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All-Black Five

NCAA championship, March 19, 1966

The reality of sports segregation, two decades after Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier, was nowhere more stark than on the courts of NCAA basketball. Even as the Boston Celtics and Bill Russell had been winning consecutive NBA titles, powerhouse programs like Kentucky remained all white. And so it was that in the heart of the Civil Rights Era a basketball game at the University of Maryland became a symbolic milestone: the all-black starting five of Texas Western facing the four-time champion Wildcats for the 1966 NCAA championship. The Miners won, 72-65. The SEC’s basketball color barrier was broken in 1967, Kentucky’s in 1969. But the Miners and their white coach, Don Haskins, said they weren’t out to be pioneers. "That whole year was about the team," star Bobby Joe Hill said. "I didn't look at any guys as black or white."

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All-Black Five

Artwork by - Henry Kaye

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More than a match

Houston, Sept. 20, 1973

In a tennis match built up by the sort of showmanship, pomp and bluster usually associated with a prize fight—or WWE rumble—Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs three sets to none in front of 30,000 at the Astrodome and tens of millions watching on TV in the second “Battle of the Sexes.” Already a world-famous activist and athlete, King, at age 29, became a symbol of “women’s lib,” while Riggs, a 55-year-old former pro, played the part of the “male chauvinist pig.” Whether one considered it a demeaning stunt, a true advance for women or something in between, tennis’ Battle of the Sexes helped bring the equal-rights conversation to the nation’s dinner table.

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More than a Match

Artwork by - Kali Ciesemier

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Black Power Salute

Mexico City Olympics, October 16, 1968

On the podium for the 200-meter dash medals ceremony, gold medalist Tommie Smith and bronze medalist John Carlos raised their gloved fists to symbolize African-Americans’ civil rights fight. Their pose, widely associated with the Black Panther Party, was an outcome of the collective effort by U.S. athletes and organizers to use the Games as a spotlight for inequality and oppression, with some leading voices calling for an all-out boycott. Smith and Carlos were expelled from the Games by international and U.S. Olympic authorities.

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Black Power Salute

Artwork by - Victoria Fernandez

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Boston Strong

April 15, 2013

As the runners came in, two hours into the race, with 5,700 racers still on the course, two spectators near the finish line dropped their backpacks and walked away. Moments later, one bag exploded and then the next, blowing off limbs, spraying shrapnel. Three people were killed; hundreds were injured, many gravely. Terrorism had struck the 117th Boston Marathon, an American institution, on the city’s annual Patriot’s Day holiday. In the aftermath, as authorities tracked down the two alleged bombers, athletes from around the country helped lead the healing best characterized by “Boston Strong” and David Ortiz, the Red Sox slugger who, at an April 20 ceremony, told a Fenway Park crowd and national television audience, “This is our f-----g city!”

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Boston Strong

Artwork by - Philip Vetter

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Breaking Barriers

Brooklyn, April 15, 1947

On Opening Day of 1947, Jackie Robinson took the field as the Brooklyn Dodgers’ first baseman, breaking Major League Baseball’s color barrier. The 28-year-old, who had been a four-sport star at UCLA, shouldered immeasurable weight as an embodiment of integration, withstanding every manner of hateful expression to thrive on the field and winning the National League’s Rookie of the Year award. Today, his number, 42, is retired throughout MLB, except on Jackie Robinson Day, April 15, when all players wear it.

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Breaking Barriers

Artwork by - Rory Martin

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Equal Opportunity

The women’s sports revolution, Title IX

There is no law so familiar to the sports world as Title IX, signed by President Richard Nixon in 1972 amid the tumult of social change that featured widespread protests for equal rights. With Title IX came the requirement that federally funded schools at every level provide equal opportunity in athletics to women, creating a new world of amateur sports in which the participation of girls and women increased exponentially, and setting a framework for women to build professional careers as athletes, coaches, officials and executives. Title IX remains the entity most responsible for the vibrant world of women’s sports in America.

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Equal Opportunity

Artwork by - Jillian Vaughan

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Freedom Fighter

From NFL to Afghanistan

Pat Tillman already was renowned for his rise from undersized collegiate linebacker to starting NFL safety when the events of Sept. 11, 2001, dramatically changed his life and legacy. Eight months after the terror attacks, with a $3.6 million contract on the table, Tillman quit the Arizona Cardinals to join the U.S. Army Rangers alongside his brother, Kevin. He tried to keep it quiet, refusing publicity; yet he would become perhaps the most famous U.S. fatality of America’s Middle East operations when he was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004. There followed years of controversy and investigations over the circumstances of his death, making Pat Tillman a symbol not just of the soldier who gives his life for his country, but also of the fury, fallout and fog of war.

