CHRISTIAN MCCAFFREY: THE TRIUMPH OF GENES OVER STEREOTYPES

               Those who follow college or pro football know that a white running back is about as rare as a black swan.  Even though whites constitute about 77% of the total U.S. population, they constitute but a miniscule portion of running backs in both the major college ranks and the NFL. 

                While white running backs are extremely rare in the major college ranks, they are virtually non-existent in the NFL.  Indeed, there does not appear to be a single white starter at the running back position among the 32 teams in the NFL today.  Of the two white backs whose names might be recognized by NFL fans – Toby Gerhart of Jacksonville and Danny Woodhead of San Diego – Gerhart is not a starter, and Woodhead is more of a situational receiver rather than a regular running back. 

                The situation is not much different in the college ranks.  Virtually all running backs in the major conferences of NCAA football, as in the NFL, are blacks.  Over the past 30 years or so (until this year, of which more below), only two white running backs have been recognized as genuine All-Americans, the aforementioned Toby Gerhart of Stanford in 2009 and Luke Staley of Brigham Young back in 2001.  And neither of them established himself as a starting tailback in the NFL, although Gerhart has seen spot duty as a starter from time to time.

                Given the great desirability and prestige of this position at both the college and professional level, this near-total absence of whites seems quite remarkable.  In most desirable and lucrative fields of endeavor, the absence of members of a particular race is considered a matter of serious concern, or at least curiosity.  And given America's liberal-dominated political and cultural environment, such concern usually rises to the level of outrage, sensational publicity, and even government legal action if blacks are the excluded or absent category.  As but one example of many, the paucity of black head coaches in the NFL resulted in adoption of the so-called "Rooney Rule," whereby NFL teams are required to interview minority candidates whenever there is a coaching or other senior football operations vacancy.

                Yet the extreme paucity of whites among major college and NFL running backs (not to mention defensive cornerbacks, where whites are even rarer) – a paucity that has persisted for at least three decades – goes virtually unnoticed and unremarked.  It is as though sports journalists and commentators – not to mention fans -- have assimilated an unwritten rule that the subject is off-limits for discussion.

                                                                     

                          Christian McCaffrey:  Smashing records and stereotypes 

                In complete contrast, when there is the slightest hint of so-called "under-representation" of blacks in any area of the sports world, the liberal nerds who dominate sports journalism can be relied upon to throw hissy fits of indignation and to hurl feckless accusations of discrimination.  As but one example, when the percentage of blacks in major league baseball declined from a level well above the black share of the talent pool (which is an international pool, including Latin American and East Asian ballplayers) to a lower level more commensurate with that share, cries of wounded indignation and dismay reverberated through the sports media.  The fact that the reduction in the black percentage of MLB players was mainly a function of young black athletes' preference for football and basketball, as well as the expanding influx of Latino players (many of whom are themselves part black), was lost on the promoters of the entirely bogus black ballplayer shortage.  See SR's exposition of this canard, The Contrived Black Ballplayer Shortage (Apr. 17, 2013), at http://splashingrocks.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-contrived-black-ballplayer-shortage.html.

                Perhaps, however, the complete indifference to the absence of white running backs in football is simply based on widespread acceptance of the premise that white men are simply not fast enough to excel at this athletically demanding position. 

                At the highest levels of college football, and especially in the NFL, extreme speed is a mandatory qualification for the running back position.  In that regard, anyone familiar with the racial composition of the elite sprinting events at both the national and international level knows that blacks almost totally dominate these events.  Whether because of innate physiological differences, or some other inexplicable factor that is not readily apparent, neither whites nor any other racial or ethnic group seems to produce young men with the extreme running speed that is possessed by the black males who dominate speed-based athletic specialties.  As a result of this evident disparity, college and pro football coaches almost exclusively recruit blacks, and almost never recruit whites, for the running back position.

                                                                 

                                                                                    (Sports Illustrated, 1956) 

      McCaffrey's amazing grandfather, David Sime, with archrival Bobby Morrow                                           

                 Which brings us to Christian McCaffrey of Stanford University. 

                Almost out of nowhere, the sophomore McCaffrey emerged this year as one of the two or three top running backs in all college football.  He gained over 1,800 yards rushing, a total exceeded only by Derrick Henry of Alabama, who barely edged out McCaffrey for the Heisman Trophy, awarded to the outstanding player in college football.  But while Henry slightly surpassed McCaffrey as a runner from scrimmage, McCaffrey was in a class by himself as the top all-around back in college football.  He amassed an incredible 3,496 "all-purpose" yards, which include pass receiving and returning punts and kickoffs as well as total rushing yards.  This astonishing  total broke the all-time records previously held by the legendary Barry Sanders of Oklahoma State, considered by many as the greatest running back of all time.  Breaking Sanders' record was, needless to say, an enormous accomplishment.

