By Kurt Davis '09
Columnist

SOMEONE YOU KNOW IS GAY—it is true. Earlier this month, John Amaechi, a former NBA player now living in England, announced that he is releasing a book in the United States that reveals that he is gay and how he coped with it during his career.

Earlier last week, Tim Hardaway, another former NBA player, stated on a Miami sports news radio show:

“You know, I hate gay people . . . I don’t like gay people and I don’t like to be around gay people. I am homophobic . . . It shouldn’t be in the world or in the United States.”

Message to Tim Hardaway: first, who made you dictator of the game, and second, you very likely played with numerous gay players over your years in the NBA.

From the minute I entered a locker room in high school until the last second I left one in college, I was quite aware that numerous teammates throughout the years would be gay and were gay, from all that I could tell. I’ve had athletes whom I have known over the years reveal to me that they were gay or bisexual. The reality is that there are collegiate and professional athletes who are gay in every sport.

Maybe Tim Hardaway should take a harsh stance on other issues like he does with gay athletes. Professional sports leagues are filled with wife beaters, crack and marijuana addicts, drunk drivers, alcoholics, drug traffickers, and a spectrum of gangsters and thugs. Gay athletes surely cannot be as much of a concern as all of those players.

As for the fans, polls over the years have shown that most of them would not care if a player on their favorite team was gay. Although polls are certainly not a foolproof indicator of how people would respond, if an active player came out and said he was gay, fans would simply have to accept him as he is. If the next incarnation of a basketball superstar is gay and the Knicks or Lakers could draft him, you best believe I’d have a tantrum if they did not (just imagine a big man stomping his feet and jumping up and down hysterically). It is about winning, not about what a teammate does in his free time. Charles Barkley was on point when he said most players know that they have or have had gay teammates. If the missing piece for Barkley’s Sixers or Suns teams had been gay, he most likely would have accepted that player as a teammate to win.

Before someone gets enraged that I am saying that acceptance as a player is enough when I should be discussing acceptance as a human being, I should remind you that I am discussing a locker room dynamic. I think all people should be accepted as persons whether you like them or not. Accepting someone as a teammate is harder because the higher priority of winning requires one to overcome any disapproval of a teammate’s life. I have played with players who hated me and their other black teammates, but I was about business; in other words, they were my teammates in the locker room, and beyond that room we did not have to speak. I could try to change their views and make friends, but that change is something that one can only do for one’s self.

If an active player ever admits he is gay, he will have to be a pretty good player. Fan heckling, in the same cruel nature of fans waving signs shaped like knives after Paul Pierce was stabbed one year, will be ever present. The player will have to be in the Jackie Robinson mode with tough skin. His stats will have to match the superstars in the league. There are a lot more boos for the guy averaging 3 points per game than the superstar dropping 28 points, 8 rebounds, and 5 assists. The Jackie Robinson story would have been different if he had not been the amazing athlete he was. But once that initial barrier is broken, time and its usual transition will begin to change minds.

As for locker room trust, LeBron James had it wrong when he said:

“We spend so much time together, we’re like family. You take showers together, you’re on the bus, you talk about things. With teammates, you have to be trustworthy. If you’re gay and you’re not admitting that you are, you’re not trustworthy. It’s locker room code. It’s a trust factor.”

Most players do not walk into the locker room and admit that they take steroids, smoke crack, beat their wives, and so on. There is a sense of privacy that still remains among teammates. Don’t get me wrong; a sports team is like a fraternity, but there are things that teammates, even after years playing together, will not share. Jose Canseco was not disliked for admitting that baseball players were using steroids, which players and owners already knew, but rather, he was despised for name dropping and throwing teammates under the bus. Anyone who has talked to me about locker room behavior and ethics knows that I will give some graphic stories of behavior that definitely infers drug use, homosexuality, and numerous other private things, but I will never share names. That is the code of trust that LeBron struggled to enunciate. It is one under which teammates know way too much about each other, but will not share the exact details of one’s character with the world. It is not one where you know everything about a teammate. We all learn something new about teammates, post-playing days that surprise us and leave us wondering how we did not know that.

The world may still be uncomfortable with homosexuality, but it must be tolerant. Just as racism and discrimination continue to this day, homophobia may never die—I am, sadly, a realist. However, despite the stereotypes and predeterminations that often govern our daily interactions, tolerance must always prevail, providing those with whom we interact the opportunity to prove us wrong in our understanding.

Email: kdavis@virginia.edu