where's your real bats? that didn't make him too popular. he hit a home run with a 32. the other thing was when he got to the hotel, he would go out at night. he liked to take a drink every now and then. his wife said, they are watching you. he couldn't be anybody but himself. even though he was a great ballplayer, he probably wasn't the best pick and the best fit. i could think of some other people -- there were a lot of great young players who ended up coming up later. even doby. irvin as a possibility coming up. they wanted older players. there were great older players around. roy campanella who came up with the dodgers, he would have been an excellent choice. later on he was. i might mention one thing that -- i could probably name a

half a dozen who would have been good players who came up later. interesting thing about jackie robinson, the brooklyn dodgers actually stole jackie robinson from the monarchs. they never compensated them. wilkinson who owned the team and a man who had part ownership, they could not say anything, because they would be looked upon as holding the black player back if they were to argue this debate about why didn't you compensate us for this player. this is a business. so they didn't say anything. quietly, they had their own boycott. no kansas city monarch plays for the dodgers again. that's the way they boycotted. brooklyn dodgers had many great players, but they didn't have guys who came from the kansas city monarchs. the monarchs sent more players to the big leagues than any other negro team.

>> do you have any record of anthony kansas in the monarchs? >> sure. >> my dad played for anthony against the monarchs about 90 years ago, i think. >> okay. >> if there's some way you could -- i'd really appreciate it. it's been a long time since i even knew about -- my dad's been gone 50 years. thanks. >> i tell you what. they did play anthony kansas. as i was coming down the freeway today, i'm driving past all these places that i know the monarchs appeared. i know they played at ft. riley, at junction city, they were at manhattan, clay center. i can keep on going out west. practically any city that was a city had a baseball team, and they had a kansas league that they would play in.

they played all the those cities of not one year, different years. i would do research. i will get your name. i will be happy to supply that information. >> about 1959, satchel spent the summer and pitched for salina blue jays. unfortunately, we still, as a team, suffered under the discrimination scenarios. they didn't spent many nights overnight. but they traveled by bus. of course, after the game liked to eat somewhere. there were many times -- the time i remember was in mcpherson they told satchel that he would come in the back door. the whole team got up and left. i commend the manager and sponsor for that. i was fortunate enough to be the

bat boy. i got to see a lot of satchel and the other players. as late as 1959, the black ballplayers were still suffering under that discrimination. >> that's an incident. i appreciate that comment. i was in nevada last sunday, and there was a ballplayer who played for that team who played against satchel. he was actually on the team with him as well. he mentioned the 1959 as well. he had great stories. satchel page, you know -- let me put it this way. kansas had its own unique form of racism. i know a little bit about boxing. boxing was considered a contact sport. so until 1938, i think it was 1938 was the first year that they would let black amateur boxers fight white amateur

boxers in kansas. they could go in missouri. but kansas black fighters couldn't fight the white fighters in kansas to qualify. they had to fight other black players -- black fighters in kansas. in certain sports, they had high school rules. they considered basketball a contact sport. so many black schools couldn't play against white schools in basketball because those were some of the rules. slowly, those rules have disappeared. but it was pretty tough times. there was a gentleman by the name of -- actually, he has -- there's two players. he has a couple of grandsons. i will recall his name. he played for the colorado springs sky sox. he told me the story of -- his name was sam harriston. he said he had to go in the back. he would go in the back of the restaurant and where the cooks were. the cooks were black.

so he would go back there and the players would go in the they are out in the restaurant. they pay $5. they get their meal, whatever it was. probably didn't cost $5 back then. he was in the back. so he was eating twice as much food. when he would leave, they would give him a to-go sack. so he would leave, and he would tell me stories about that night, his teammate, what did your people put in the sack for you? they were hungry again. he was the only one with a sack. you make the best out of a bad situation. that's what some of the players did. sam, of course, has his -- he had two sons that played in the big leagues and now he has two grandsons that play in the big leagues. i guess he did pretty good. >> was the barnstorming something all the negro team leagues did or just the

monarchs, what they wanted to do? >> all the teams tried. i will put it that way. you could see it was a very lucrative in the money. had you to build a tradition. two of the greatest were the homestead grays and the kansas city monarchs. the monarchs for the most part, they tied up kansas, nebraska, ominated that area. that was the team. and then there was one great white barnstorming team which the house of david. what's interesting, the house of david was booked by tom baird. they also booked the kansas citr monarchs. they had a nice little scheme going. they would bring the house of david would come in and play the local team and pretty much beat them. they had great players as well. then the monarchs would come through.