                What separates McCaffrey from the very few distinguished white running backs of recent decades, like Gerhart and Luke Staley, is that they were primarily "power backs" with only modest speed, while McCaffrey is a genuine "speed-burner."  He has been laser-time at 4.50 sec. in the 40-yard dash, which would have placed him near the top end of the elite running backs who participated in the 2015 NFL Combine.  Yet McCaffrey is no light-weight.  He carries a solid, muscular 201 lbs. on his 6-foot even frame.  His great speed has not only enabled him to excel as a running back, but as a receiver, punt returner, and kick-off returner as well, all of which also demand great speed.

                Despite his current prominence, the young McCaffrey did not escape the prejudicial stereotypes that often attach to white athletes when they seek to qualify for positions assumed to be the exclusive preserve of black speedsters.  When he showed up for youth football camps or high school all-star combines, for example, observers would curtly dismiss his prospects as a running back, or assume he was a kicker or that he played some other position more "suitable" for white guys. 

                But fortunately, McCaffrey was recruited and coached by David Shaw, the present head football coach at Stanford, who was a teammate of Christian's father Ed as a Stanford undergraduate.  Shaw is black, and utterly lacking in the defensive assumptions about the limitations of white players that might affect a typically "by-the-book" and risk-averse white coach.  Not only did Coach Shaw quickly recognize Christian McCaffrey's superior ability as a running back, he has started him ahead of a collection of excellent black running backs – one of whom is actually Barry Sanders' son – on the basis of no-nonsense competition.  Shaw did not reach his current status as one of college football's best coaches by letting stereotypes of any kind get in the way of ruthless talent evaluation.

                The question naturally arises, then, what enabled McCaffrey to reach this elite level of speed that is seemingly so rare among white athletes.  The answer is:  the best gene combination imaginable, coupled with extensive training and focused ambition.

                McCaffrey's father is Ed McCaffrey, who was an extremely fast elite wide receiver at Stanford.  More impressively, he became a first-rank all-pro receiver in the NFL, where he also earned a remarkable three Super Bowl rings.  Ed's wife and Christian McCaffrey's mother is Lisa Sime, who was an outstanding soccer player at Stanford.  More importantly, Lisa is the daughter of the remarkable Dr. David Sime, who (as explained below) is probably the most critical genetic source of young McCaffrey's speed.  Lisa has jokingly remarked that she and Ed married "so we could breed fast white guys."  See http://www.foxsports.com/college-football/story/stanford-cardinal-christian-mccaffrey-rb-father-ed-david-shaw-mandel-101415.

                                                                   

                                                                                   (courtesy Lisa McCaffrey)

                       Ed and Lisa McCaffrey with their Stanford Superstar Son

                To round out this remarkable chain of athletic genetic connections, McCaffrey's uncle (Ed's brother) is Billy McCaffrey, who was the very excellent shooting guard on Duke's great 1991 NCAA basketball championship team headed by Christian Laettner. 

                It is small wonder, therefore, that Christian McCaffrey has turned out to be a remarkably successful athlete.  But his inheritance of the great speed that distinguishes him from other white running backs can be confidently ascribed to his maternal grandfather, the illustrious and highly interesting David Sime (pronounced "sim").

                Born in Paterson, NJ, Sime was first recruited by Duke University in 1954 as a star baseball player.  But Sime was equally outstanding in football, where he played split end, and was later drafted by the Detroit Lions (but he never pursued pro football).  But when casually timed for the 100-yard dash on an unfinished grass surface, Sime ran an astonishing  9.8 seconds.  The rest was track history.  He went on to set world records in the 100- and 220-yard sprints, as well as in the 220-yard low hurdles.  In total, he broke world track records seven times, and in the mid-1950's this red-headed flash was considered by many to be the fastest human in the world.

                Regrettably, a series of bad luck episodes prevented Sime from winning the Olympic gold medals that his enormous  abilities warranted.  In the build-up to the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, Sime engaged in a monumental rivalry with Bobby Morrow of Abilene Christian University for world and U.S. sprinting supremacy.  In one of their epic duels, Sime edged out Morrow with a 9.4 time (then 1/10 of a second off the world record) in the 100-yard dash at the 1956 Drake Relays.  But Sime missed out on the Olympics that year due to an untimely groin injury, while his rival Morrow went on to win three gold medals and to be named Sports Illusrated's Sportsman of the Year.

