Gay Guys in Professional Sports?

Hey Mr. Reeve… what do you think about gay guys playing pro sports?

Gay Guys View….
  

 

Every so often, the gay blogosphere starts to simmer under with rumors that a major league baseball playing is going to come out. Or an NFL linebacker. Or an NHL hockey player from Montreal.

Giddy gay sports fans at Just Us Boys go on and on about who they think it is… he’s always the handsome one. It always either ends up to be some retired player flogging a new book or just a rumor with no truth to it.

Nay-sayers shake their heads saying things like “no pro athlete would jeopardize his career by coming out.”

That used to confuse me a bit. You’d think that a professional athlete would be chosen on ability alone. If he can throw a ball, hit it out of the park, stop the puck from going into the goal… he should be on the team.

Right?

I miss those idealistic days before I realized that ability isn’t nearly as important as MARKETability and no amount of saying “who cares who he’s dating” is going to change anything in a world that cares more about the personal lives of their heros than their professional lives.

Case in point: some of the biggest stars and role models this year were a bunch of idiot kids from New Jersey who got drunk and made asses of themselves on their highly-rated MTV show. They had no talents or abilities or brains… their claim to fame was being shameless and clueless at the same time.

I get asked a lot if “Mike Piazza” or “Dennis Rodman is gay?”

No. Or… i don’t think so.

Not that it would matter. America doesn’t WANT a gay hero. America wants a gay support staff, for sure, but not a gay role model or hero.

Heterosexual culture and the straight media will only use the word “gay” if they can rip someone down with it.

I’m going to bring you back to the summer of 2008. I was still working at Fratmen and on the last shoot I worked on, I met two young men named Paul and Kenny. Nice guys… funny… handsome…maybe a bit hyperactive. Typical college boys. They told us that they were both top-rated college wrestlers. A simple google of their names brought up pages of YouTube videos of their matches. Lots of news stories. They were famous. We just hadn’t heard of them. We DID try to talk them into letting us wait until after the season to release the videos. But no.. they said they wanted them out. They figured it would help get them girls at school.

When the solo jerk off videos came out, the blogosphere erupted once again, this time along with CNN, ESPN and Fred Phelps.

“COLLEGE WRESTLERS IN GAY PORN SCANDAL!!!” shouted the headlines… “GAY PORN DERAILS WRESTERS!!!” shouted others. Lost in the facts was that these guys hadn’t actually made “gay porn.” They were in solo shoots… all alone.. just posing nude and not having sex, gay or otherwise. But the media couldn’t WAIT to rip the two straight guys down with the word “GAY!!” It was a field day for them.

Not long after, Australian diver Matthew Mitcham won an upset victory at the Olympics. Matthew was an amazing diver. He was also gay. And the coverage by NBC just couldn’t have THAT.

NBC cut away from the medal ceremony, NBC refused to use the word “gay” or even mention his boyfriend that was beside him the whole time. See… they couldn’t use the word “gay” in a negative way.. so they wouldn’t use it at all. No gay heros for us, dammit.

When they were called on it… NBC said his sexuality was a “private matter” like they were talking about cancer or a criminal record. When it was pointed out that at the same Olympics, straight love stories, husbands, wives, love triangles and lost wedding rings had eclipsed the coverage of the sport, NBC played dumb. When it was pointed out that the media had to invent phony girlfriends for swimmer Michael Phelps, they begrudgingly apologized.  But nothing changed.

People ask me if there’s “room” for gay athletes. Which is a dumb question. There are gay athletes in every level of sports from pitchers in Little League all the way up to Linebackers on the NFL. But sadly no.. there’s no room for “out” gay athletes. Because the majority of straight culture doesn’t WANT a gay hero.

And they’ll do anything to keep from getting one.

Straight Guy’s View

From the first time men step on a field they are taught to be tough. Sports are such a “macho” thing in our society. Weather it be fake or real it is what we see when we turn on the TV to watch. Baseball players grabbing their crotch and spitting tobacco out the whole game. Football & hockey players hitting each other so hard they break bones, get concussions, stitches and sometimes stay in the game. Boxing and MMA fighters trying to beat the hell out of each other to be victorious.

I think back to when I played high school sports and in the locker room we used to tease each other about being gay or would say “you trying to look at my junk man”. A young man being homophobic is nothing new. This carries over to adulthood for a lot of straight athletes and I think this has a lot to do with why gay athletes remain quiet and in the closet. It’s easier for them not to be looked at differently by their teammates.

I believe if a top athlete was to come out then sports and the mainstream media would have no choice but to deal with it. It has to be a Lebron James, Peyton Manning, Albert Pujols or Sidney Crosby type superstar athlete though. If these little known athletes come out they get swept under the rug. I think it would be interesting to see how the first high profile gay superstar athlete would be treated by his teammates. When will that be? Not sure. I have watched and listened to tons of sports and talk sports radio over the years and the explanation you hear from most players is that they would just be flat out uncomfortable being in a locker room with a gay teammate.

I will end with a question. Would it be acceptable for a gay teammate to be treated like if he was a woman athlete and be given their own locker room?

EDIT: I have read a few responses to the locker room debate. I would like some feed back from straight guys about this issue. I wouldn’t care if a gay guy was next to me naked in a locker room, but I would say something to anyone staring at me naked and most likely it would be a straight guy. No peter gazing in the locker room boys! It’s not proper locker room etiquette to stare.

Mr. Reeve