Celebrate excellence. (Publisher's Page).

Tiger Woods and Venus and Serena Williams are everything we expect of our sports heroes. They are brilliant and dominant athletes, record-breakers who have yet to reach their respective primes. Coached to pursue excellence and to value hard work by their parents, they are truly American success stories and inspirational role models. Tiger and the Williams sisters bring legions of new fans and boost television ratings for sports that for years had languished below the radar of most Americans. Their popularity has dramatically increased the revenues of their sports and the earning potential of their competitors in the Professional Golf Association and the Women's Tennis Association. And, as clearly indicated in our special report on top celebrity endorsers in this issue of BLACK ENTERPRISE, their athletic performance and personal appeal have placed them among the nation's most popular endorsers in the minds of both corporate marketers and consumers.

It's hard to imagine golf and tennis without Tiger, Venus, and Serena. And, for those of us who remember what it was like for African Americans trying to break into what were once considered "white-only" sports, it's even harder to imagine who'd want to. In 1990, just two years before Tiger played his first pro tournament, Shoal Creek Golf Club founder Hal Thompson told a newspaper, "We don't discriminate in any other area except for blacks." That policy was the rule, not the exception, at such clubs. And it was to the detriment of black golfers such as Charlie Sifford and Lee Elder. It took pressure from corporate sponsors of the PGA Championship, to be held at Shoal Creek that summer, to force the club to admit its first black member days later. (The PGA removed its Caucasians-only clause from its constitution in 1961.) The record for professional tennis, when it comes to embracing African Americans, is scarcely better. While the Williams sisters have not suffered the indignities experienced by Althea Gibson, who became the first African American to win at Wimbledon in 1957, as black girls who learned the game not on the country club circuit but on the streets of Compton, they weren't welcomed with open arms.

Despite their positive impact (financial and otherwise) on their respective sports, it often seems that Woods and the Williamses can never truly belong. And thus, amazingly, these superb athletes endure carping and criticism from competitors, members of the media, and even some fans. A few even go as far as to say that Woods and the Williams sisters are hurting their respective sports. Once, critics griped that they weren't good enough. Now, it seems the problem is that they are too good: "He hits the ball too far." "She hits the ball too hard." "They're too athletic." "They take too much media attention from the other players." "They win too much." Win too much? Funny, I don't ever remember hearing that about Navratilova, Graf, Nicklaus, or Palmer. The Williams sisters' and Tiger's dominance in tennis and golf is not cause for lament, but adulation.

Tiger, Venus, and Serena should be accorded no less than that. They deserve credit for broadening the popular and commercial appeal of their sports. Excellence on all fields of fair competition should be celebrated--period. When it comes to dominance in sports, don't hate the players. Love the game.