From the San Francisco Chronicle:As the movement for marriage equality and gay liberation gains momentum, we should peer with heightened expectation toward the world of sports. Yes, sports. Every movement for civil rights over the past century has seen the struggle for equality reverberate in the often quite conservative arena of sports.
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To risk their jobs is to risk their golden ticket. This is why the athletes who have come out of the closet have done so after they retire. Esera Tuaolo[*] and Dave Kopay[*] of the NFL, John Amaechi[*] of the NBA, Billy Bean[*] and the late Glenn Burke in Major League Baseball, all took this route. The reasons for staying in the closet are manifest.
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In sports such as football, one might expect there to be even threats of violence carried out in hard play on the field. But maybe the ride could be smoother than we all think.
Brian Sims, a former defensive tackle and captain of the Bloomsburg University football team, came out to his team during his senior season. As the Web site Outsports.com wrote, "With the preparation and frenzy surrounding the team as they inched closer to the playoffs and then started winning playoff games, the sexuality of one of the team's most respected players was the furthest from players' concerns ... No one shied away from him. His being gay became just more fodder for locker room teasing, like someone's fat mom."
Not ideal, but there is clearly space to come out that Kopay in the 1970s, or even Tuaolo a decade ago, didn't have. The movement outside the playing field means that a number of writers could be expected to write favorable pieces about the "gay Jackie Robinson."
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Read the entire article HERE
* Gay Games Ambassadors
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