they would play the local team. the same people are booking them. they would beat the local team. so now the people realize, the house of david and the monarchs are good teams. look what they did to our local team. then they would turn around and book a came, the monarchs against the house of david and get three dates out of the same city. they did this all over the country. barnstorming was -- it was intelligent move from the money side. the teams who barnstormed the best survived the longest. >> if we don't have any additional questions, phil will be available to sign his books. we want to thank phil for coming out. thank you, phil. >> thank you. [ applause ] american history tv continues in a moment with the discussion of racism in sports over the years. former pro athletes bill russell and jim brown tell their stories. then a look at when walking was the nation's most popular

spectator sport. tonight, american history tv explores the overland campaign, a series of major battles that took place in virginia in 1864 between union forces and confederates led by robert e. lee. watch the 150th anniversary commemoration ceremonies marking the beginning and conclusion of the overland campaign as well as a look at the battle of cold harbor, the campaign's final major conflict. that's all tonight at 8:00 eastern here on c-span3. here's a look at our primetime lineup for this week on the c-span networks. each night starting at 8:00 eastern on c-span tonight, a debate on genetically modified food. on tuesday, issues spotlight on general motors safety recalls. wednesday night highlights from this year's new york ideas forum, including cancer biologist. thursday we'll look at the issue

of climate change. and friday night we'll visit important sites in the history of the civil rights movement. tonight on c-span2, it's bock tv in primetime, beginning at 8:30 p.m. eastern with a discussion about fracking. tuesday night at 8:00, afterwords on the history of money. on wednesday, the authors of the second machine age talk about how new technology will fundamentally change every day life at 8:00. thursday night, a discussion about the future of politics with former maryland governor robert erlich. and on friday at 8:00 p.m. eastern, in depth with writer and religious scholar rez reza azlan. on c-span3, an entire week on the civil war. tonight, a look at the overland campaign in virginia. on tuesday, the war's only battle in washington, d.c., the battle of ft. stevens. wednesday night, the 150th anniversary of the union defeat at the battle of the crater. thursday, the capture of atlanta and general sherman's march to the sea. on friday, a look at hollywood's

portrayal of slavery. find our television schedule one week in advance at c-span.org. and let us know what you think about the programs you're watching. call us at 202-626-3400 or e-mail us at comments@cspan.org. now, the history of racial equality in professional sports. former basketball player bill russell and former football player jim brown talk about their struggles. they also discuss the role of african-americans in college and professional sports today. this panel from the lyndon johnson presidential library summary civil rights summit is about an hour. >> good afternoon. my name is mike cramer. i'm the director of the texas program and sports and media here at the university of texas. we are pleased to partner again

with the lbj library. this is our fifth event we have partnered with them. today's conversation is part of our series on sports and society that was founded by one of the distinguished alums. we are pleased to partner with on many occasions. we also have an interesting timing of this today. yesterday, one of our participants, dr. harry edwards who i'm going to introduce in a moment, we formally announced that we have established a permanent lecture at the university of texas called the dr. harry edwards lecture on sports in society. [ applause ] we couldn't possibly find a better person in the history of

sports and civil rights than dr. harry edwards. he was gracious enough to lend his name to that lecture. we expect we will have several presentations under that name in the coming years. today is -- we have a conversation that's going to occur on the area of sports and civil rights. i've been a part of many panels and many presentations over the years. normally, you try and find the best panelists and the best people to make that presentation. rarely do you have the people, the top people who are presenting. in other words, if had you to pick one, two and three, rarely do you get one, two and three. today we are fortunate that we have probably the three most important people in the civil rights sports and society and sports and civil rights movement

in the last 50 years. we are ecstatic, pleased, proud that we can present them and have a conversation with them with you today. let me say that again. we have here probably the top three people in this area in the last 50 years. [ applause ] so let me get on with the program. it's them you are here to see. i'd like to introduce to you dr. harry edwards, mr. bill russell, mr. jim brown. [ applause ] take it away.

