Homosexuals & Sports

Truth be told, I've held off writing an article about this topic for a while. Mainly because I believe there is a climate of "Heterosexual Man's Burden" in America today. What I mean by this is that many heterosexuals feel that they must control the rights of homosexuals, and know what is best for homosexuals. We see this most clearly with a) lawmakers, but then, Bill Simmons on ESPN. Simmons has had two openly gay people on his podcast in the past two months. First, fellow ESPN columnist LZ Granderson, and most recently, Phoenix Suns CEO Rick Welts, who announced that he was gay on May 15. Both times, instead of interviewing the person, Simmons took it upon himself to share his theories of how he feels homosexuals would be accepted in the sports world, and how they should come out. In both podcasts, you find yourself yelling at the computer "shut up, stop pretending you know what the fuck youre talking about" (hence the heterosexual mans burdern). I did not/do not want to engage in that type of behavior, so I wont. That being said, the topic of homosexuality in sports has been so prevalent in the last few weeks that to completely ignore would be foolish.

What really made me want to write this article was Barkley's comments last week.

At the same time however, I did not know how I could really expand upon what he said. I agree with it 100%. That being said, we can try to explore some of the claims he makes in greater detail.

What is very interesting is how the media makes jocks out to be villainous. Why? Of ALL areas of society, sports has been the most progressive of all. Sports welcomed African Americans into their smaller society, before the rest of American society did. Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947. It wasnt until seven years later that Brown v. Board of education occurred, and an astronomical seventeen years later until the major Civil Rights Act of 1964. I'm not insinuating that Robinson's transition into the Major Leagues was smooth at all, as he undoubtedly was met with abhorrent racism from opponents and teammates. I am saying however that he was a major component of the civil rights movement. Interstingly, Dodgers manager Leo Durocher made a comment in 1947 that is akin to Barkley's comments today. Durocher said: "I do not care if the guy is yellow or black, or if he has stripes like a fuckin' zebra. I'm the manager of this team, and I say he plays."

I know this could be the case with homosexuality as well. How? Because of Barkley's comments, that he, and everyone knew of homosexuals on their team, and didn't say anything, or think differently of them. More specifically, take the case of former Villanova player Will Sheridan, who recently announced to the public that he is a homosexual.
If you read the article above, it starts with an anecdote of how he told teammate Mike Nardi that he was gay. Whether or not its accurate, (and Sheridan admits that it of course wasnt that simple), it illustrates that Villanova players accepted Sheridan and respected him and his privacy. I don't mean to insinuate that coming out is simple, or that every single person in the sports world will be accepting of someone who does. As was the case with race, there will be examples of idiots who are not accepting and are in turn aggressive towards homosexuals. My point, however, is that sports/jocks should not be seen as less accepting of homosexuals, and if anything, they can be seen as more accepting.

If we once again compare it to race, which I know is not a 1-1 correlation, but we see that Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947. When Hank Aaron broke the HR record in 1974, he received death threats due to his race. In fact, he was only a few home runs short of the record after the 1973 season, which meant everyone knew the record would be broken very quickly in 1974, and also led to an entire Winter's offseason of hate mail and death threats from morons. This illustrates that although Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947, FANS (not athletes) were still unaccepting of Aaron's accomplishments 27 years later. This shows that a) progress is slow moving and does not happen over night, and b) baseball/sports was WAY ahead of other areas of society when it came to racial integration and acceptance.

So to me it is funny how something like this can happen, but then the athletes are the ones who are condemned. No doubt that those lawmakers are the first to point their fingers and say "oh jocks, they'll never have a gay person in their locker room." Rhetoric like that is so insulting - it insinuates that a) homosexuals are so out of control and would not be able to control themselves, turning into equivalent of the guys from "Porkys" when around other men in the locker room, and b) that everyone in the locker room would discriminate against them. This leads the general public to be in shock when an athlete comes to the support of homosexuals.

There is the case of New York Ranger Sean Avery. Avery is seen as one of the more aggravating, infuriating, toughest hockey players in the league. He has led the league in penalty minutes multiple times. In 2007, a players poll revealed he was the "most hated player in the league," (a whopping 66% of players voted for him). So maybe it is surprising that he has recently announced (unsolicited) that he is a supporter for same sex marriage. He said something similar to Barkley as well (before Barkley too), that having lived in NY and LA, he has been around the gay community, and has a lot of gay friends.

