The 20 Biggest Stereotypes in Sports History

Image via Complex Original

Everytime they compete, female athletes challenge societal norms of femininity, submissiveness, and broader gender roles. They challenge the masculine domaine of athletics, asserting qualities like power, competitiveness, and ego that weren't favored in women just a half-century ago. So when we see college softball players built like a tank, Candace Parker dunking, or Brittney Griner wearing a men's suit, some will think, "oh, those are just some lesbians."

There's nothing wrong with an athlete (or any person for that matter) being gay, but trying to out a female athlete on the basis of their athletic prowess and attaching a negative connotation to their status is wrong. While it's true that some female athletes are indeed gay (no different than the overall population), it's important to not let participation in athletics be a guiding force for assuming the sexual orientation of a woman. That's a dangerous and insensitive path to go down for the athletes involved and the LGBT community as a whole. Plus many women athletes are in heterosexual relationships. WNBA player Moncia Wright just got engaged to Kevin Durant, so there's that.

When hip-hop culture struck the NBA in the late '90s and early '00s, people got scared. Here were these giant black guys dressing provocatively—rocking chains and looking like Paid In Full characters. In the aftermath of the Malice at the Palace—an event that, on basic racial terms, saw an enraged black man attack an innocent white man under false pretenses (try spinning that to conservative white America)—David Stern instituted a dress code for players (also because of Allen Iverson). This cleaned up how players appeared when presented on camera to NBA audiences, but the looks of players like J.R. Smith and Allen Iverson, Kobe's rape allegation, as well as Gilbert Arenas and Delonte West's gun charges, the status quo was kept the same.

The NBA Cares campaign is actively trying to combat the "thug" image of the league, and with clean-cut, humble, and charamatic superstars like LeBron James, Blake Griffin (c'mon, his KIA commercials are pretty fun), and Kevin Durant, this stereotype should be dead and gone soon.

With Confederate flags commonplace at NASCAR events, trailers and RVs littering the grassy inner oval of tracks, many drivers and analysts having southern drawls, and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. as the face of the sport, it's easy to see where this stereotype comes from. The satirical depiction of the NASCAR world in the movie Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby didn't help either.

NASCAR, however, has a bit more diverse fanbase than Ricky Bobby would lead you to believe. Current driver Juan Pablo Montoya is a Colombian who actually defected from Formula One, bringing Latin American interest to the fold. Magic Johnson is NASCAR's co-chairman of its Executive Steering Committee for Diversity and former NBA player Brad Daughtery grew up a fan of the sport and has been a NASCAR analyst for awhile now. *cues the soundtrack*

If you've ever been skiing, snowboarding, or ice skating, you'll notice one thing immediately: it's awfully white, and we're not just talking about the color of the snow. If you think about the faces of winter sports too, more pale-faced athletes come to mind: Shaun White, Apolo Anton Ohno, Bode Miller... You get it. Don't forget the legacy of the Jamaican bobsled team though—they won a gold medal at the 2000 World Push Championships, and qualified for the 1988, 1992, 1994, and 2002 Winter Olympics. There's also American speed skater Shani Davis who won gold and silver medals at the 2006 and 2010 Winter Olympics.

Without a doubt, soccer is the dominant European sport. The entire continent is soccer mad, and possesses the strongest leagues, players, youth development, and infrastructure in the world. Europeans, however, do play some traditionally dominant American sports just as well, if not better. Italy outmanuevered Team USA Basketball in the 2004 Olympics, taking home silver while Team USA only managed bronze.

In the 2012 Olympics, Spain nearly beat Team USA Basketball in the gold medal game, only losing by seven points behind a dominant Gasol brothers performance in the post. Let's not forget about Formula One either. It's the world's premier auto-racing league, and one that hasn't seen an American champion since 1978. Those Europeans know how to do a lot more than just kick a soccer ball around.

"I swear sports and music are so synonymous/'Cause we want to be them, and they want to be us." When Drake rapped those now famous lines on "Thank Me Now," people couldn't help but think that Drizzy was right. Well, he is...for the most part. Because for every Kevin Durant or Kobe, there's a ton of athletes who can simply listen to rap and even recite the rhymes without thinking once about getting on the mic.

You'll hear LeBron rap a couple bars from "Versace" in the club or freestyle once and a while, but that doesn't mean Bron Bron is going to dedicate a large chunk of his offseason to getting in the studio to drop his first LP by fall. No matter what sport it is, once the season is done, most players would probably prefer to chill out, relax, play video games and occasionally party, before putting in the time and effort needed to record an album.

