CAN WE TALK? Former Baylor star Brittney Griner said in a magazine interview that Baylor coaches suggested she not make her sexuality a public issue because it might hurt the school’s recruiting. (AP)
The battle against homophobia took a giant step forward recently when Jason Collins came out — the first openly gay American male professional athlete to do so while still in the game. It was courageous. It was needed. And, with the exception of a few ignorant souls, it was supported by most in and out of professional sports.
Since then, however, one sad, clear message has also been sent:
The battles rages.
Brittney Griner, one of the most dominant women’s college basketball players ever, said in a magazine interview her Baylor coaches suggested that Griner not make her homosexuality public knowledge out of fear that it might hurt recruiting.
“The coaches thought that if it seemed like they condoned it, people wouldn’t let their kids come play for Baylor,” Griner told ESPN The Magazine.
It would be easy to throw Baylor, a Baptist university in Waco, Texas, under the bus, but that would be narrow-minded and parochial thinking. Baylor lists homosexuality under the subheading of sexual misconduct in its student handbook.
It espouses, “purity in singleness and fidelity in marriage between a man and a woman as the biblical norm. Temptations to deviate from this norm include both heterosexual sex outside of marriage and homosexual behavior.
“It is thus expected that Baylor students will not participate in advocacy groups which promote understandings of sexuality that are contrary to biblical teaching.”
Baylor coach Kim Mulkey has yet to respond to Griner’s comments. Based on the university’s handbook, her career at Baylor might be in jeopardy if she disputes Griner’s comments.
Sad. If she doesn’t comment, do we take her silence as an affirmation that, yes, she and her staff didn’t want Griner’s sexual orientation out there? Sad.
This sadness is not new. Sexual orientation has been used in recruiting by women’s college basketball coaches and assistant coaches for decades. Why, for example, did UConn and Tennessee, the greatest rivalry women’s college basketball has ever known, cease in 2007? Surely it went beyond any personality conflict between Geno Auriemma and Pat Summit.
The strong subcurrent that ran like a polluted underground stream in that series was one of sexual orientation:
UConn is a “straight’’ program, Tennessee is a “gay’’ program, went the rhetoric.
If that’s even part of the reason UConn and Tennessee don’t play, it’s a shame. It was the only regular-season women’s college basketball game that drew national attention.
No rivalry has been able to fill that void. But there’s a sadder story here than lost rivalries and negative recruiting.
There’s the ugly reality that despite Jason Collins’ coming out, despite more states and countries (merci beaucoup, France!) passing gay-marriage bills, homophobia is alive and well and killing and hurting men and women from Waco to the Big Apple.
Late Friday night, a gay man was shot dead in the heart of Greenwich Village by a man screaming anti-gay slurs. According to police commissioner Raymond Kelly there has been a rise in bias-related crimes in the city this year.
The economy has improved. The housing market is showing signs of life. We’re pulling out of Afghanistan. North Korea is firing its missiles into the sea. Many of the factors that often bring hatred to boil currently are not in play. Yet there have been 22 bias-related crimes this year compared to 13 during the same period last year.
As I walked down West 18th Street in Chelsea on Saturday, a man stood on the street screaming in the direction of another man, “You bleeping faggot!’’ as if it were 1965. He didn’t scream it once, he screamed it maybe a half dozen times.
And no one, myself included, had the courage of Collins. No one approached this hater and asked him to please keep his ignorance to himself. As far as I know, no one, myself included, called the cops.
This was in Chelsea, not Waco.
This isn’t a red-state, blue-state issue.
“It was more of a unwritten law [to not discuss your sexuality] … it was just kind of, like, one of those things, you know, just don’t do it,” Griner said. “They kind of tried to make it, like, ‘Why put your business out on the street like that?’ ”
If sexual orientation is “business,’’ then let’s make it just that. Let’s go back to the days of boycotting any business that has even the scent of intolerance.
If a college or university has intolerance in its culture, than it’s time to stopping buying tickets and T-shirts.
“I told Coach [Mulkey] when she was recruiting me. I was like, ‘I’m gay. I hope that’s not a problem,’ and she told me that it wasn’t,” Griner said. “I mean, my teammates knew, obviously they all knew. Everybody knew about it.”
Every one of us knows someone gay. They could be brothers or sisters, co-workers or friends, neighbors or the barista at your local coffee shop. We all share the same hopes and dreams.
It was a watershed moment when Collins came out. And Griner’s comments hopefully will shed some light on women’s college basketball recruiting and what long has been an issue.
But it’s going to take more than our athletes. Because this battle isn’t just raging in Waco; it’s raging in the greatest city in the world.