Sports
Blake Griffin was a cultural phenomenon for the LA Clippers, but not for the reason you might think

A player’s impact on sports culture can best be measured by the moments that come to mind when his name is mentioned.
The best basketball players have them: Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Allen Iverson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and so forth.
For LA Clippers forward Blake Griffin, who announced his retirement on Tuesday after 14 years, when his name is mentioned, many moments come to mind: “Lob City.” Dipping over the Kia. Blake’s face. Straight up baptizing Boston Celtics center Kendrick Perkins. Former LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling.
The Sterling saga that began in April 2014 when Sterling was recorded on tape saying that it bothered him that his mistress brought black men to “his games.” is a blip on Griffin’s profession radar. In 2009, he was the No. 1 overall pick by the Clippers. Winner of the Rookie of the Year award in 2011. In Griffin’s seven full seasons with the Clippers, they made the playoffs in all but one yr.
But Griffin and his teammates protest against Sterling before Game 4 of the first round playoff series against the Golden State Warriors following the public release of his comments, it is probably the most lasting legacy of an illustrious profession marked by the extraordinary highs and typical lows of talented superstars who never achieve off-season success.
Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images
Griffin’s partnership with guard Chris Paul made the Clippers relevant again and, more importantly, cool again. Between the Clippers’ move to Los Angeles in 1984 and Griffin’s election in 2009, the team made the playoffs only 4 times, never winning 50 or more games. From 2010-11 to 2016-17, Griffin’s last full season in Los Angeles, they won a minimum of 50 games five times.
The success of the Lob City era legitimized the Clippers franchise to the point where two things happened. After NBA commissioner Adam Silver banned Sterling from the league for life, the team was sold to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer for $2 billion in May 2014, at the time the largest team sale in NBA history. Griffin also turned the recalcitrant Clippers into a place where All-Stars like Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and James Harden would play. “We were the old Clippers,” Griffin wrote in The Players Tribune in 2014. “We were a joke in the eyes of the media back then. They just desired to laugh at us.”
You can argue his Hall of Fame bona fides all you want, but Griffin is a very important piece of NBA history. He was involved in a landmark moment in Los Angeles that influenced followers. “Dunk City” doesn’t have the same impact, does it?
As the game evolved — and as he got older and multiple lower-body injuries began to build up — Griffin did, too. When he entered the league in 2009, it was still a league of giants. He relied on his athleticism to play off the rim in addition to anyone in the league. Joining Griffin in warmups was the equivalent of throwing a fastball to Barry Bonds or facing Derrick Henry right at the line of scrimmage. It was a senseless endeavor.
But by the time Griffin was shockingly traded to the Detroit Pistons in 2018, there wasn’t much left in the knees. Like the remainder of the league, Griffin moved behind the three-point line. From the 2010-11 to 2016-17 season, Griffin shot 29.9% on 0.6 three-point attempts per game. From 2017-18 to 2022-23, he shot 33.4% on 4.7 attempts per game. He hasn’t grow to be Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, but he has grow to be a stretch-4 who can shoot reliably from deep. Many big players didn’t last in the league when the need for more three-point shooting arose. Griffin prospered.
However, he achieved most of this under Sterling, whose teams normally recorded the lowest attendances in the league. Sterling is understood to have been prejudiced against black people, as illustrated by a federal housing discrimination lawsuit, for, amongst other things, his claim that his black tenants “smell and attract vermin.” Former team general manager and Hall of Fame player Elgin Baylor alleged in the lawsuit that Sterling told him he wanted a roster composed of “poor black boys from the South” and a white head coach. Sterling settled a housing discrimination lawsuit, and a jury ruled in his favor in Baylor’s suit.
Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images
After the Clippers drafted Griffin, Sterling paraded him around a swanky party at his mansion as if Griffin was his best ox, continuously prodding his newest black worker to speak about his sexual prowess.
Griffin said he felt powerless at the time because he was only 20 years old and interacting together with his supervisor. The power imbalance is a harbinger of silence because Sterling has been allowed to operate this manner for a long time. “This guy was my boss” – Griffin – wrote in “The Players Tribune”. six months after the Sterling tape was revealed. “Ask yourself, how would you react if your boss did the same to you?”
After Sterling’s tapes were released in 2014, in the middle of the team’s series against the Warriors, Griffin and his teammates had the weight of the world on their backs. The owner of the team they played for was caught saying racist things, but all the pressure appeared to be on him. They needed to boycott. They needed to demand a takeover of Sterling. They needed to take all the risk while the audience got to enjoy the reward of Sterling leaving.
