Scorecard

The World Court

Considering what's going on in the NBA nowadays (page 26), one might think that to commissioner David Stern the term jailed dissident refers to a member of the New York Knicks. Not so. In recent weeks Stern, America's most globally political sports czar, has spent time with two of the world's most famous political dissidents, Nelson Mandela and Natan Sharansky.

On May 10 Stern was one of 44 members of the official U.S. delegation that traveled to Pretoria for Nelson Mandela's inauguration as the first black president of South Africa. The group included Hillary Rodham Clinton, Al Gore, Jesse Jackson, Coretta Scott King, Colin Powell and Paul Simon, the senator from Illinois.

Stern's connection to Mandela began last August when a group of NBA players and coaches traveled to South Africa to conduct clinics as part of a goodwill tour of Africa. During the visit Stern's delegation had a private audience with Mandela, then president of the African National Congress. "As far as we could determine, there was literally one basketball for the millions of people in all of Soweto," says Stern. "But Mr. Mandela is a very big sports fan. His first love is boxing. [Mandela was an amateur boxer, and he stayed in shape by shadowboxing during his 27 years in prison.] He made reference time and time again to the power of sport and the impact on his country when South African athletes weren't allowed to compete."

A few weeks earlier, during an April visit to Tel Aviv for the European Final Four, Stern met Sharansky, who had been imprisoned for nine years in the Soviet Union.

"Being around these men, both of whom had given their freedom to stand up for their principles, was something I'll never forget," says Stern. "Mr. Mandela was given an NBA jacket, and he wore it for hours. But even I drew the line at getting him to say, 'I love this game.' "

Out of Bounds

Stern also commented on the immensity of Mandela's task. As if to underscore that point, David Frost of South Africa, a 10-year veteran of the PGA Tour, presented his views about blacks last week in an interview that evoked the worst of Al Campanis and Jimmy (the Greek) Snyder. Asked by Mark McDonald of The Dallas Morning News if he thought the Mandela regime might open the way for the development of black South African golfers, Frost said he didn't think so. "Blacks like the active sports," he said. "Golf's too still for them. They like basketball, soccer. There are games that they play, and there are games that we play."

Frost, 34, who has played on the PGA Tour and lived in the U.S. since 1985 while retaining a South African passport, grew up on a farm in Cape Town, where he went to whites-only schools and played golf at whites-only clubs. He said that as a child he often played with the children of the black farm employees and that his two children in Dallas have black playmates.

But Frost still holds some separatist beliefs. "I don't think it's good to grow up disregarding one race or the other...[but] I don't basically agree with integrated marriages," he said. "I think the races should, you know, stick to themselves. But I don't have any hard feelings toward blacks. I have many black friends."