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Freedom Fighter

Artwork by - Jon Cain

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Gehrig’s Farewell

Yankee Stadium, July 4, 1939

He was baseball’s “Iron Horse,” whose record for consecutive games played stood for 56 years. Few athletes have matched his on-field feats or his championship haul. But Lou Gehrig became an immortal beyond the sports world with his words in the face of the disease that would take his life and his name. Spoken before a rapt crowd at Yankee Stadium, Gehrig’s “Luckiest Man” speech was his goodbye to baseball and to the fans, two weeks after the team announced his retirement at age 36. He died June 2, 1941.

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Gehrig’s Farewell

Artwork by - Don Henderson

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Grace Under Pressure

Berlin Olympics, August 1936

The 1936 Olympics, Adolf Hitler’s showcase for Nazi Germany and its promotion of Aryan supremacy, instead became a showcase for Jesse Owens, a 22-year-old black man who won four gold medals in sprints and the long jump. Even as his track feats have been equaled or surpassed, and despite the struggles of his post-Olympic life, Owens remains a singular icon of grace under pressure—the man who stood tall in the Olympic Stadium as spectators, officials and athletes around him gave the very salute meant to symbolize his inferiority. He would return to America a conflicted hero. Owens had defied the racist Nazi ideology and yet was met with segregation and exploitation in his own country, where as a student at Ohio State he had not been allowed to live on campus.

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Grace Under Pressure

Artwork by - Nikkolas Smith

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Jimmy V’s Speech

Madison Square Garden, March 4, 1993

Until that night, the dominant image of Jim Valvano was his running wildly around the court looking for someone to hug after his North Carolina State Wolfpack completed history’s most amazing run of March Madness upsets by beating Houston’s Phi Slama Jama powerhouse in the 1983 NCAA final. But that night—March 4, 1993, at the first ESPYs—Valvano trumped all the memorable moments of his life in basketball with his “Don’t ever give up” speech, transforming his fight against cancer into timeless inspiration. Valvano died of bone cancer on April 28, at 47 years old.

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Jimmy V’s Speech

Artwork by - Roberlan Borges

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Magic HIV+

Los Angeles, November 7, 1991

In June of 1991, Magic Johnson was the Lakers’ charismatic, indomitable point guard, playing for the league title after another All-NBA season. In November, he became much more than a basketball star. Johnson, 32, announced he was HIV-positive and would retire. The shock of the news reverberated well beyond the sports world. It shattered the divisive and dominant image of HIV/AIDS as an exclusive problem for gay men wasting away from a dreaded disease. And it laid bare the stark differences in how people perceived and interacted with those living with HIV. Having thrived despite his condition, Johnson stands today as a symbol of medicine’s fight to control the virus and its effects.

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Magic HIV+

Artwork by - Alyssa Winans

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Miracle on Ice

Lake Placid, Feb. 22, 1980

What makes an upset the “greatest ever”? Is it the most unlikely? The most dramatic? The most celebrated? The most historic? The most treasured? For many Americans, the U.S. hockey team’s triumph over the Soviet Union in the 1980 Olympics was all those. And more: The scrappy amateurs’ 4-3 semifinal defeat of the veteran “Red Army” stood in those Cold War times for the United States at its best. Whether or not you believe that now, the game provided an unforgettable and irrefutable answer to the question: “Do you believe in miracles?”

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Miracle on Ice

Artwork by - Mark Forton

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Munich Massacre

1972 Munich Olympics, September 5, 1972

Before dawn on Sept. 5, 1972, in the middle of the 20th Olympiad, Palestinian terrorists invaded Israeli quarters at the Olympic Village, taking 11 athletes and coaches hostage. The Games were put on hold as the world watched to see what would happen. After midnight, the drama moved to the Munich airport, where police attempted to rescue the hostages before their captors flew off with them. Gunfire erupted. After an agonizing series of conflicting reports, Jim McKay of ABC Sports delivered the news at 3:24 a.m. Munich time: “Our worst fears have been realized tonight. They have now said that there were 11 hostages. Two were killed in their rooms, yesterday morning. Nine were killed at the airport, tonight. They’re all gone.”

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Munich Massacre

Artwork by - Brixton Doyle

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Out of the Shadows

Jason Collins, NBA; Brittney Griner, WNBA; Michael Sam, NFL

In 2013 and 2014, Jason Collins and Michael Sam became the first gay men to go public with their sexuality while active in a major U.S. pro sport. They were joined by Brittney Griner, the WNBA’s No. 1 overall pick of 2013, in inspiring a national discussion about gay rights and homophobia. Their unprecedented openness included appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated (Collins), writing an essay for the New York Times (Griner) and passionately embracing a same-sex partner on national television (Sam).