>> thank you very much. it's a real pleasure to be here with two men that i have known for about the last 45 or 50 years. if you hear a touch of respect and admiration and affection in my voice during the course of this conversation, you have me correctly. i want to begin by stating that there have been four athletes over the last half of the 20th century who have been utterly transformative. the first, of course, is the immortal jackie robinson. [ applause ] the second is the indomitable mr. bill russel. [ applause ]

the third is the incomparable mr. jim brown. [ applause ] and the fourth is the absolutely unconquerable miss billy -- billie jean king. i want to focus on the struggle at the interface of race, sport, and society. i went back and read jim and bill's first two books. jim brown's "off my chest and out of bounds" and bill russell's "goal for glory and second win." those should be required reading for athletes because they say where we have come from and the sacrifices made for them to be where they are today. the things that stuck with me about those books and reading them was, first, how well the philosophies, the perspectives, the ethical arguments and so forth of jim and bill have stood up over the last 50 years. the second thing is that they were super star athletes whether

they stood up. they were super starrage athletes when they stood up. they never were willing to exchange white racism for black orthodox. they were all about the people. their argument was, and that i as a man am part of the people and i insist on being respected as such throughout that -- their books. and then the fourth thing that really blew me away and that i find amazing to this day is how young they were. we are talking about 22, 23, 24 years old.

what we call today a young adult. aware of consigning an entire generation of people to sand box citizenship. they were speaking out at 24 years old when this happened. so i would like, first of all, to go back to that time and i'm going to exercise my prerogatives as the only 72-year-old up here and call you young men by your first names. and ask about what took you to that place? how did you end up at that place? why don't we start, jim, with you in terms of this. how do you end up in that place at 23, 24 years old? >> i was very fortunate to have a great mother, no father. went to high school with a great coach. a great mentor, kenny malloy and they were impeccable from the

standpoint of advocating education, self-determination. and i had an example of the people that were really good. there was tremendous discrimination in this country at the time. it was told to me that i could be loved and popular if i would bow down and do a little dance. i don't know if you know what that means. but i said, i don't really dance. [ laughter ] i just prefer to be a man. an american citizen. and i pay my taxes. i want my rights. so freedom, equality and justice is what i pursued it at all cost

because nothing else would substitute for that. no trophy, no form of popularity. because i was helped as a young man, i knew that my life's work would be to help others. so that's what you have here. [ applause ] >> bill, what took you down that path that you took? i was reading "gore for glory" and you stated, i have never been one to pursue being liked. from day one, i was about being respected. what took you down that path at 23, 24 years old? >> well, i guess it started when i was born. my mother and father, the first thing i knew about life was my mother and father loved me. and my mother -- i was born in the segregated south in the 1930s in louisiana. my mother -- our first conversation, she said to me, there's nobody on this planet any better than you. also, there's nobody on this

planet that you are better than them. and so i grew with confidence that i was okay.'fcyvñ and my mother and father always treated each other with respect. and so what i went out into the world, that's the way i thought it was supposed to be. >> okay. and did everything you could to change it to make that way when it wasn't?ç >> huh? >> did everything to make it that way when it wasn't? >> my mother told me what i was young, she says to me one day, you can play in the front yard for the first time.

she had kept me in the backyard all the time. she said, the reason i want you to play in the front yard is people will walk by and they will say things to you, good or bad, but it has nothing to do with you. it has to do with them and their perspective. so you play and have fun. don't worry about that. >> okay. >> so when i grew up, i encountered things. i knew i was okay. but moving ahead, a few years ago i met nelson mandela. we had a brief conversation.

and i asked him how he could be such a good person of all the things that he had encountered. and he said, if i had reacted the way they predicted that i would act, then they were right. but he said, i am a mandela and that's where i get my philosophy from is that the opposite of love is not hate. the opposite of love is indifference. and so the only way that humans can evolve is they have to care

about each other. >> that was evident throughout a number of your chapters in your book. let me ask you -- ask you this. jim, in particular, i was looking at a book entitled "the 100 most important people in american sports" and quite fittingly billy jean king is on the cover. there was a statement that you made early on in one of your earliest books where you stated that you had never been -- there had never been a time when you were not conscious of the civil

rights movement. i was very conscious of the civil rights movement and very active in what i called the movement for dignity equality and justice. it superseded my interest in sports. sports gave me an opportunity to help the cause. and that is what i dedicated myself to doing. now, i know that you supported the civil rights movement. but you were ahead of the civil rights movement in terms of your focus on economic development. what led you to move beyond simple desegregation to economic development, to starting the black economic union, setting up these offices all over the country, traveling through the deep south in a bus with other professional athletes talking to small -- black small business

people in georgia, alabama, tennessee? what led you to that sense that that was the direction things had to go into? >> well, it was understanding that people had to get off of their butts. regardless of what the condition, use intelligence and labor as they could to deliver themselves. we couldn't depend on a government or corporate america or anyone else. so i was always a person that advocated economic development because america is a capitalist society. it's based on economics. if you don't use economics in your community, your community will never grow. the jewish community in this country and the world has proven that collectively you can be a minority and apply the right principals and emancipate yourself. i thought the african-american