When you think of modern Duke basketball, a few key names come to mind. There's obviously Coach K, the former West Point graduate and four-time NCAA Champion. After that, a series of clean-cut middle-class white players start rolling back into memory: Christian Laettner, J.J. Redick, Kyle Singler, Greg Paulus, the Plumlee trio, and so on.

Even when Duke recruits stand-out black players, they're not viewed as having any street cred. In ESPN's 30 For 30 documentary of Michigan's Fab Five, Jalen Rose—someone who came up from Detroit's projects—spoke on Duke's recruiting situation, and specifically Duke rival Grant Hill: "Duke didn't recruit players like me. I felt like they only recruited black players that were Uncle Toms." Of course Hill ethered Rose (and anyone else who bought into that stereotype) in his rebuttal that was featured in the New York Times.

Start watching any random European soccer match, and you'll probably be quickly dismayed by the incessant bitching, diving, and drama that happens on the pitch. The European game involves milking every single tap and hard tackle for fouls, cards, free-kicks, and penalties. Basically, anything to get ahead.

It's important to remember that not every player has this mentality—it's just that the worst offenders get the most attention. Nobody is going to say "good job" to the player who keeps his dribble through a foul, but they will get on his case if that player goes to ground too easily. Compared to the NBA's floppers, are European soccer players the true "little bitches" of the sports world?

Have you ever stood next to an NFL player? Unless you're hitting the gym hard, it's likely that those dudes look like one of the Monstars from Space Jam next to you. But how are they able to get so jacked? Some folks believe that human growth hormone, or HGH, plays a role, however, let's be real here. When it comes to football players, they are continuously encouraged and damn near expected to get bigger, stronger and work out as a team. So, even though HGH is more difficult to detect than other performance enhancing drugs, let's give these guys the benefit of the doubt and the credit they deserve for spending hours in the gym. 

Let's just focus on the power hitter currently making headlines right now: Chris Davis. While the Orioles slugger has always been touted for having the potential to be a solid home run hitter, his numbers this year have been off the charts. Davis' career-high for homers in a season is 33—a mark he set last year—and he's already matched that output this season before the All-Star Break. ESPN's Rick Reilly is letting those steroid allegations creep into an otherwise phenomenal year for Davis.

The same thing happened to Jose Bautista when he went through his own power surge after he hit 28 years old. Even though Bautista has admitted to taking 16 tests over the last two seasons, people still accuse him of cheating one way or another. The game has already been tarnished by steroids, why do we need to continuously bring the conversation back to the forefront when the players are doing their part to disprove any and all accusations?

Part of streetball culture that many black athletes grow up in, involves showing up your opponents and shit-talking them relentlessly. It's a culture of pounding your chest, declaring your greatness, and getting in your enemy's face. Sport traditionalists may think of this as poor sportsmanship, but to us, it's entertainment.

It's not only black athletes who love to gloat on the field—all athletes with a nasty edge and some hubris do too. While this stereotype may extend itself from a black cultural attitude, it's branched out to all races today. Remember Marshall Henderson and how about soccer players celebrate after scoring goals? If you want to take way back, how about Babe Ruth's called shot?

As a society, we've cast the Asian person as the hard-working nerd who'd rather spend a sunny afternoon with an Algebra textbook than playing sports. Before Jeremy Lin, Asian Americans never got a fair shake on the field. Lin was the perfect foil, a Harvard grad and an NBA star.

Asians have had success in MLB, but detractors don't see baseball as a sport that requires elite athleticism. As more Asian Americans break into the NBA and NHL, this stereotype will slowly be torn down in the United States, but overseas, Asian dominance in athletics is everywhere. Just look at the medal count these past two Olympics: China led the gold medal count at the 2008 Olympics, and South Korea and Japan were in the top 10. In 2012, China finished second overall, and South Korea was in the top five as well.

They say that "numbers never lie," but in the case of black players in the MLB, numbers don't tell the entire story. Last year, African Americans made up just over seven percent of players in the league, but that has nothing to do with a lack of interest in the sport growing up. Instead, the issue lends itself more on a financial standpoint.

Unlike basketball where all you really need is a ball and a court that requires little maintenance, you need a bat, ball, glove and an open field just to play baseball. Yes, there is a certain element of truth to the statement that baseball can be boring, but when broken down to its bare bones, the sport has all the elements that kids thoroughly enjoy when they're growing up. Who doesn't like trying to hit something with a bat or stick? Who doesn't like to throw and catch a ball while it's in the air? It's an enjoyable game to play, it's just all that damn downtime that's the problem.