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Out of the Shadows

Artwork by - Alyssa Winans

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Paving the Way

Tennis Pioneers

When Althea Gibson was learning tennis as a child in Harlem, the highest ranks of the sport reflected its image of an exclusionary, “country club” game. That only started to change, slowly, on her 23rd birthday, Aug. 25, 1950, when Gibson became the first black athlete to play in the U.S. Open. In the face of persistent racist attitudes and policies, she persevered and reached the pinnacle of the sport, winning five singles Grand Slam tournaments from 1956-58, including the ‘57 and ‘58 Opens, paving the way for Arthur Ashe. Ashe in 1968 became the first black man to win the U.S. Open. He went on to have an illustrious career as a player and civil rights activist, but he entered a whole new realm of respect and celebrity with his handling of major heart surgery in the ‘80s and then HIV that likely resulted from a blood transfusion during surgery. He died of AIDS-related causes in 1993, at age 49.

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Paving the Way

Artwork by - Alexis Lampley

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Platform for Protest

Athletes take a stand, 2014

Unwilling to stay on the sidelines of a national protest movement, sports stars stepped up to make their own statements on the 2014 police killings of black people and the widely disputed grand jury judgments that followed. “Hands Up” represented the case of Michael Brown, shot dead in the street. “I Can’t Breathe” were the words of Eric Garner, choked to death. Tamir Rice, age 12, and John Crawford—armed with a toy gun and an air rifle, respectively—were also killed by policemen. For athletes around the country—like LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Andrew Hawkins of the Cleveland Browns and members of the St. Louis Rams—these were tragedies that swept away any notion that athletes should stay neutral, make sports a sanctuary and put their endorsement value first. They took a stand.

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Platform for Protest

Artwork by - Nikkolas Smith

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Reuniting a Nation

Rugby World Cup, 1995

Nelson Mandela had been released from prison in 1990, and by the time South Africa hosted the 1995 Rugby World Cup, he was the nation’s president. However, the all-white South African rugby team was an emblem of a nation that remained deeply divided. Seeing the World Cup as an opportunity to show the promise of a united nation, Mandela and captain Francois Pienaar teamed up, encouraging players to publicly cross racial divides while Mandela and black fans displayed the team’s springbok emblem they once despised as a symbol of apartheid. South Africa went on to win the Cup in an unexpected victory for the nation’s rugby program and for its gradual integration. Sport, Mandela later said, “has the power to unite people in a way that little else does.”

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Reuniting a Nation

Artwork by - Charis Tzevis

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The Chase

Los Angeles, June 17, 1994

Huddled in the back of his Ford Bronco, pursued by cops, tracked by news copters, cheered by onlookers—O.J. Simpson was on the run on a surreal summer evening in 1994. In the four days since his wife Nicole and her friend Ron Goldman were found dead, he had become the prime suspect and the most watched man in America. As a broadcaster, pitch man and actor, Simpson had relished the spotlight after his record-setting NFL career; now, he was trying to hide from it. Scheduled to turn himself in on June 17, he fled instead. With former USC teammate Al Cowlings at the wheel, Simpson was the quarry in the slow-moving chase that lasted for almost two hours before he returned to his home and to custody.

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The Chase

Artwork by - Louise Norman

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The Greatest, Pacifist

Vietnam Draft, 1967

It was in 1967 that Muhammad Ali first lost his heavyweight title, but not in the ring. Ali had come to fame in the early ‘60s as the brash Cassius Clay, winning his heavyweight throne in 1964 and declaring himself “The Greatest.” By the time the military came calling in ‘67, he had converted to Islam. He refused to join the Army on religious grounds, and because he didn’t believe in the war, saying, “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong. No Viet Cong ever called me ‘nigger’.” Stripped of his belt by boxing officials for refusing the Vietnam War draft, it would be seven years before Ali won the title back, in a 1974 bout in Zaire—the Rumble in the Jungle—against George Foreman.

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The Greatest, Pacifist

Artwork by - Chris Piascik

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The Intimidator

Daytona 500, February 18, 2001

Dale Earnhardt took no prisoners as he drove to the top of NASCAR, winning seven season titles between 1980 and 1994 and earning a legion of intensely devoted fans. He was a living legend by 2001, when he raced in the Daytona 500 and shared the track with his son, Dale Jr. On his final lap, Earnhardt’s No. 3 Chevy rammed the wall nose-first. The car crumpled and spun toward the infield. Earnhardt was dead on impact, at age 49. He remains a presence in the sport not only through annual and permanent tributes, but also through the safety rules his death spurred.

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The Intimidator

Artwork by - Shane Henderson

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