community had to apply itself, have the greatest community, the safest communities and probably most of all understand economic development. so that was the way that i led. and i attracted the top young mba's in the country. and i got the top black athletes in the country. and i put them together. and we got a grant of over $1 million at the time. we had a fund that any young black entrepreneur could come and make that loan and get the benefit of the knowledge of our natural business planning team. so that was the way i felt we could gain equality quicker than doing anything else. >> you know, i want people to really understand. we're talking about -- think of a 26, 25, 27-year-old athlete today that would have that kind of insight and vision. that's how far ahead you were in

terms of that situation. it astounds me even now. bill, you, too, had a sense of the necessity of economic development, not only did you have your own business here, but long before globalization came into the language, had you already set up relationships in west africa and were talking about how we needed to connect with african countries and have mutual economic development and so forth. you also went into the south. i mean, two months after the assassination, i know you went down to mississippi. it was a frightening time and held integrated basketball clinics in mississippi two months after the death. of course, your celtic teammates said, just keep a low profile. but you went down and held those clinics. while you were down there, you talked to young people about the necessity of completing school, becoming economically viable and

so forth. >> well, most of the people, as i could see, were economically deprived. i felt that as one of the places where you can purchase equality if you have what started out as a charity, you could make it a force. i know i was in boston. and there was a great many questions about why i would go

to africa. people told me, africans don't like you. well, the people that were telling me that didn't like me. [ laughter ] so i wanted to go and see for myself. okay? some guy came to me and he says, what do you know about africa? you don't know anything about them. they are not like you. you got no business doing that. so i said, you know, i have this family that are friends of mine. they have been accused of

supporting the irish revolution. the family was the kennedys. i knew all of them. in fact, i'm old enough that i remember meeting and sitting and talking with rose kennedy. and i said, well, if it's already for them to go back where their ancestors came from, why isn't that all right for me to go back where i think my ancestors came from? so it was all about -- see, i never, ever considered myself as a leader or anything like that. all i did was -- one thing i wanted to make sure that i never did anything that my father would be ashamed of. so the things i did, for example, i coached the boston

celtics. i was the player coach of the boston celtics. so they said, you are the first black coach in the nba. in fact, you are the first black coach manager in baseball, football and basketball in the major leagues. what about that? and i said to them, if red had ever said to me, this is a great social experience -- experiment, i would have nothing to do with it. the only reason i would do it, because i'm convinced that i'm the best person for the job.

[ applause ] so where i considered trying to do everything in my life based on merit. and i expected all of the people i surround myself -- >> to do the same? >> jim and i have known each other since college. and he used to tell me all the time that he was a better basketball player than i was anyway. [ laughter ] >> averaged 38 points a game. >> and i said, jim, no. [ laughter ] in fact i said to him one time, i said, you know, i think you are one of the greatest athletes, if not the greatest athlete of the 20th century. but leave basketball alone. [ laughter ] jim saw and i supported, if you

don't have any wherewithal to exercise influence, then you will never succeed. and i tried to live a life that would exercise influence. i personally am not interested in that. i'm just interested in -- i raise my kids. and i always let them know that i love them.

i think one of the key things about raising kids. my daughter -- i have to fight off her telling me what to do now. she graduated from harvard law school. the minute she gets i agree from harvard, she knows everything. [ laughter ] so i just try to see where things are needed, recognize

that things are needed and try to put myself in a place where i can make a difference. track? where are the bill russells? where are the jim browns? i know we don't expect people to do the same way -- do things the same way they were done in the same sense that bill, you and jim didn't do things the same way that jackie robinson did or that jesse owens or joe lewis did. how did we come to a place where we have the level of uninvolvement, apathy, a lack of concern about the broader issues that you speak of now? >> you mentioned jackie robinson. i met him a couple times. when he died, i got a call from rachel robinson. she said that she wanted me to be a pallbearer at his funeral. and i said, that's an overwhelming honor.c why me? she said, you were one of

jackie's favorite athletes. and i took that to say jackie had done a tremendous thing for us. he was the first black to play baseball, but he was never a pushover. and he took us to a place that opening up this whole world for us.ñ. but i was not going to re-visit that place. i wanted to take it to the next step. >> which you most certainly did.

