Jack Scott (sports activist)

Scott graduated from Syracuse University in 1966, studied at Stanford, where he was a competitive sprinter. There he met Beverly McGee, known as "Mickie," with whom he went to Berkeley. He later said that went there as a "Goldwater Republican," but was radicalized by a protest against the draft in which demonstrators were injured by police. [3] He received his PhD in education from the University of California, Berkeley.

Inspired by the protest of Black athletes at the Mexico City Olympic games of 1968 and Black sports activist Harry Edwards, he developed a critical view of American sports as "one of the most conservative, narrow and encrusted segments of our society". He attacked the "quasi-militaristic manner" of "racist, insensitive" coaches who robed sport of its "best justification—that it's fun to do".[4] He criticized such figures as University of Alabama football coach "Bear Bryant", Vince Lombardi and other "over-authoritarian coaches" who proved "that heavy discipline can produce winners", but added that "it is also possible to learn and develop in a more free and creative atmosphere". He and Edwards founded the Institute for the Study of Sport and Society in 1970.[5]

At the invitation of the newly inaugurated president, Robert Fuller, he became Athletic Director at Oberlin College from 1972 to 1974 and instituted what has been called the "Oberlin Experiment".[6] The program set out to change athetics radically, both by fostering inclusion and putting less emphasis on simply winning. Among his new faculty were the critic of commercialized football, Paul Hoch, known for his Marxian analysis of sport and author of Rip Off the Big Game (Garden City: 1972)[7].; the gymnast Dan Millman; and three Black coaches, who included Cass Jackson as head of the football program, and Tommie Smith, who had raised his fist to show Black pride at the Olympic Games. Scott attracted national attention, for instance drawing the ABC commentator Howard Cosell to broadcast a description of the program from the Oberlin campus. He also drew charges of being insensitive in handling the previous coaches and personal relations with the Oberlin faculty. [8]

On returning to Berkeley, he became friends with retired NBA basketball star, Bill Walton. [9] He co-wrote Bill Walton: On the road with the Portland Trail Blazers, published in 1978.[10] In 1974, he and Mickie moved into Walton's home in Portland, Oregon[11]

He gained fame by transporting Patty Hearst, the heiress wanted by law enforcement authorities for her alleged terrorist attacks as a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army.[12]

He and Mickie separated in the mid-1990s, but came together again and were married in January 2000. [13]Scott died at Mickie's house in Oakland of throat cancer at the age of 57 in 2000. He and Mickie had a son, Jonah, and two daughters, Lydia and Emma. [14]

• Scott, Jack (1971). The Athletic Revolution. New York: Free Press.
• Lypsite, Robert (21 September 1975), "Radical Jocks" (PDF), New York Times
• Reed, Christopher (10 February 2000), "Jack Scott: Radical Race and Sports Campaigners tainted by Patty Hearst Link", The Guardian