Instead of refusing to play the fourth game of the series, the players took off their warmup shirts, turned them inside out to cover the team logo, and walked to midcourt to throw all of them into a pile. It wasn’t exactly on the front lines of the protest — Griffin said he was one among the players who advocated for a boycott of a Warriors game — but as I recall, it was one among the few times the team stood as much as team owner. Sterling would not survive what he said on those tapes, but swinging around like that in public still carries risks.
Five years before the release of Sterling’s tapes, Griffin was too afraid to ask his boss to stop touching and grabbing him at an all-white party, but here he was together with his teammates and principally told Sterling to kick rocks.
“We tried to decide what to do, but everyone said we should boycott, we shouldn’t play.” Griffin told ESPN in 2019. “The idea was: OK, we didn’t play for him in any respect. We didn’t get together before the jump ball and say, “Donald Sterling three-pointer!” One two Three!’ “
The Clippers’ demonstration followed in the footsteps of the Miami Heat in hoodies following the 2012 murder of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, further illustrating that when NBA players talk, people have to listen. The Clippers’ response, in fact, resulted in Sterling’s ouster, but it also showed that players have some power in the NBA: eight years later, after an ESPN investigation found that then-Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver had made racist and sexist comments, players like the Los Angeles Laker LeBron James (“Misogyny, sexism and racism has no place in any workplace”) and Suns guard Paul (“I was and am horrified and disappointed by what I read”) expressed their dissatisfaction. Sarver sold the team in 2022.
“It was a sign of respect,” Griffin told ESPN in a 2019 article. “At the end of the day, that is what it’s all about. It’s respect for the human race. It was just a small incident that was in a position to spark something much greater and produce understanding to the issue.
“I always come back to the idea that it takes a very educated and thoughtful person to be able to hold a thought without accepting it.”
Sports
Jalen Milroe can follow the Jalen path in NFL

Star Black playmakers aren’t any longer an exception – they’re the rule. Throughout the entire football season, this series will discover the importance and influence of black QB from bottom -up to NFL.
Indianapolis-keep me, should you heard it earlier: playmaker Alabama born in Texas, who’s a stronger runner than a passerby, will probably be called outside the first round of the NFL Draft.
The playmaker was undefeated in Sec as a primary -year starter.
The playmaker never played for the same offensive coordinator.
The name of the playmaker is even Jalen.
But it isn’t clear that Jalen hurts. This winter he was busy winning the Super Bowl MVP, and he didn’t play Iron Bowl or against Michigan.
Instead, it’s a former playmaker of Crimson Tide Jalen Milroewho last week Combine Combine tried to convey the case to the trainers and evaluators that he – like his namesake – is price being their playmaker franchise in the future despite questions on his ability.
“I went through adversity. I saw everything as a quarterback, “Milroe said on Friday. “I played at the most difficult conference in the country. It would be easier to play at other conferences, but what I could see in Sec catapulted me that I was ready to play NFL. “
Justin Casterline/Getty Images
Departing from Katy in Texas, she originally got involved in Texas in 2019, but a 12 months later she fell to Alabama. After he was sitting behind the Crimson Tide Starter Bryung for 2 seasons, Milroe took his reins in the 2023 season. He helped Alabama survive Sec (8-0) this 12 months, won by the conference rival and two-time defender Georgia in the SEC championship, which caused Crimson Tide to the play-off collection.
But while Milroe had a big arm (his 10 yards for the test took third place in Sec in 2023), the pass was not his strong suit. For two seasons as a starter Milroe never achieved 3000 yards in one season, the first starter of Alabama, who did it because it … hurts.
Hurts, from Houston, led Crimson Tide to the National National Championships in 2016–17, but during these two seasons were lower than 5,000 yards. While Hurts was a singular Rusher (1,809 yards and 21 sticks) at the moment, his weakness as a passerby is known for led to the spare Tua Tavailoa during the break of the national championships in 2017.
In the mix, Milroe decided that despite his pedestrian passes, he was still worthy of being a start at NFL.
He is aware of his weaknesses and swore that he worked in the ass to enhance outside being “one dimension.” He could move when his legendary trainer, Nick Saban, retired after the 2023 season, but decided to not fall off. He traveled six miles a day to ensure that that something was left in the fourth quarter in the fourth quarter. He studied progression and reads after I-SNAP to lift his IQ in football.
