[MichaelH]

Originally Posted by JohnnyV13

In the late 80's, SI ran a controversial story about a scientist who looked at the origin/insertion points of muscles around the knee. He found that blacks generally had insertion points about 30% farther from the joint than whites on average.

Someone with an insertion point 30 percent farther from the joint, gets a 30 percent torque advantage, even if they have the same muscle capacity, to generate force. Hence, said person will probably run faster and jump higher.

A number of black athletes took exception to this article, because they thought it was just another way to dismiss their athletic success based upon physical superiority and to diminish their hard work and intelligence in playing the game.

Yet, if this research is accurate, it could go a long way to explain why blacks dominate track and field events on the international level, yet don't dominate in events like shot put and javelin throwing.

Applied to football, it could explain why quarterbacks and o linemen have higher percentages of whites than any other position. Quarterbacks don't need to run fast, their primary skill is throwing the ball. Since the majority of people in the US are white, you will end up with more white QBs.

O linemen need size, and quickness, but don't need hte explosive speed that top d linemen need. In every other position, speed is very important.

Even so, safeties don't need the speed that corners require, hence you see more white safeties than corners.

Think about this on a street level: how many white guys can run with the black guys in pickup basketball? In my experience, the answer is "not many".

I agree with your post 100%. But the thing I find interesting is that the truth is being reported and no racism is being called. The truth being that black athletes are superior in many different ways than white athletes and the white posters can accept this. If the posts said the opposite I don't believe this topic would be as civil. I find that a bit sad.