Like the Asian stereotype, Jews have long been cast as white collar professionals. They're accountants, executives, and business people—not tough and tumble athletes. There's no way their overprotective, coddling mothers would ever let them strap on a football helmet. This stereotype is fueled by the greatness of three great Jewish athletes in particular: baseball's Sandy Koufax and Hank Greenberg, and swimming's Mark Spitz.

The three greatest Jewish athletes ever just happen to play non-contact sports, and the sport with the largest professional Jewish population is baseball. For some, that's no coincidence. But let's not disregard the likes of former welterweight champion Yuri Foreman or Samuel Berger, the world's first Olympic boxing champion, or former All-American Duke guard Jon Scheyer, Hall of Fame tackle Ron Mix, and Hall of Fame quarterback Benny Friedman.

Believe it or not, not all Brazilians athletes are good at soccer, or even interested in it. Some Brazilian soccer players are even bad at playing the classic Brazilian style, which involves flair, skill, dribbling ability, and cleverness. Liverpool's Lucas Leiva, for instance, used to have the tag of "the only Brazilian who can't pass the ball." Brazil has produced star athletes who haven't shined on the pitch. From Formula One's Ayrton Senna to the Wizards' Nenê Hilario, Brazilians, like their European counterparts, are much more than futebolistas.

ESPN The Magazine's "Money Issue" and ESPN's 30 For 30 "Broke" shed light on the epidemic of athletes mismanaging their money. "Broke" estimated that 60 percent of NBA players are broke five years after retirement, and Sports Illustrated once estimated that 78 percent of NFL players are bankrupt or close to it within two years of retirement.

While there is a dangerous truth to this stereotype, there are still plenty of athletes out there who are financially prudent and mindful of their wealth, even taking steps to complete their higher education to help secure a career after sports. Just look at guys like Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, and Jamal Mashburn. If you need more examples just peep this list.

From Tiger Woods to RGIII, many noteworthy black athletes have married white women. And while we can't present scientific data to dispel or confirm this belief, we are here to tell you that this type of interracial marriage isn't always happening. Sure, Robert Griffin III married college sweetheart Rebecca Liddicoat (a white girl), Jrue Holiday married U.S. Women's Soccer player Lauren Cheney (also white), but what about the relationships of the more popular ballers in the league today, like Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade, just to name a few.

It is true that only one of these players (Melo) is actually married, however, KD just proposed to Monica Wright, LeBron is set to marry Savannah Brinson this fall and Wade's been dating Gabrielle Union for a minute now, so you gotta think a marriage proposal could be on the horizon. If anything, blame his ex-wife Siovaughn Funches for messing up D-Wade's feelings towards marriage and long-term commitment.

The whole idea that women's sports are inferior to men's sports probably has a lot to do with the belief that males are more athletically gifted than females. But that's not entirely true. While sports centered around physicality and contact, like football and hockey, are more built for men, there are sports where women excel. Take a sport like gymnastics, which requires an incredible blend of strength and finesse. What's that you say? Gymnastics isn't really a sport? Well, what if we told you that the frequency and severity of injuries suffered in gymnastics is comparable to any of the aforementioned rough house sports?

Oh, and did we forget to mention that since females aren't always trying to slash and dunk a basketball, their game is more fundamentally sound. Don't believe us? Tell that to the U.S. Women's basketball teams who have won five straight Olympic gold medals while you try forgetting about the Men's 2004 Olympic bronze medal. And then there's the dominance of the U.S. Women's soccer team, which is better than the men's squad by leaps and bounds.

Not every white player can be Billy Hoyle from White Men Can't Jump. White players are often said to play a smart style of ball while perpetuating the stigma surrounding the lack of athleticism in Caucasian "athletes," but there are some who have managed to break the mold. Take a guy like Johnny Manziel for example, who used his ability to play smart and show off some incredible athletic skills to win last season's Heisman Trophy. Or, how about Michael Phelps who was dumb enough to get caught smoking from a bong but dominated whenever he competed in the pool. Overall, the tide is turning slowly, just like the speed of many of the white quarterbacks in the NFL today.

Ah, the worst example of the horrible confluence of racism, eugenics, and sport. For years this was thought and openly implemented in the NFL and European soccer. Football coaches believed that black players weren't smart enough to be quarterbacks, and soccer scouts thought that black (particuarily African) players didn't have the "footballing brain" required of top-flight professionals, and instead valued blonde-haired Scandinavian players higher. Thank goodness for Warren Moon and Pele. Do we really have to debunk this one for you?