Something that hasn't been mentioned is two-fold, heroes and opportunity. We know there aren't a lot of black hockey players and tennis players and golfers, skiiers, ect... but there wasn't many heroes for these new kids growing up, using hockey again as an example, it's almost impossible to find a black hockey player in the NHL today who doesn't credit a Grant Fuhr or the like as his hero. Tiger Woods is doing the like. The second is opportunity, since these sports are only now reaching more kids, the kids are participating in sports that their parents never were introduced too, as a result these parents aren't part of the all too prevalent politics of youth sport that deny so many gifetd athelete's the chance they deserve to really excell at their sport. For example I coached hockey on the Native reserve 45 minutes out of town and those kids were excellent atheletes and great skaters. They were more creative as a result of not being over coached on systems(designed to prevent scoring as opposed to create it), and had skated on ponds and with friends more then travel to games and go to organized practice. However their major downfall was a real lack of opportunity, where to take that game further? The could hope to move off the reserve to join a team(same wicked politics apply), or they could hope to develop at home with other kids of varying degrees of ability stunting their progress. We played a team that wouldn't shake our hands after the game(putting their hands inside their jerseys) the coach was eventually banned from youth hockey after I complained, but the kids often used their situation as a crutch, when we were playing poorly, blaming "The White Ref" when it was their own poor play no racism involved. In summary to this already long post, the thing I hoped to instill in all of those kids is that there are opportunities available and they needed to stop at nothing to realize them. Certainly easier said then done.