“The Black Athlete” page 25, SI 7/1/1968

“The Black Athlete” page 25, SI 7/1/1968

Robert Buford, football, black athlete, homeless

Olsen interviews Robert Buford, a “19-year-old very black boy” who aspires to be a pro-football player. Buford is exceptionally fast and adept at scoring touchdowns, but he grew up living in cars and often starving. Olsen interviews Buford, allowing him to describe his own daily routine of working, going to classes, and playing football, while peppering in details of his failing grades and effective illiteracy. Olsen calls this interview Buford’s “recital of misery or despair” but notes that the athlete is “merely describing life as it is” and that there is no “self-pity” about Buford. Olsen writes abouts Robert Buford with the same shock, or “chilled feeling” that he expects his white readership to read with. Olsen is backtracking his study of the archetypal ‘black athlete’ to high school sports, when “the only people who put the college idea into his head were the college coaches.” Olsen notes Buford’s “sugarplum visions of college.” Buford thinks “it’s going to be fun in college” but Olsen has both implicitly and explicitly educated the white reader on the fallacy of that idea. He writes: “Robert Buford, deprived black athlete, has a big surprise coming.”

Katherine Brown

Sports Illustrated, July 1, 1968

Time Inc.