>> and so when red asked me -- he said, he's retiring. i went back to my coach. he said i'm retiring. i got to find a coach to replace me. he said, first, do you want the job? i said, hell no. [ laughter ] i said, i watch what you go through. i don't want no part of that. so we agreed, both made out a list of ten guys that we would approve of. he said, nobody can get the job unless you approve of it. so i made a list of ten and he made a list of ten. there were no matches. and so he said, what do you want to do? i said, i don't know. he said, okay, well -- he decided however on this one coach. and he said, this is what i'm

going to hire. so i said, red, if you hire him, i am going to retire with you. [ laughter ] i don't even want to be in the same room with that person. i cleaned it up. i said person. and he said, why? i said, no. i will not be on the team with him. he said, what do you want to do? i said, i tell you what. i will take the job as a player coach. if it doesn't work, if you ask me to, i will quit or you can fire me. it doesn't make a difference. and i will give whoever you replace me with 100%

cooperation. because i didn't want to -- i had grown to love that organization. i wasn't going to do anything to harm it. >> mess it up, yeah. >> i did a pretty good job. >> i think you did. 11 nba championships. >> what i'm talking about is, i was player coach with no assistants. i didn't have any assistants. >> nobody could work with you. [ laughter ] i heard that story. >> i can be difficult. >> i know. >> you know, i had a song written for me.

he talked about my father. and the key line to the song was, i am my father's son. and he taught me how to be a man by being one. and so, i think that i can have friendships with guys that politically we're completely opposed. but since i demand respect, i was also given respect. so the things i did, i tried to do for the right reasons. never to prove anything to someone i don't know. jim is a life-long friend. probably after my father, the best friend i've ever had. and the whole thing was based on mutual respect. you know what's odd about it to me is, jim and i have known each other since college.

that's in the '50s. and i do not remember -- he says he doesn't remember -- when we met. >> momentous time there. momentous moment. >> the foundation is -- of the whole thing is, we live in america, and the better america is for everybody here, the better america will be. >> for everybody. [ applause ] >> let me -- go ahead, jim. >> i'd like to emphasize what you said, because this is a very diverse audience. sometimes i'm misunderstood. i think sometimes you're misunderstood. when you talk about jackie robinson -- i knew jackie very

well. had a lot of admiration for him. but i always talked about the man that truly integrated baseball was not jackie. it was branch rickie. jackie called him mr. rickie. he stepped out and he decided that baseball should be integrated. one reason might be because it's the right thing to do. the other reason might be the box office, the black audience out there that went to baseball games. and he could have chosen satchel page or josh gibson because they were great, great baseball players. but he chose jackie because he

knew jackie had the ability to play great baseball yet play the political role that he had to play, even though it was killing him. and so i say to you that i had a lot of respect for branch rickie and people like him. so if i digress from there, i go to slavery and the under ground railroad. you mru take notice of these things to be able to live in america properly, i feel. the under ground railroad represented harriet tubman. she was given tremendous praise for being that pioneer who basically lived her life to free the slaves. what is also overlooked is that those free houses that those people put up for the slaves to stay at and to hide them and to get them up to the north and get them to canada were regular

people, regular people. nothing special. but the commonality was that they were good human beings. when we talk, the three of us -- i want to emphasize this. we always talk about the category of good human beings before we talk about white, black, whatever. and that becomes important in being a man, because if i have a charity in my soul or the wisdom to recognize goodness in people, then i'm a man, a man of god, a man of trying to do the right thing. therefore, nothing you can do or say to me will change my attitude about my manhood. over the years, the biggest problem that we have had in this country is whenever you stand up for the right thing, even though it's for the overall populous, people take the attitude that

you are a racist or they call it an opposite racist. so i wanted to make that point, because when you say where are we today, well the one guy that i depend on most, young man that just won the super bowl and who is a tremendous human being and has gotten through troubled times and understands what we are doing is ray lewis. ray, i think, can be the leader of a lot of these young individuals who need that leadership, who want to learn what to do and how to participate in making tremendous change within this country. i thought i would interject that. >> there is no question that the every generation has to develop its own leadership. i think that we can -- people of our generation can do the analysis and tell them about what happened and where we think they are. but ultimately, it's this

generation that's going to have to take the leadership and responsibility. let me ask, i know that -- because we are running short here. let me ask this. i know that progress many times is a lot like the concept of profit. it really comes down to who is keeping the books. and so in looking at where we are, how much progress have we actually made in sports given the fact that we are down to 8% african-americans in baseball, from 21% in 1973 the heavyweight division of boxing is just about wiped out. i remember a time when there was ali and norton and george foreman and patterson and young and cleveland williams and larry holmes couldn't break into the lineup. he was a sparring partner. today, you couldn't find two people in 100 in an african-american community who could tell if you there was a

black heavyweight contender around now. when you look at the fact that the nba is one-quarter foreign born, we are losing spots there. how much progress have we actually made? where are we in terms of that concept? >> harry, i'm going to jump in there because i think a simple way i can say that jimmy carter, president carter experience yesterday was almost everything you need to know about progress, about heart, about honesty and about the future. he is on top of it in every way. so i would say to all of america, if you can get a tape of the jimmy carter presentation of yesterday, that that affair is unbelievable. [ applause ]

