Department of English - Journalism and Sports Program
Director's Bio
 |
Ron Thomas, a prolific sports writer and copy
editor for more than three decades, is the first
director of Morehouse’s Journalism and Sports
Program.
Prior to joining Morehouse, Thomas worked for 28
years in the San Francisco Bay Area. From 1979 to 1991,
he covered the Golden State Warriors and San
Francisco 49ers for the San Francisco Chronicle, and
from 1982-84, he was USA Today’s first NBA
reporter/editor. He wrote game stories, features and
columns for the San Francisco Examiner from 2000 to
2003, mainly covering the San Francisco Giants, Golden
State Warriors, college sports and professional tennis.
For the last four years Thomas has been a freelance
sports writer and copy editor, contributing articles
to BlackAmericaWeb.com and the NAACP’s
Crisis Magazine. He currently is chief copy editor for
the African American Sports Magazine, a Bay Area
publication.
Much of his impetus for becoming a sports
writer stemmed from the writings of Harry Edwards
and Sports Illustrated’s Jack Olsen in the 1960s,
which made Thomas acutely aware of racism in
sports. Much of the work he is most proud of relates
to that topic, including: a 1999 column titled “Why
So Few?” about the lack of black NFL coaches that
led to him winning a National Association of Black
Journalists first-place award; a 1987 column about
Al Campanis’ infamous “necessities” interview; a
1997 column about pro football’s Bill Romanowski-
J.J. Stokes spitting incident; and a 2006 Crisis
Magazine article about the lack of black female head
coaches at predominantly white colleges.
Thomas’ book, They Cleared the Lane: the
NBA’s Black Pioneers, is a culmination of those
efforts and was published in 2002 by the University
of Nebraska Press. The idea for the book originated
when Thomas received overwhelming reader
response from a 1987 newspaper series about how
the NBA became integrated in 1950. The book is the
first written about the process and turmoil that
brought black players into the NBA after they were
banned secretly from the league's first four seasons.
It has been critically acclaimed by Sports Illustrated,
the Chicago Sun-Times, the Library Journal and
other publications.
Since 1987, through their firm The Sports
Institute, Thomas and business partner Mike Brown
have given lectures, workshops and invited conferences
about racial, gender and media issues in sports. In 1996, Thomas’ chapter “Black Faces Still Rare in
the Press Box” was published in the sociology textbook
Sports in Society: Equal Opportunity or
Business as Usual?
A native of Buffalo, New York, Thomas virtually
grew up in sports stadiums by regularly attending
baseball, football and basketball games with his family.
He graduated from the University of Rochester
in 1971 with a degree in political science and earned
a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern
University in 1973. A 28-year member of the
National Association of Black Journalists, Thomas
was an original co-chair of its Sports Task Force and
currently co-hosts its annual ceremonies honoring
black sports pioneers.
Now residing in Atlanta, Thomas’ hobbies
include playing tennis, hearing actors and directors
talk about movies he seldom has time to see, and
having fun with his teenage daughter, Kali.
| RECENT PUBLICATION: They Cleared the Lane The NBA's Black Pioneers  |
From the Publisher "Today, black players compose more than 80 percent of the National Basketball Association's rosters, providing a strong and valued contribution to professional basketball. In the first half of the twentieth century, however, pro basketball was tainted by racism, as gifted African Americans were denied the opportunity to display their talents." Through in-depth interviews with players, their families, coaches, teammates, and league officials, Ron Thomas tells the largely untold story of what basketball was really like for the first black NBA players, including recent Hall of Fame inductee Earl Lloyd, early superstars such as Maurice Stokes and Bill Russell, and the league's first black coaches. They Cleared the Lane is both informative and entertaining, full of anecdotes and little-known history. Not all the stories have happy endings, but this unfortunate truth only emphasizes how much we have gained from the accomplishments of these pioneer athletes. |
