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Editor’s note: MÁS freelancer Ryan T. Blystone is in Italy for the 2006 winter Olympics and has written a feature story on Derek Parra, the first Mexican-American to win a Winter Olympic medal. Read about Parra’s inspirational — and historical — journey to speed-skating glory on Page 6.

SALT LAKE CITY — “Wanted: Versatile Athletes Interested in Bobsled.” The black couple from Alabama saw the flier and laughed.

Johnny Flowers handed it to his wife, Vonetta. “Bobsled?” she asked, looking at him as if he were crazy. “You know black people don’t like the cold,” Johnny told his wife, who chuckled and nodded.

Sixteen months later, with the temperature near 30 degrees, Alabama native Vonetta Flowers made history, becoming the first black person to win an Olympic gold medal. It was with Jill Bakken in last week’s two-woman bobsled event.

Also making the record books that day was Orlando, Fla., speedskater Derek Parra — originally from Southern California — the first Mexican-American gold medalist in a Winter Games winning at Salt Lake in 2002. Parra also won a silver medal that year.

It was a thrilling day of diversity, but based on history, it will not result in an immediate minority rush to find skis and bobsleds. It does help, sports psychologists and historians say, but these Olympic Games are not like sports such as basketball, where participants need only a ball and a hoop.

Any great transformation in the racial makeup of the athletes who compete in these games will take time.

Now, though, there is a standard.

“Hopefully, this will encourage other African-Americans to give winter sports a try, because you only see a few,” Vonetta Flowers said.

Said Parra: “If I can reach Latino kids and get them to reach for the stars and get them in a comfort zone in other areas, that would be a great thing to do.”

Flowers’ and Parra’s accomplishments do mean that the minority athletes now have an Olympic example to follow.

“It’s like saying anyone can be president of the United States,” said Tina Sloan Green, professor of sport and culture at Temple University in Philadelphia. “But until my son or daughter sees a black president, then it’s a hard thing to imagine.”

Devon Harris was watching the Winter Olympics with his agent last week. He noticed Parra crying, “looking ecstatic,” Harris said.

Then he moved closer to the television.

“Wow!” he exclaimed. “He’s not white.”

Harris was a member of the original Jamaican bobsled team in 1988, the one that inspired the 1992 Disney movie “Cool Runnings.”

“It’s one small victory at a time,” Harris said. “We’re seeing that coming to fruition. It’s a difficult journey. The process is tough. These sports are expensive. You can’t just get up and go bobsledding like you go play pickup basketball. That’s the tough part for any group or ethnicity. We live in mostly warm-weather places. It’s economics. It has nothing to do with athletic ability.”

The Winter Games have existed since 1924, when the first games were held in Chamonix, France.

 Parra, who is of Mexican descent, is the first Hispanic-American to win a Winter Olympics medal. He already has a gold and a silver from the games in Salt Lake.

Parra finished 19th in the 1,500-meter event on Tuesday.

Flowers is only the second black person to win a medal, following ice skater Debi Thomas’ bronze-medal performance in 1988.

Using lessons from history, it might even be some time before the next Hispanic or black person wins another gold medal — in either Olympic venue.

Tennis is a good example, said Richard Lapchick, an expert on race relations and sports and the head of the University of Central Florida’s new graduate sports-business management program.

Althea Gibson became the first black woman to win Wimbledon in 1957. It took 43 years for another black woman to win at Wimbledon — Venus Williams in 2000.

When you get outside of baseball, basketball, football and soccer, the number of minority participants in sports dwindles significantly.

For years, it was a matter of access. Minorities could not get into ski resorts and onto golf  courses, and thus could not learn those games.

Though such walls have crumpled, an exclusionary mentality still exists, Lapchick said.

“It matters where you give access and where you make people feel welcome,” he said. “It’s not as simple as saying, ‘You got your skills, here’s your access, you’re OK.’ You get ridiculed and people jump all over you because you are different.”

Parra’s mother, Maria McCracken, knows that Parra’s accomplishments — from Home Depot worker to gold and silver medalist — have created the same pride for Hispanics.

“That is such a gift to our culture to say, ‘Hey, there’s nothing that holds you back. Not where you come from, not who you are, nothing,’” she said. “There are no limits, only the ones that you put on yourself.”
          

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Today’s Lesson

1. ______________ was the first Hispanic-American to win an Olympic medal in the year ____ during the Winter Olympics in ______________. He won gold and silver.

2. The Winter Games have existed since ____, when they were first held in ________, _____.

3. _____________ became the first black woman to win Wimbledon in the year ____.

4. It would be __ more years before another black woman, ______________, to win at Wimbledon again.

5. “_______________” is the Disney movie that was inspired by the real-life Jamaican bobsled team.

Answers:

1. Derek Parra; 2002; Salt Lake, Utah     2. 1924; Chamonix, France     3. Althea Gibson; 1957     4. 43; Venus Williams     5. “Cool Runnings”