Unlike the forecast sorts of the first round, Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders, Milroe threw a mix on Saturday, hoping that he would show the bands that he has mechanics to do that to the playmaker NFL. It turned out to be a mixed bag. Milroe showed strong arm strength and a very good location of sail routes, curls and it while throwing exercises, but fought accuracy on intermediate and on the routes.
“That’s so many things that I can learn more where I am today and where I will be when it comes to day 1, starting with NFL,” said Milroe before Saturday exercises. “Always be a game student, at all times attempt to develop, because it would be so many opportunities in which I can look back and say that it was the moment after I grew up as a playmaker.
“That’s right now, I’m just trying to grow as much as possible, put my best foot forward and just look for development.”
Derick E. Hingle/Getty Images
Milroe was asked that he was one other playmaker in Alabama to succeed in the mix, following in the footsteps of the role (who moved to Oklahoma in 2019), Tavailoa, Mac Jones and Bryce Young. Milroe said he appreciates being in the company of others, but he added that it’s difficult to check him with others.
“We had different bands, we had different players around us, we had a different system,” he said.
But when he specifically asked what he could study the journey of Hurts-from the first manager of the game after the super Bowl-Milroe master said he inspired him his companion Alabam.
“The most important thing I learned from J. Hurts is how he kept his head (I) always continued to work,” said Milroe. “He at all times raised his game, he has never been self -deserved, and all the pieces you see is great progress from him.
“And I have to applaud him as a person, he as a man, because he is definitely inspiring for many playmakers of my image, as well as many playmakers throughout the country. He leads to all of us. “
The couple isn’t completely similar. Hurts had about 20 kilos on Milroe when he was in college. Milroe has a stronger arm, while Hurts played more and not using a mistake of football: Milroe threw 17 interceptions and ate 67 bags for 2 seasons as a starter in comparison with 10 captures Hurts and 43 bags.
But they can each be changing the game when their teams need them. In a highly publicized match against Georgia at the starting of the last season, Milroe finished almost 82% of his passes on 374 yards and two appointments, adding 117 yards to the ground for the next two results.
Milroe can also match the wounds in the so -called “Jalen-ISMS. “
“Climbing upstairs is not easy, but when you reach the top of this mountain, you will learn so many things when it comes to adversity when it comes to difficulties, things along the way,” said Milroe in a mix.
Sports
Like Tommie Smith and John Carlos from 1968. Black Power Salute inspired me to find my goal

I’d say that I grew up within the household to be sure that that me and my siblings were aware of the black history. My parents invested in the gathering of black encyclopedias. On the duvet we had a version of the Bible with Black Jesus. Our house was stuffed with books of black novelists and thinkers, and if a black document appeared, we watched it. I watched all movies made on television about Dr. King, each “Roots” and “Alex Haley’s Queen” and I sat for all 14 hours “Eyes on the reward”-as a toddler. Bless my heart.
Having said this, there have been pockets of black history, and more likely that I had no opportunity to delve into once I was a toddler. The college was where all the will for information and understanding of the combined. I attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, Ga., One of a very powerful historically black universities within the country. It was there that I met people from around the globe whose knowledge about black history differed (often depending on the colleges and the communities by which we lived), but everyone had hunger to learn more.
One day, through the first yr, I remember one among my friends in a T -shirt by which I had definitely seen before, but I never paid attention to. There was a black and white screen printing on the shirt (what I do know now) the enduring moment on the Olympic Games in Mexico in 1968, where on the rostrum for 200-meter medals, Tommie Smith, John Carlos (races 1. And 3. Place Finaners) Everyone gathered a black fist in gloves while he played “Star Spangled Banner”. Peter Norman, the second place from Australia, wore a human rights badge, like Smith and Carlos.
Not only did they raise the fist of black power (although they each said it was for human rights), they received medals in black socks to represent poverty within the black community, and Smith wore a black scarf for black pride. Carlos showed solidarity with blue-wheeled employees, unpacking the jacket and wore a necklace from the beads for individuals who were lynched. Due to the state of Black America in 1968 and a continuing struggle for equality and civil rights, there have been calls to a boycott of the Games. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was also killed in April this yr – and all three athletes were inspired enough to find a way to do it on the rostrum, which led to one of the crucial durable images of public protest.
