Most impactful Black sports figures in Bay Area history
The Bay Area is one of the diverse regions on earth, blessed with cultural wealth and a rich tapestry unique to America, so it’s only natural that it be a place where entertainers would sprout from the soil or thrive upon it.For Black History Month 2021, we researched the sports element in search of those who stood out as athletes, as activists and as celebrities of influence. There were many. Too many to list in one readable space.So we limited to 12 individuals, three of which are bound by history, with snapshots that illustrate not only their greatness but their impact on the area.Here are those we concluded were the most impactful Black sports figures in Bay Area history:
Five teams represented the Bay Area in the three major sports leagues during the 1970s, two in the NFL, two in MLB and one in the NBA. Though the Warriors ranked last on the impact scale, they were first to break through a significant color barrier.
They elevated Alvin Attles from player to player/head coach in 1970, making him the second Black coach, behind Bill Russell, in American professional sports. A respected player for the Warriors for 11 seasons, Attles remained head coach until 1983.
Attles’ response to the promotion was to deliver the franchise its first championship since moving to California in 1962. The 1975 Warriors beat the heavily favored Washington Bullets. In an upset of upsets, it was a four-game sweep.
Attles is a local pioneer, a forerunner to Frank Robinson (MLB Giants, 1981-84), Dusty Baker (Giants, 1992-2003), Art Shell (NFL Raiders, 2006) and Mike Singletary (NFL 49ers 2009-10) – and still the only Black coach/manager to bring a championship to the Bay Area.
Barry Bonds grew up in the Bay Area, and his return as a free agent in 1993 indicated the Giants, under new and ambitious ownership, were serious about contending. Signing the two-time MVP is the biggest free-agent acquisition in Bay Area history.
Bonds won five MVP awards in San Francisco. Went to 12 All-Star games. Won five Gold Gloves. Led the Giants to six postseasons and their second World Series in 40 years – and generated momentum for the city’s first new sports venue, originally Pacific Bell Park, in 40 years.
In 15 seasons with the Giants, Bonds became the most feared hitter in baseball. He is MLB’s all-time leader in home runs (762), walks (2,558) and intentional walks (688). During the process, he also became one of the central figures in the era of high-tech performance enhancers in baseball, which cast a cloud over his statistics.
Until Bonds arrived, the Giants had gone about two decades without a bona fide Hall of Famer anchoring their lineup. He was all of that. And more, as it turned out.
Try walking three blocks in any direction within a 40-mile radius of the Bay Bridge without spotting someone wearing Warriors gear. A cap. A T-shirt. A jacket. A hoodie.
It can’t be done.
That’s because the Warriors have been, for most of a decade, the most widely popular sports team in the Bay Area. All due respect to the ownership duo of Joe Lacob and Peter Guber, but no individual is more responsible for Chase Center than Stephen Curry.
With a joyful countenance and spectacular long-distance shooting Curry revitalized a franchise and revolutionized the game of basketball. He won back-to-back NBA MVP awards, the second with the first unanimous vote in league history. He ranks No. 2 on the all-time list of total 3-pointers. He was the catalyst for the Warriors reaching five consecutive Finals, three of which ended with parades through the streets of Oakland.
Meanwhile, Curry’s commitment to the community has been unwavering. He is conceivably the most universally beloved athlete in Bay Area history.
The Warriors spent many years wandering about the NBA outback. The roster was a revolving door of role players, odd ducks, no talents and miscreants. They were irrelevant.
That changed in February 2005, when general manager Chris Mullin stole Baron Davis from the New Orleans Hornets. He was a star, something foreign to a team that had gone 11 years without making the playoffs. The second he entered the locker room, team credibility increased exponentially.
Davis is on this list for two reasons. First, he made the Warriors matter for the first time since the early 1990s. Second, he was the centerpiece of one of most beloved squads in Bay Area history, the “We Believe” Warriors of 2006-07.
Indeed, BD’s soaring dunk over Jazz forward Andrei Kirilenko in the ’07 playoffs ranks among the most incredible moments in local sports history.
Though Davis spent only three-plus seasons (238 games, including postseason) with the Warriors, he left an unforgettable legacy.
Long before Dr. Harry Edwards was a sociology professor at Cal, a national spokesman and front-office adviser to several local teams, including the 49ers and the Warriors, he was the most emphatic and erudite Black sports figure of the Civil Rights era.
Several years removed from throwing the discus for San Jose State University track and field team, Edwards was the driving force behind one of the most iconic demonstrations in the history of the Olympic Games.
When Tommie Smith won the 1968 200-meter final and John Carlos took the bronze medal, they took to the medal stand in Mexico City wearing black socks without shoes (a symbol of Black poverty) and raised black-gloved fists (to signify Black strength and unity), it was the most radical expression in sports history.
