Wednesday, March 02, 2011
The Sporting Closet
The question remains: when will an active male in a major team sport in the United States follow suit? Note that the question is not "when will there be a gay male athlete in a major team sport in the United States?" There is absolutely no doubt that there has been and that there are closeted gay men in the Major League Baseball, the NFL, the NBA, the NHL, and MLS. But that step is a huge one, and while we can hope that today's athletes would handle it, it would only take one or two not to for the situation to become virtually untenable in a machismo-laden locker room.
I asked my students about this in my Global Sports History class this semester and they made the sage point that whoever did it would have to be a very, very good player. The 53rd guy on and NFL roster or the mop-up guy in the bullpen almost certainly could not do it. I'd like to think we are ready for it. But I fear that we are not. Still, Steven Davies and Gareth Thomas provide hope.
The best hope is that someday gay athletes will not be a big deal. But we are not there yet.
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Gareth Thomas' Transitions
![](http://library.vu.edu.pk/cgi-bin/nph-proxy.cgi/000100A/http/www.tutor2u.net/blog/images/uploads/Toulouse-Gareth-Thomas-2006-02-12-Scotland1.jpg)
Here is another story (see here also) on Welsh rugby player Gareth Thomas who seems to be adjusting as well as can be expected to the massive transformation that his public acknowledgment of being gay brought about. Happily, his teammates seem to be fine with it as well, though he is making more adjustment than one, as he has switched over from rugby union to the more wide open style of rugby league, a pretty radical transition for such a veteran player.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Getting Linky
Sports Illustrated has a great article on Welsh rugby player Gareth Thomas, who has more caps for Wales than any player in that country's history. He also is openly gay. And he is still playing. The question that motivates Gary Smith's article is when will there be an openly gay player in American team sports?
Conservatives always seem to predict apocalypse when it comes to social reform and economic regulation. And they are almost always completely wrong.
I don't think I have ever seen a Powerpoint presentation that did not detract a lot more than it added. Most people who use Powerpoint use it as a crutch to cover up their inability to convey material well. As a result students come to rely upon it as if it were necessary. It looks like many in the US military agree with me.
Here is an experiment all married people should get behind: Try to do it every day for a month. (Honey? Are you reading?)
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Leading the Way
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
dcat Quick Hits
The Guardian is running a series of great interviews of the twentieth century. Yesterday the paper reproduced an edited version of a 1936 New York Post interview with a dissolute F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald is one of my favorite writers, and it is difficult to separate him from his era, both for good and ill. For all the glamour and glitz of his 1920s incarnation the Fitzgerald of the 1930s was a seedy and pathetic character whose talent shone only intermittently. This interview captures that version of the man who embodied one normative, if not normal, slice of the 1920s.
USA Today gives props to the University of New Hampshire's quarterback, Ricky Santos. Despite its long-standing excellence in hockey and recent successes on the gridiron, UNH has never been able to win a national championship in any sport. Santos, who has led the Wildcats to victory over IA teams in each of the last three seasons, hopes this will be the year, though sitting at the top of the rankings is an Appalachian State team that has managed to garner a few votes in the IA polls after its upset victory over Michigan. (Hat Tip to the Thunderstick, reporting from the southern edges of the Granite State.)
Pool play in the Rugby World Cup in France is well underway and as of now South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia, the SANZAR/Tri-Nations powers, look like potential champions. The Washington Post travel section has a feature on the scene in France as one of the world's greatest and most popular sporting events works its way toward the awarding of the William Webb Ellis Cup. I have but two words: Go Amobokoboko!
Also from the Post is this article on Virginia's Civil Rights in Education Heritage Trail. I have more than a passing interest in this subject, having been a fellow with both the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the Virginia Historical Society, and I would like to see the trail expanded to include many of the locations in Virginia where blacks and their white allies challenged arenas other than education. We have a tendency to compartmentalize aspects of the Movement that to my mind need merging into a narrative whole. Nonetheless, it is nice to see Virginia, too often overlooked in favor of the hot spots in Mississippi and Alabama, getting its due as an important theater of struggle during the Civil Rights era.
If you see issues of gay rights as fundamentally questions of civil rights, as I do, the decision of Maryland's highest court to uphold the state's ban on gay rights will serve as a reminder of how far we have to go. The case cannot be appealed to the Supreme Court, though the judges did not rule out political action to remove the law in question.
Charles Pierce at Slate has as good an argument as any for why all of the hoopla over the Patriots in the last week may simply drive them to dominate the NFL this season. I hope so.
Finally, and most self-indulgently, I've been busy over at the South Africa Blog, where I have lots on Zimbabwe and a whole host of other topics related to South Africa and the region. Enjoy!
Friday, June 01, 2007
Coaching, Sexuality, and Missouri Lacrosse