I remember how I learned history and realized that on the most important scene these brave men used their moment of triumph and victory to quietly protest against the conditions of underrated communities in America. I felt strengthened; We often discuss standing on the arms of giants, however the more I got into the history of black in America, the more I spotted what number of giants there have been. In college I used to be very bad and for a while ready to burn every part that represented the establishment or any obstacle to black liberation. I felt like all those individuals who even saw their space on the planet in reference to individuals who could never give you the option to speak as heroes whose lives were to be modeled later. Especially since it was also fastidiously that putting people in front of him can often bring an enormous personal loss.
When Smith and Carlos took their position, they were booed on the stadium and ordered to be sent home by the International Olympic Committee. The athletes returned home, but they weren’t welcomed by the hero, but as a substitute of rough sleds, and even in some cases the specter of death. They were also not beloved by athletes. Two men, associated eternally in history, even have a good relationship –Carlos even claims that he let Smith go within the race Because “Tommie Smith would never put his fist in the sky if I won this race,” the claim that Smith denies.
History ultimately has a way of rights, but it surely took a few years and realizations on the front of social policy, in order that the actions of those persons are perceived as brave and needed, not only selfish and smug.
The lessons that I learned from College and continuous reading and education I gained (my head remained within the book about black history) were one among the best advantages in HBCU. The very variety of books I learned about about which I actually have never heard of – I actually have upheld me all my life.
That is why I remember sooner or later I used to be walking around Washington, the eastern Washington market and a street seller was selling different photos of moments in black history, and he had a 40 -inch photo within the Tommie Smith and John Carlos frame. I paid for it in money and spent it across the capital of the country until I returned home. I do know that it happened in 2005 (I finished Morehouse College in 2001) because I just moved to my first apartment with no roommate and it was the very first thing that I actually have ever suspended on the wall. This picture within the frame still hangs on the wall in my home in 2025 and I used it to teach my children about sacrifice and privilege and how you may have to discuss individuals who cannot.

The query that my youngest children often ask: “How do I know who can’t speak for herself?” Which is an incredible query. For this I answered an easy fact, pointing to the photo:
“These men have made a gesture that gave people whose most of us, including them, would never see or never know them, but on which life negatively affects the alternatives of the wealthy and the federal government. Sometimes you may have to take this chance to say something because you do not know in the event you’ll ever have such a big platform.
Son, there may be at all times someone who cannot speak for himself, and you may have to use it in a voice, because perhaps the thing you say or a stand that can help someone you understand, live a greater life. ”
I take advantage of words that may understand a little bit higher, but I can inform you that my children have a look at this photo on a regular basis, and once one among my sons said: “These guys are heroes, right?”
I say yes, they’re. They are the heroes of the Black History.
They will live eternally for speaking, and even quietly, in solidarity with those that couldn’t.

(Tagstranslate) @Ap
Sports
Main Treasury Official Morgan State University, Sterling Steward, died

Morgan State University announced that his older associate athletics director and tax director, Sterling Steward, died.
No reason for death was disclosed, but the college has confirmed his contribution since he was employed in December 2022.
Morgan State University Athletics mourns Sterling Steward’s departure https://t.co/avjzilxhja
– Grizzly Life (@grizzlylife22) February 26, 2025
Steward died on February 26. In Morgan State he was accountable for the event of university programs, supporting partnerships and strengthening the financial and operational success of the Faculty.
“Sterling was more than a colleague-he was a respected leader, mentor and friend,” said in a written statement by Den Freeman-Patton, vice chairman and director of inter-university athletes. “His passion for athletics and commitment to raising Morgan programs were visible in everything he did. He worked tirelessly to ensure that our sports students had resources and the possibilities of distinction, and its impact will be felt for many years. We expand our deepest condolences to his family and loved ones, especially his three sons and sister when we mourn this huge loss. “
While the steward worked in Morgan, strategic growth and cooperation occurred. His work with the institutional development department helped to offer more opportunities and created lasting relationships to support sports programs.
Steward earlier he worked At the University of New Orleans (UNO) as an assistant to the college athletics director for strategic income generation. He also made stays on the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Savannah State University, Mississippi Valley State University, Alabama State University, Kentucky State University, Eastern Oregon University and Xavier University in various roles, including for a senior consultant athletics director and sports director.
He was from New Orleans, who received the title of bachelor and master’s degree on the University of Southern Mississippi. He won a bachelor’s degree in the sphere of coaching and administration/history of sport and his master’s degree in the sphere of sport management.
(Tagstransate) Morgan State Universiry
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