Smith and Carlos were members of the SJSU track team, and by then Edwards had evolved from student to teacher on campus. Though Smith and Carlos decided together to stage the demonstration, it was common knowledge that they were heavily influenced by Edwards, who had tried unsuccessfully to organize a boycott of the Games.
All three men are legends known throughout the world for their insight and courage.
Rickey Henderson’s baseball accomplishments are so towering that it prompted none other than Bill James, among the august gatekeepers of the game, to give perhaps the king of all conceivable compliments.
“If you could split him in two,” James said, “you’d have two Hall of Famers.”
A multisport star at Oakland Technical High School, Rickey turned down a football scholarship to Arizona State to, on his mother’s advice, pursue a career in baseball. Drafted by the hometown A’s in the fourth round, he went on to become the best leadoff hitter and base thief ever to take the field.
Henderson was 32 years old – precisely in the middle of his MLB career – when he smashed Lou Brock’s career record of 938 stolen bases, later putting the mark out of reach and retiring with 1,406. He also owns the all-time record for runs, with 2,295.
A first-ballot Hall of Famer, Rickey did it all with a style and pizzazz that made one of the game’s great all-around entertainers.
A little more than three years after an electrifying postseason while leading the 49ers to the Super Bowl in 2013, Colin Kaepernick walked over the bench before a preseason game and sat during the national anthem. One week later, on the advice of Green Beret veteran Nate Boyer, Kaepernick dropped one knee during the anthem.
Kaepernick, the adopted biracial son of White parents, explained that he wanted to call attention to police brutality and racial injustice. He repeated the demonstration throughout the 2016 season.
He has not since played another down in the NFL. Hasn’t been offered a contract. Kaepernick was castigated by former President Donald Trump and many American conservatives, who ignored his purpose and focusing on what they considered an anti-American act.
Though Kaepernick, now 33, still longs for a football career, much of his energy is devoted to fighting social injustice, resulting in numerous humanitarian honors. History will regard him as a man who sacrificed his career for a higher pursuit.
Dozens of men and woman have come from the streets of the Bay Area to gain wealth and fame in professional sports. None was a more heralded teenager than Jason Kidd.
During his time at St. Joseph High School in Alameda, Kidd led the Pilots to consecutive state championships and became the most prominent prep athlete in Bay Area history. He was no less likely than Joe Montana and Chris Mullin to turn heads on local streets.
So massive was Kidd’s celebrity that upon enrolling at Cal to play basketball, the school moved some of its home games out of 6,500-seat Harmon Gym into 15,025-seat Oakland Coliseum Arena. He was profiled in Sports Illustrated as a prep and on the cover as a collegian, when he led Cal to an upset win over Duke in the second round of the 1993 NCAA Tournament.
Kidd never played a minute for the Warriors, so he’ll have to settle for the title of the most impactful high-school athlete ever to become a high-profile celebrity at 16.
It’s an image that will live for eternity, a college football player grabbing the wheel of the golf cart normally used for injured players and driving it around dozens of people on the field celebrating a Cal victory over Washington at Memorial Stadium in 2006.
Who else but Marshawn Lynch would dare such a thing? After scoring the winning touchdown, he defied decorum and convention and took the cart for a spin, to the cheers of thousands.
Lynch was a prep star at Oakland Tech, a 15-minute drive away from Cal, where he was a star before authoring an NFL career that took him to the doorstep of the Hall of Fame.
Moreover, Lynch and his “Beast Mode” persona became a cultural icon all over the world. Kids love him, and so do adults. And he did it all without celebrating himself. He still shuns all but a few interviews.
Lynch’s dedication to the community is above question. He hosts annual festivals through his Fam 1st Foundation and has bought and operated businesses in Oakland and Emeryville.
Before Steph and Barry, before Joe and Jerry, before Rickey and J-Kidd, there was the Bay Area’s original sports superstar: Willie.
Willie Mays didn’t grow up in the Bay Area, but he has lived in these parts for more than 60 years. During that time the Giants center fielder evolved from the most exciting baseball player in the game, to the most complete active player to, in retirement, the greatest living player.
Mays came to California with New York Giants and immediately gave the region a sports identity. There was no NBA team and no other baseball team. It was the 49ers, a middling NFL team, and the Giants, boasting the game’s greatest attraction.
The two-time MVP and 24-time All-Star spent 14-plus seasons with the Giants, winning 11 consecutive Gold Gloves and entering the Hall of Fame on the first ballot.
There was street named after him in New York and there is Willie Mays Plaza, in San Francisco, hard by the ballpark, where a statue of Mays, with the follow-through of his swing, stands tall outside.