Why would this come as any surprise? What makes Sean Avery, or Charles Barkley, any different from the rest of society? Because Barkley is a great rebounder and trash talker, he would be un-accepting of gays? Or because Sean Avery plays the game of hockey so well that he annoys people, he must be homophobic? Its gotten to the point where we have made out athletes out to be not only mythical, but VERY STEREOTYPICAL. What type of stereotype? Well, honestly, the first stereotype that comes to mind is Emilio Estevez' character from "The Breakfast Club" (since the whole film is about stereotypes). But you know what I am talking about - the dumb jock, idiot, no feelings, bully, aggressive, heterosexual alpha-male. While Estevez' character doesn't overtly say anything about homosexuals in the film, that is what I think most people picture when they say "jocks wouldnt allow homosexuals in the locker room," - they are picturing Estevez as the heterosexual voice of disapproval. I think this happens because its easy to point the finger. Just pin it all on the jocks (more on Kobe and Noah later).

Barkley's statement that we are a very homophobic society is also very interesting. Again, the fact that same sex marriage doesnt exist is pretty sound evidence of his claim. Also, Im starting to wonder how much films and televison, even when they 'mean well,' reaffirm old stereotypes and prejudices. The first example that comes to mind is "the office" episode "gay witch hunt" which features Michael outing Oscar. Again, this may not be the best example to prove my point, but it is the first one I thought of. "The Office," which is on NBC, a progressive, liberal station, can be seen as such itself. I know that the point of the episode was to show that Michael was an idiot and ignorant, while the other characters of the show are perfectly idealistic, but I wonder how many of the jokes in the episode reinforce stereotypes.

A better example would be a 1992 episode of "The Arsenio Hall Show." Magic had already announced that he was HIV positive. On the show, Hall asked Magic if he were gay, and Magic said no. This response solicited cheers from the studio audience. They were applauding Magic for being heterosexual, and nothing else.
(I watched at least 40 minutes of interviews between Magic and Arsenio, and couldnt find it. But, I have heard the story of this before. I did however deduce that Arsenio is perhaps one step above Chris Farley from SNL's 'The Chris Farley Show' in terms of interviewing skills, and I did find this, directed by Malcolm Jamal-Warner of The Cosby Show fame.)

Back to seriousness though, how can we expect a society to be tolerant of homosexuals when twenty years ago, we stood up and applauded someone for announcing he wasnt gay? Also take the case of Mike Piazza. Rumors had circulated in the early 00's that he was a homosexual. He didn't just clear it up and say "thats not true," but he instead called a press conference to make a formal announcement of his heterosexuality. He is also accused of subsequently going out of his way to be photographed with women wherever he went to prove his heterosexuality.

Finally, we have the examples of Kobe Bryant and Joakim Noah, both who were seen on television mouthing the word "faggot." These examples would certainly lead to many thinking that all jocks were intolerant of homosexuals (Bryant after all, is one of the few poster boys of the NBA, and what a great posterboy he is with his rape allegations, history of extra-marital affairs, and now, homophobic langauge). Both men said publicly after their incidents that they didnt mean to offend anybody. This argument is based around linguistics. Those who would defend Noah and Bryant would be saying that the word doesnt refer to homosexuals anymore, but rather a sissy/weakling/lame person/idiot/nerd/etc etc. Therefore, one could condemn Noah and Bryant for their language, or one could blame society for letting the word reach the level of "ambiguity" it has. I put ambiguity in quotes because it is laughable to think that anyone learned the word without learning its connection to homosexuality - that someone could be walking around using the word, and be surprised that it at one point was (or still is) used as a derogatory, inflammatory statement towards homosexuals. Again, this on one hand shows that someone could use the word but not actually have any malevolent feelings towards homosexuals (as they are arguing), but on the other hand, show how society's intolerance of homosexuals has perpetuated usage of the word. The fact that the 'definition' of faggot would go from "homosexual" to "weak/dumb/lame" just further illustrates Barkley's point of America being a homophobic society.

Noah's remark did not come at a good time. The past few weeks seemed like a progressive timeperiod for homosexuals and sports. Sheridan and Welts announced that they were gay. Avery and Steve Nash voiced their support for NY's same sex marriage. However, remarks like Kobe's, or Noah's, or antics like Mike Piazzas will give jocks a black eye when it comes to this matter. They will be the apples that spoil the bunch. I hope that people will start to see athletes and sports as a more mature, tolerant, and accepting world than they once thought - a world along the lines of what Barkley said in his interviews. More importantly, I hope that he and I are right, and that sports can do the same thing for homosexuals and society that it did, and continues to do, for racial relations.