I’m sure we all know by now the Super Bowl is the most publicized sporting event in the country. In the week leading up to the game it seems there is more media coverage at the Super Bowl than any two other major sporting event’s championships combined. Now I know this, and you know this. But it always seems like there’s a player or two who just can’t let the opportunity to say something stupid in front of dozens of writers and cameras slip by. This year, it was 49ers cornerback Chris Culliver.
When confronted with a question from comedian Artie Lange asking if there were any gays in the NFL or on the 49ers, Culliver missed the chance to side-step the question and instead took the opportunity to make himself into the media’s newest villain. Regarding gays on his team, Culliver responded with the following, well-thought out and intelligent reply:
“No, we don’t got no gay people on the team, they gotta get up out of here if they do. Can’t be with that sweet stuff.”
And with such a lucid, clever response, one has to wonder where the “dumb jock” stereotype even comes from.
However, I do have to give Culliver a little credit somewhere. For starters, he apologized for his comments (although I don’t feel he needed to apologize for being honest and saying how he really feels – he was just wrong to put it the way he did at the time he did). But I also have to give him credit for opening up discussion regarding gays playing major sports. The discussion has been had as to whether other major sports are ready for an openly gay athlete to make himself known…but not so much in golf.
So what do you think? Is the PGA Tour ready for one of its tour pros to come out? I have my opinion, which I will share in a moment. But in the meantime, how would you feel if a PGA player came out? What do you think the affect would be – positive or negative for the tour? How about the fans reaction overall – positive or negative? Or would simply no one care?
My opinion – Who cares? Honestly, I feel it’s no one’s business and I’d rather everyone just keep their sexual orientation to themselves. Why do I care if you’re gay or not? Just play the sport you’re playing. Keep your private life to yourself. I don’t need straight people to come out and tell me they’re straight. So what makes people feel that I need to know if they’re not? Does it make them any less or more of an athlete? Of course not. And since being a professional athlete is the only reason I know who these people are anyway, then let’s just keep it that way. Would it have some kind of affect on the tour? I don’t know. All I do know is it shouldn’t.
But thanks to Artie Lange and Chris Culliver, this ridiculous conversation that pops up every once in a while regarding gay athletes has been rehashed. What’s our fascination with it? Why do we care? Why do we feel we need to know? Why do we think it matters? We need to let it go and cheer on our favorite athletes for what they are – great athletes. We’re cheering for what they do on the playing field, not what they do in their private lives. Let’s learn to understand the difference.
Swing ’til you’re happy!
I think you would find a mix of positive and negative reaction as with anyone coming out in sport, just look at the cloud surrounding football and gay players in the past….only time will tell!
The military repealed DADT two years ago and the Boy Scouts of America is crumbling
under pressure to admit openly gay scouts. Is the PGA a DADT organization? I just saw a commercial on the Golf Channel showing a clip of Snedeker embracing and kissing his wife and children at the 18th green after a recent win. A more corny and trite
promotion of heterosexuality in the PGA I cannot recall. I am looking forward to the day when, at the 18th green, a bold winner and his or her same-sex partner will embrace and kiss. Why not? Such a display of affection isn’t an issue, if you don’t care what a person’s sexual orientation is.
I don’t think you’re going to see an “out” PGA Tour member for a while still. While their were a few closeted players in the 70s and 80s…the way the Web.com and PGA Tours are structured makes it unlikely; It’s pretty-hard to be closeted on either Tour for a number of reasons these days, especially with the media fishbowl of the post-Tiger Twitter and Facebook era. Even for a talented gay college-level golfer there are enough aggravations to encourage you to quite playing the Tour unless you’re supremely-gifted…and stubborn.
1. Start with all the travel. As a Tour-player you’re living out of a suitcase for weeks on end and traveling and staying at the same hotels as all the other guys. Hard to go off and date or hang at a gay bar under those circumstances without your absence being noticed. You can’t have a guy come back to your room with half the Tour at your hotel…it’s like traveling on vacation with your parents. Plus you really need to be up at 530am or 600am with a good night’s sleep since the range and exercise trailers open at 630am…and the first tee-times can start at 730am.
Plus the PGA tours rarely travels to the gay hotspots. Tour events tend to be out in the suburbs of a gay-friendly city if you’re lucky…more likely out in the boonies in meth Red State South.
There’s not much privacy on the Tours. And it’s even harder on any long-distance relationships even when the relationship is out in the open; Sergio and Linda Norman, Dustin Johnson and Pauline. Grestzky, Rory and Caoline Wozniaki. Imagine trying to maintain a secret long-distance boyfriend. And you’re NOT going to date your own caddy, or another player’s caddy….ever.
2. There’s a STRONG Christianist-movement within the Web.com and PGA Tours with dawn prayers services and lots of Muscular Evangelicalism as a reaction to all the rampant drinking and whoring in the 70s and 80s. And a number of the younger players especially and very vocal about it; Aaron Baddely, Bubba Watson for just a few.
3. The third factor is the endorsement contracts. Even before the “L’Affairre Tiger”, the vetting and background investigations of the various sponsors and endorsing manufacturers pretty-much makes it impossible to have many secrets on Tour. There’s no way you’re going to be closeted on Tour without your endorsement sponsors knowing…and they don’t want ANY scandals that might reflect badly on them to Red State country club Republican golfers.
4. Plus there’s the fact that Professional Golf…more than any other sport…shines the spotlight on wives and girlfriends, and not just at the 72nd green. They’re listed in the programs, photographed and shown on TV during teh rounds, The wives and girlfriends are defacto auxiliary-members of the Tour with their own charities and presence on the course. For the Ryder and President’s Cup, they’re officially part of the Team with their own uniforms and official itinerary of events and photo-ops.
The first member of the PGA Tour to insist that his boyfriend IS ABSOLUTELY going along to the Ryder Cup as official “spouse” will need balls of Adamantine Steel.