Quote:
Originally Posted by Fire of the Phoenix
Iginla was a late bloomer, no one anywhere thought he would ever become close to as good as he became. I really don't think race played into Iginla's draft ranking at all. His draft+1 season was amazing but in his draft year, he was basically a depth player on an amazing team. The potential was there, but most didn't see more than a second or third line guy in him, if all went right. If scouts honestly thought he had the potential to be a 40-50 goal scorer in the NHL, they wouldn't have cared if he was green with purple polka dots, he would've went 1st overall, or at least top 3.
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I guess you could try to argue that maybe his race played into him being a depth player and the way he was perceived by scouts, but really I wouldn't know enough to even go there. Doesn't really matter either way, as the sample we're talking about is so ridiculously small.
I think the football QB thing makes a better case that even at the highest levels of professional sports where there's enough money in play to trump any known biases, there can still be biases. (Then again the QB is kind of a unique position in sports.)
As for race issues, generally where it most comes into play is when people are not being nice and polite. Same as with gender really. White guy is authoritative, a white woman is bossy, a black guy is pushy, a black woman is crazy. Even though they objectively speaking all said/did the exact same things, people see the exact same things differently. People are on average more ready to accept bad behaviour from a young white guy than a young black guy.
Not that I really care. Evander Kane can afford to get some PR training and hire a professional to handle his image if he really cares that much. Subban is a perfect example that it's perfectly possible for a black athlete to overcome image issues.