Statement by Claude "Buddy" Young on National Sports Committee
Press Release
January 23, 1967

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Press Releases, Volume 4. Statement by Claude "Buddy" Young on National Sports Committee, 1967. f6757181-b792-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/62c7fd7f-e161-445d-a99f-b482aec79c55/statement-by-claude-buddy-young-on-national-sports-committee. Accessed April 27, 2025.
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S President : Hon. Francis E. Rivers PRESS RELEASE Director-Counsel egal efense und Jacke e Director, Publié Relations NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. Jesse DeVore, Jr. 10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUdson 6-8397 4 Nick Nate 212-749-8487 Statement by Claude “Buddy” Young “ Assistant to the Commissioner, National Football League Gallagher's Steak House, New York City, January 23,1967 Gentlemen. Good afternoon, It's a pleasure to see so many good friends, Anything I might say in support of sich a vital and significant program as the Legal Defense Fund would be superfluous. Let me merely add one blunt personal impression: nothing--repeat: NOTHING--is more important than the legal defense of Americans, white as well as colored, lawfully striving for those basics a historic and humane Constitution and Bill of Rights promise them, I can't let this moment pass, however, without directing your attention to the values of the National Sports Committee just now formed, at a time when the Legal Defense Fund needs every dollar it can muster, A world out of joint for far too long has finally turned. Look fast now; those days when the gifted Negro athlete was looked on as an ATHLETE, nothing more, are going, going, gone. It's no longer a tavern or coaching job. More and more professional Negro athletes are fulfilling their REAL potential, They are going into a host of careers --certified life underwriters, registered stock brokers, teachers, dentists, lawyers, prorecsienai ncn in other words, rising in these various fields, taking full advantage of the pay and celebrity they gain in the arena of sports to filter into all levels of professional life. You have only to consider a Gale Sayers, a Bill Russell, a Bill White to see the whys. These athletes have a gift that goes beyond touch downs, free throws and runs-batted-in, They are wise and in- fluential Americans, college-trained, self-disciplined and responsible, Gentlemen, professional athletes by their very nature are leaders. As leaders, they ought to be used whenever and wherever possible, One of the crying problems of our age, for example, is in the great urban areas, the megalopolis. The professional athlete doesn't perform for a certain element but for the whole metropolitan area and even the state, which lay claim to the athletes and the team. It Pee lie in the cities, that task fotces of Negro athletes can contribute MUCH in @eterms of serving the community at every level, [= \w Statement by Claude “Buddy" Young 2. Athletics has been the magic key to NATURAL and SUCCESSFUL inane group relations. (The finest neighbors I've ever known incidentally are Alex Sandusky and Jim Parker and many years here in New York; Rosey Brown and Jack Stroud.) With a task force of prominent Negro athletes --and your cooperation--this same intergroup spirit can't help but grow like nothing you've ever seen before,