Remember in elementary school when the science teachers would ask the students to conduct a very simple experiment to show the difference between nature and nurture. The student would take two seeds and plant them in separate cups of dirt. One would be placed in the window, the other in a closet. Both would be watered on a consistent basis to maintain a control in the experiment. At the end of the experiment the seed in the window would grow to be a healthy spouting seedling, while the seed in the closet would grow to be a flawed seedling with very little color (aka chlorophyll).

Due to the healthy seedling’s normal exposure it was allowed to sprout, while the flawed seedling’s lack of sunlight hindered the ability to produce adequate chlorophyll. Basically, in the window nature took its course. In the closet, by the student withholding sunlight the seed developed flaws.

What do seeds have to do with sports, besides being spat out in dugouts? Well, that experiment showcases the very essence of nature vs. nurture.

This week, two very talented players were suspended in the NFL: Adam “Pacman” Jones and Chris Henry. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, along with a special six-man committee of players, decided that their frequent encounters with the law would no longer be tolerated. Jones, who has had 10 encounters with the police, received a one-year suspension, and Henry, arrested four times between December 2005 and June 2006, received an eight-game suspension. Jones and Henry are just footnotes in a more concerning issue in the NFL.   

It’s easy for white executives, rich corporations and many of the average NFL fans to look at these suspensions as a racial issue, and to some degree, they are. The truth is, many black athletes do not have access to happy upbringings, good schools, strong father figures. They lack the proper nurturing they’ll need to grow into a healthy adult, and that manifests itself in incidents such as the ones that landed Henry and Jones in hot water.

USA Today published an article last week that depicted how many NFL players were arrested in 2006. Naturally, the article was the headline for the sports section. So, just like with any headline, pictures were used. However, like the saying goes, a picture is worth 1,000 words, and the pictures for this article made a bold statement. The pictures represented the stereotypical demographic in today’s prisons and penitentiaries: Young + black males = crime.

Now USA Today was not purposely trying to make black males or the NFL look bad; it simply stated the facts. The majority of the criminals caught and tried are African American males. However, the key statement in the last sentence is caught and tried. Nothing against any other race, but most African Americans don’t have trust funds set up by daddies to protect them. Many may not even have a relationship with their father or even know who he is. According to an article in the May 2005 issue of Essence, nearly 40 percent of black women are raising their children without a father.

Just like the seed in the closet you have deprived a child of a very essential proponent needed to mature into a well adjusted adult. Now, the seed in the closet grew, but it had flaws.

What if the student put the flawed seedling into the sunlight the next week and placed the healthy seedling in the closet. The results would be same. The flawed seed would slowly but surely gain the strength needed to mature; while the healthy seed would begin to grow weaker. However, that one week of sunlight does not correct all of the flawed seed’s problems; on the other hand, the loss of sunlight for one week does not hinder the healthy seed from producing more chlorophyll when it receives adequate sunlight. In order for the flawed seed to become as mature as the healthy seed, it needs to be nurtured continuously, until the seed is on equal footing as the healthy seed.