Statement by Claude "Buddy" Young on National Sports Committee

    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, 



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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,