Arkansas Blog

Thanks for the link, Max. I hope those who aren't interested in sports will read the article (print it first, as it's hard to read online)---it's really well done, and another example of how our shared history is never as tidy and clear-cut as we might imagine or attempt to make it.

Kudos to Gary Smith. A really terrific, historically accurate article. I'm sure Smith would agree that it's much easier to write about those times now than to have lived them then.

That's a beautiful, moving article. Honestly, that should be Pulitzer material from a sports columnist.

it also adds a couple of stories to the wilson matthews legend. the picture of him moving the 101st airborne off of his practice field is priceless. the germans lost the war to that bunch but wilson and a clipboard got them off his practice field quickly.

Well done, Gary...

Kind of an interesting to see the poignant end to the story - how the black players can now joke and call the white players "crackers", the white players can laugh and retort that they might be forced to "hang" the black players . . . coupled with the public's outrage that Imus said a black women's sports team had the appearance of "nappy headed ho's".

All of these are racial insults. But maybe this is a sign that the younger generation has learned that good-intentioned insults have been, and always will be, with us. Maybe they have learned that some insults will have a racial element - but the utterer must be careful not to offend his target and the hearer should allow some grace not to over-react to comments that weren't meant to offend.

And that some older folks, and their audience, still don't get it. . .