Here is a non-sports related example. If you have ever woken up early on a Sunday morning and turned on the TV you will have invariably seen Rod Black, or some other two bit television star, asking you for money to save a child, dig a well or start a school. These programmes show what fat, rich people in first world countries can do for the cost of a cup of coffee a day. The real story is not the one well that works; it is the thousands that don’t. It is not the child that is saved, but the thousands that are forced to wield AK-47s in order to survive. It makes people uncomfortable to confront the truth but it is our responsibility to do so. Sorry to bum anyone out but I think I made my point.
Back to sports. The story surrounding the NBA last week was “coming out” of former player John Amaechi. He is the first NBA player to openly talk about the fact that he is a homosexual. The question here is why is it such a big story? There are thousands of men who play professional sports and common sense dictates that not all of them are going to be red meat eating, beer swilling heterosexuals.
ESPN is the company that published Amaechi’s book. When the editors and marketers read it they must have realized that the best way so sell the most copies was to make a huge deal out of this. Headlines about the “First openly gay ex-NBAer” adorned ESPN’s web site. Why did Amaechi come out or why did ESPN decide to make this an issue is obvious. Amaechi can become a spokes person for gay athletes and both he and ESPN can make some money in the process. The question is: Where are the others?
Where are the other gay professional athletes; or did you trick yourself into thinking there was only one? They are there, on every team, in every sport, in every country. They have always been there, forced to hide their true selves. The fear of being shunned by teammates, rejected as role models and possibly lose their job has been enough keep these men quiet.
We may think that in the year 2007, this would not be an issue. That a man or woman's sexuality has bearing on how well they play a sport or how good of teammate they are may seem ridiculous to many, but then Tim Hardaway opens his mouth and reality come back like an angry pimp smack; “I don't like gay people, and it [homosexuality] shouldn't be in the world or the United States.” What?!?! Are you kidding me? The though that immediately goes through my mind is that this guy needs to be muzzled by the NBA and then be shipped off to where ever they are hiding Jesse Helms. Let the two of them have a hate filled, gay bashing bonfire, except that Helms would probably turn on Hardaway once they had purged all the homosexuals.
Ok, you think, but Tim Hardaway is just one voice and he doesn't speak for the rest of the NBA or other professional sports. I don't see NBA players lining up to condone Amaechi's book or say that they would have no problem sharing a locker room with a gay teammate. David Stern and NBA franchises must have told their players to keep quiet about this one. People don't really want to know how players feel. They don't want to know that the NBA is about as tolerant as the post-Civil War American South.
Facing this problem is the only way to fix it. We must talk about it and be comfortable and secure enough in ourselves to be able to accept differences in others. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a major sports writer who is willing to address the subject. He is probably afraid that by exposing the underlying hatred he will lose his sources and himself become an outcast of the sports world. This is an issue that needs to be confronted, explained and defused in a way that people will listen. It must be done by someone who can look through a different lens.
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