United States this century.

From winning a gold medal at the 1960 Olympics to losing his heavyweight title for refusing to fight in the Vietnam War, Ali fought heavyweights in and out of the ring. He stood up for what he believed, and wasn't afraid to fight for what he thought was right.

In general, he represented millions of Americans at that time - fighting and challenging authority.

The biggest omission in the show was the lack of attention to the Boston Celtics. The team won nine of the 10 NBA titles that decade and recently was voted the greatest dynasty ever by Sports Illustrated. The program mentioned the Celtics a couple times, but the team deserved better treatment.

Obviously, space is tight on a show like this; however, I may have cut down the feature on the Jack Nicklaus/Arnold Palmer rivalry and done more on those great Celtic teams.

Finally, SportsCentury tries very hard to try to create the appropriate look and feel to each of its decades' shows, from the anchors' clothes to the program's set, and this one was no different.

The program was shot in that grainy color seen in 1960s sitcoms. The set included many items not found on today's newscasts, such as phones on the desk, the printer in between Berman and co-host Charley Steiner, and the microphones that hung from their necks.

All of these old-fashioned items add value to the look of the show; however, it doesn't make the program any better or worse. The program is still judged by its content. A uniform may make an athlete look better, but it still comes down to the athlete's performance in the game.

Overall, I thought the 1960s show did an excellent job of showing how sports and society began to collide in a way unseen before. Sports was no longer seen as an escape from reality, but rather as a forum to face it. Athletes used their positions to propose social reform and debate national issues.

At times, though, the two-hour SportsCenter centered too much on the politics and not enough on the sports. The on-the-field successes of the Celtics, Packers and two-time Grand Slam winner Rod Laver deserved better treatment; however, their problem was that they did it the old-fashioned way.