                But Sime continued his track career with an eye toward the 1960 Olympics in Rome.  He was the leading sprinter on the U.S. team, but again he faced a formidable rival – in this case, the super-starting West German, Armin Hary.  Sime and Hary finished in a virtual dead-heat in the 100-meter dash, but Hary was awarded first place in a controversial photo-finish decision.  Sime then rallied to salvage a first place for the U.S. with a come-from-behind anchor leg in the 400-meter relay – only to again suffer disappointment when the U.S. was disqualified for a technical baton-exchange violation. 

                Notwithstanding his Olympic disappointments, however, Sime's achievements established him as one of the great sprinters of his era.  In recognition of this, as well as his enormous athletic versatility, he was named Duke's Outstanding Athlete of the 20^th Century, beating out such Durham legends as Christian Laettner and Dick Groat. 

                Capping it all off, Sime showed that his values and priorities were of the same high quality as his athletic achievements.  He passed up opportunities in professional sports to earn a medical degree at Duke Medical School, and went on to a successful career as an ophthalmologist.  His admiring grandson Christian only half-jokingly calls him the real "most interesting man in the world" (it would take another essay to get into such fascinating  Simes episodes as his role assisting the CIA in attempting to secure the defection of a prominent  Russian Olympic long-jumper).

                                                            * * *

                Considering this distinguished athletic lineage, it is not so surprising after all that Christian McCaffrey has reached the highest levels of achievement as a swift running back -- notwithstanding the stereotypical assumptions about the speed limitations of white athletes.  McCaffrey's case strongly indicates that an athlete's individual genetic heredity, rather than the generalized traits or limitations of his or her race, can be more pertinent in determining the capacities and propensities that lead to elite athletic performance.  Unlike the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, therefore, the elite white running back and the white sprinter are not doomed to extinction after all – as long as the likes of Ed McCaffrey and Lisa Sime meet, get married, and get busy.

FURY, NOT FEAR: THE SIMPLE SANITY OF LIMITS ON MUSLIM IMMIGRATION

               SR has been silent for several months for a disturbing reason:  Each time he is ready to write on the most recent hideous outrage in our dismal era, an even more ghastly development occurs that supersedes the previous, and so on almost ad infinitum. 

                But the depths of ignorance, hypocrisy, and cowardice to which the media and political left have descended in their rabid response to Donald Trump's proposal for a temporary halt in Muslim immigration summons SR from the sidelines to join this critical debate.

                In response to overwhelming evidence that the proliferation of Sharia-compliant Muslim aliens presents an imminent threat to public safety, Trump proposes a temporary ban on Muslim immigration until the crisis can be thoroughly evaluated and understood.  Good.

                Unfettered Muslim infiltration of Europe has caused an epidemic of violence and barbarism, corrupted European civilization and culture, and exploited EU public services to the breaking point.   In the face of this disgusting catastrophe, basic considerations of self-preservation demand that America take necessary measures to avoid similar disaster.  Trump's proposal is a straightforward effort to do just that.  SR staunchly defends Trump's proposal, moreover, even though we recognize that Trump is not a genuine conservative and we do not presently support him for the GOP nomination.

                                                         

                               Where is Charles Martel when we need him?

                Given the subversive fallacy of the attacks on Mr. Trump's proposal, it is important to tabulate the most important points that refute the orgy of falsehood, fraud, and treachery that is spreading  through  the corrupt American media.  Let's call them the Seven Pillars of Opposition to Islamist Immigration.  Here they are. 

                1.  Limits on Immigration by Designated Groups is Normal American Practice and is expressly authorized by law.  The hysterical opponents of Trump's proposal declare that it is a blatant violation of American traditions, and an affront to "who we are as a nation."  This is utter nonsense.  Recent and past American history is rife with sweeping laws, orders, and Presidential actions not only limiting immigration by designated groups but even placing them in detention camps -- as the revered Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt did with the Japanese in World War II.  Iranians, Syrians, Chinese, Japanese, and many others have all been targeted by strict bars on their entry to the U.S.  That is the American tradition and the American way.  More recently, the ultra-liberal Jimmy Carter ordered the near total exclusion of immigration from Iran – and he was plainly targeting Iranian Shiite Muslims, not Christians – as a response to the Iranian Hostage Crisis.  As Carter stated in 1979: 

   

             "[T]he Secretary of Treasury and the Attorney General will invalidate all visas issued to Iranian citizens for future entry into the United States, effective today. We will not reissue visas, nor will we issue new visas, except for compelling and proven humanitarian reasons or where the national interest of our own country requires. This directive will be interpreted very strictly." 

