In recent days, Phoenix Suns President Rick Welts and former Villanova basketball player Will Sheridan have each publicly admitted that they are gay. Welts, 58, has been involved in professional sports for 40 years and has taken an impressive road to the top (started as an NBA ball boy), while Sheridan was a three-year starter for the Wildcats, a perennial top 25 team, from 2005-'07. As a result of their success at such high levels, the announcements have become national news. Sheridan has even made appearances on ESPN's "Outside The Lines" and "The Jim Rome Show" on Fox Sports Radio to talk about his experience as a gay, Division 1 student-athlete and his life since coming out.
But here's what's crazy to me: we're so surprised when we hear that a high-profile athlete, specifically a male athlete, is gay. Don't get me wrong, my initial reaction is exactly the same, but honestly, why!? I've heard statistics that as many as 1 in 8 people are gay (doesn't mean it's accurate, but you get the point), so do we really think that the athletic world is devoid of homosexuality? No chance. The sad thing is that there is still such a high percentage of people that are not accepting of an individual's sexual orientation. This is the year 2011, not 1951. Grow up.
After Sheridan's interview on "The Jim Rome Show," Rome took feedback from his listeners via email, tweet, text and phone calls. Upon hearing what they had to say I was embarrassed to associate myself with the majority of them. With the exception of a few gay listeners, just about everyone complained that Rome was willing to do that interview, some commenting that it was more information than they wanted to hear. Umm...what part of that interview was more information than you wanted to hear? The fact that he's gay? If that's hard for you to hear then do me a favor and go play in traffic.
Still though, that's the way the world works and it's hard enough for a non-athlete to admit that they're gay because they know that a lot of people will look at them differently. So I can only imagine how tough it must be for a male athlete to admit it when they're faced with expectations of being completely masculine. That being said, there are undoubtedly gay athletes that are simply too scared to come out. One of the genius callers that Rome took today speculated that one of the reasons athletes are afraid to admit their homosexuality is this: If they ever make a mistake, the media might blame it on the fact that they're gay. Right. Just like the media blames errors on skin color and gender (if you don't know me personally, that's what we in the business like to call heavy sarcasm). I'm pretty sure this guy's IQ was about the same as the number of teeth he's missing.
The last issue that I want to address is something that I'm also guilty of: The overuse of gay slurs to refer to something that would be more appropriately described as "stupid." The words "gay," "fag," "homo" and many others get thrown around locker rooms in friendly banter like they mean nothing. It's not uncommon to hear someone say "that's so gay" when they're not pleased about something or to call a teammate, or anyone else for that matter, a "fag" as an insult. This doesn't necessarily mean that the person using these terms is homophobic, but it's something that we all need to be more conscious of. Most of us don't think twice about using these slurs but Sheridan admitted that it was hurtful to hear them when he played, even if he knew his teammates meant no harm by them. It might not seem like a big deal, but is it really that hard to eliminate a few potentially offensive words from our vocabulary?
"I still believe in man...a wise one asked me why. Cause I just don't believe we're wicked, I know that we sin but I do believe we try." -Frank Ocean
-Brusk Dollas
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