>> there's a movement going on now about unionizing college athletes. i'll be very interested in both of your opinions in terms of this unionization effort. it's just starting. i think people are looking around for an opinion, a perspective on it that they can understand and wrap their minds about. jim? bill? >> bill, you want to take this? >> for me, i have this phrase that i use. all great fortunes are amassed with either cheap or slave labor. and so the ncaa is one group

everybody is focusing on. they have this money machine. and to keep it this way, the labor force has to be free or very low wages. that's why you look at a lot of the great companies in this country, and they pay their labor -- they can't afford to go to the place where they work. i know when i was a rookie 100 years ago, the average salary in the nba was $5,000. that's not even meal money now.

in the middle '60s, we struck players in the league got together and struck an all-star game to form the union. the owners said, no way. we are not going to do that. so we said, okay. there will be no all-star game. abc television said that if you want us to televise, you get your players on the floor. they said, let's talk to them. so they said, we don't want to lose face. what we will do is if you will play the all-star game, at the s end of the year, we will

recognize the union. so the vote 11-9 to play. and we played the all-star game. so at the end of the year we went in to talk to the commissioner. he said, i recognize the players association. but we do not have anything to talk about. i'm not going to talk to you about anything. so our lawyer said, i will see you in september. that's the beginning of the next season. the commissioner said, the playoffs start next week. we're not going to play the playoffs. what we knew then was our contract was for the regular season games only, not preseason, all-stars or playoffs. so, well, we will see you next september. the playoffs is where everybody got well.

you almost doubled the price of tickets and you sold out every game. they saw the revenue going out the window. so they said, okay, we will talk to you. what do you want to talk about? so we had a list of things that we had to change. one of the things that we knew was baseball was the only sport that had antitrust exemption. the rest of us had -- the rest of sports had to go through antitrust laws. so all the grievance with the nba now are based on collective bargaining agreements. >> will that work at college? is that a model for college? is that something that these young athletes should be looking at? >> i'm going to simplify it.

i'm totally against a union in college. i don't like the ncaa. i think it's a greedy organization, dictatorial organization, an organization unfair to the players. players can't even get enough money to bring their parents to a game. on the other hand, i think that we have all gotten away from the value of education. [ applause ] so i'm an advocate of, let's go back to four years of college. [ applause ] let's graduate and then let's choose to play basketball, football, whatever or not. as you know, there's a very low percentage of individuals that make the professional teams. but everybody can get that

scholarship can get a college education. so we have to re-emphasize education and the value of it. because that's going to really be the ingredient that's going to make the change. it's not going to be a struggle between the ncaa and the union and all that. that's strictly money. >> yeah. >> as we know with these players today that we have, millionaires, over two-thirds of them go bankrupt within three years. so it can't be the money. so we put the value back on education and making that dedication to your college and let the ncaa support that with giving the players a right amount of money so they can live a decent life while they get a great education. [ applause ] >> we are running short here. i do want to ask you about one other thing.

how close are we in athletics in this country to really measuring people, evaluating people based upon a content of their character and the caliber of their competence as opposed to what they are and who they are? we have a situation now where we have active athletes coming out and saying that i'm gay. jason collins, kwain harris used to be with the 49ers. most certainly mike sams. brittany grenier. there's another man who played in the ncaa championship, first active division i athlete to come out and say, i'm gay. how close are we to putting this madness behind us about evaluating people based on all of these secondary inconsequential kinds of things as opposed to the content of

their character and the caliber of their competence? how close are we to accepting that in the nfl, say, or -- >> are you looking at me? >> you want that one? >> well, i'll see if i can answer. the first-year athlete you heard coming out as gay asked me, how would you feel about playing with a gay player? and i had one question. can you play? [ applause ] >> the caliber of his competence? >> right. and that's all. >> you know i can't answer that. >> huh? >> i cannot add to that. >> okay. >> well, jim was a professional