                Such alien exclusion orders are expressly authorized by federal law (11 U.S.C. 1182(f), which states:

                "Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate."

                Even the invertebrate Obama has ordered the exclusion of Syrians and Iranians who have committed "human rights abuses" no worse than the actions that all Muslims are obligated to take by the Koran.  When the Nation's security and welfare are threatened by identifiable foreign groups, our traditions and principles dictate that we exclude them, not welcome them.  That is exactly what Trump is proposing.

                2.  Trump's proposal is constitutional and lawful.  Having practiced constitutional law as Senior Counsel at the highest level of the Justice Department – the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) --  SR is well qualified to judge the constitutionality of Trump's exclusion proposal.  Various network legal buffoons – political hacks who would not survive the first round of interviews for a position at OLC -- smugly and instantly declared that the proposal was unconstitutional.  They are wrong.  As long as the exclusion measure includes the necessary exceptions that Trump has since clarified that he would adopt – such as an exception for existing Muslim-American citizens returning to the U.S. – it is clearly constitutional under the long-recognized "plenary principle" governing immigration by foreign persons.  Under that  standard, aliens seeking admission to the United States may be excluded for any reason, and they may not invoke the constitutional provisions (such as the equal protection clause or the First Amendment) that apply to U.S. citizens to support their efforts to gain entry.  Foreign persons simply have no constitutional right to enter the U.S., and the Constitution may not be invoked by them to force their way in.  Indeed, the above-quoted statute authorizes the President to order the exclusion of any alien categories whose entry would be inimical to U.S. interests.  That is exactly what Trump's proposal would do – exercising statutory authority given to the President by Congress to protect the nation from harmful immigration.

                3.  Muslim Immigration is not beneficial to the U.S.; it is demonstrably harmful.   Just as in the case of the illegal immigration invasion from Mexico, unhinged Democrats, "moderate" Republicans, and their media allies reflexively subordinate the interests of American citizens to the interests of undesirable and hostile foreign elements in connection with the Muslim immigration issue.  This is irrational and treacherous. The U.S. already has more Muslim immigrants than it needs, and some cities and towns (like Dearborn, Michigan) are so overrun by Muslims that their American character and cultures have been supplanted by an oppressive Islamic weltanschauung.  Indeed, in Hamtramck, Michigan, Muslims have seized a majority in the city council.  Sharia enclaves cannot be far behind (they have already been established in parts of Europe).  The U.S. simply does not need any more undereducated, non-English- speaking, combative Muslim refugees who are hostile to American culture and tradition, and who are largely incapable of supporting themselves and their families.  They place an oppressive burden on American citizens, with virtually no offsetting benefit.   And this entirely apart from the enormous risk of terrorist attacks and other violence posed by Muslim immigration.

                4.  Muslim Immigration is inherently low quality immigration.  Attempts to justify the entry of hordes of undesirables by highlighting the negligible percentage of Muslims aliens (e.g., physicians) who might bring a useful credential are fraudulent for the obvious reason that it is the net impact that matters.  The overwhelming majority of Muslim immigrants will cause a massive drain of U.S. resources – as Europe is now experiencing to its great cost -- with no countervailing benefit.  Hordes of Muslims have entered as self-selecting refugees, and Obama is poised to open the gates to legions more.  Others enter solely by virtue of their relationship to other Muslims who are already here.  Unlike traditional immigration based on preference qualifications, these refugees and dependents are not required to meet any standard for job skill and self-sufficiency as any sane immigration system would demand.  Moreover, the certainty that a significant number of Muslim immigrants will be Sharia-compliant fanatics who are prepared either to support, or actually commit, hostile actions against Americans overwhelmingly outweighs the pathetic attempts to justify Muslim immigration with maudlin and misleading pictures of hapless children and weeping widows.

                5.  Follow Japan, not Europe.  At least one other industrialized and highly civilized democracy virtually excludes all Muslims from its borders, let alone its accepted society.  An article in the Jewish Press blog, see http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/the-land-without-muslims/2013/05/19/, explains how Japan is able to avoid Islamic terrorism as a "land without muslims."  Mordechai Kedar, The Land Without Muslims, Jewish Press.com (May 19, 2013).  Although Japan does not expressly ban the immigration of Muslims, its laws, regulations, social norms, traditions, and national policies render it negligible as a practical matter.  Simply put, Muslims are not welcome in Japan.  With a total population of some 130 million people, Japan has only about 30,000 to 70,000 total Muslims at the upside; the actual number is probably much lower.   And when one of the rare Muslims in Japan commits a crime, the response is ruthless and unrestrained by political correctness:  "Police stationed agents at mosques, followed individuals to their homes, obtained their names and addresses from alien registration records, and compiled databases profiling hundreds of individuals,” according to an article in the Asia-Pacific Journal Japan Focus.  See also "Japan Close to Muslim Immigration," http://newsl.org/2015/06/japan-closed-to-muslim-immigration-shields-culture-from-islamic-influence/.

                In brief, Mr. Trump is proposing that the United States temporarily adopt a restrictive policy that has been successfully applied in practice by the super-civilized Japanese – a country from whom the U.S. could learn much indeed with respect to maintaining law-and-order and preventing terrorism.  Japan does not have recurrent terrorist attacks; Japanese sidewalks are not blighted by oppressed women in burqas that look like walking black tents; Japanese cities are not darkened and degraded by the shadow of looming mosques and minarets; and Japan will not subordinate the interests of its own citizens and its own culture to some perverse and twisted notion that a nation is obliged to welcome and subsidize whole classes of alien immigrants whose beliefs and practices are incompatible with those of the host country.

                6.  It's all about the Koran and Sharia.  The delusional Quislings who defend increased Islamic immigration by claiming that "the overwhelming majority of Muslims" are peace-loving, civic Americans perversely ignore the most unambiguous and readily available evidence on this question.  The plain text of the Koran and the unambiguously barbaric doctrines of Sharia are the core sources of doctrine for Muslims.  They advocate violence against non-Muslims; extreme and oppressive misogyny; unrelenting intolerance; and a system of "cruel and unusual punishments" that make our penal system look like the kind of discipline inflicted by Mary Poppins or Mr. Rogers.  The mandatory Muslim doctrines of the Koran and Sharia are simply incompatible with a civilized, constitutional, democratic republic.  Admitting additional hordes of persons who, by definition, adhere to those destructive doctrines is simply inimical to the interests of the United States and its people.

                7.  It's Fury, not Fear.  The most insulting and fraudulent  argument against restricting or barring Muslim immigration is the bogus canard that Americans "should not give in to fear."  The underlying implication of this canard is that opposition to unfettered immigration by hordes of undesirable Muslim aliens is driven by an irrational and un-American fear of terrorism and violence --which, of course, is not shared by those brave leftists and liberals who support open-ended immigration. 

                Like so many mantras of the left and their media mouthpieces, this is the absolute opposite of the truth. 

               SR can personally attest that the opposition to expansive Muslim immigration he shares with many millions of Americans is based on fury, not fear.  We are furious that hordes of aliens hostile to our constitution, our civilization, and our way of life are not only being welcomed into our country, but subsidized, indulged, and accommodated as though they were deserving patriots rather than parasitic intruders.  And we are paying for it!

               On the other hand, the angry citizens of the right are the least fearful element of the population, precisely because they are well-armed, know how to use their firearms, and united by a firm resistance to any threat to the safety and security of their families.

                In fact, it is the advocates of appeasement and accommodation of the Muslim invasion who are dominated by fear and cowardice.  They are so afraid of offending or angering the Islamic movement and its transnational supporters that they abandon their most fundamental principles – like equal rights for women and homosexuals – to embrace and defend a religion that is unambiguously hostile to those principles.  Just as the poltroons of the left are afraid even to acknowledge the existence of widespread anti-white criminal violence by rampant black felons, let alone to expose and resist it, they perversely ignore Islam's hostility to the principles they purport to cherish so they will not have to muster the courage to engage it.

                                                                                                * * * *

                As these Seven Pillars demonstrate, the debate over limiting Muslim immigration to the United States should not be confused by whether one supports the candidacy of Donald Trump -- although he deserves much credit for his courage in forcefully placing the issue front and center.  Rather, straightforward considerations of national, cultural, societal, and moral self-interest demonstrate the simple sanity of halting this injurious invasion until a suitably restrictive standard can be identified and enacted.