The Last Closet: When will a gay professional athlete finally come out?

[marmar]

from New York Magazine:



The Last Closet
When will a gay professional athlete finally come out?

By Will Leitch
Published Sep 11, 2011


On May 9, Todd Reynolds, vice-president of Uptown Sports Management in Ontario, a firm founded by his father that has represented NHL players for more than 25 years, logged onto his company’s Twitter account,@uptownhockey. Four days earlier, Rangers wing Sean Avery had appeared in a public-service announcement in favor of the New Yorkers for Marriage Equality campaign. “Maybe I can help,” Avery told the Times, “and I jumped at this opportunity.”

Among fashionistas, magazine editors, and upscale urbanites, Avery, who famously once interned at Vogue, may be beloved. But among his fellow hockey players, particularly his opponents, he is despised. So Reynolds, whose agency’s top client is probably Nashville Predators center Mike Fisher (better known as Mr. Carrie Underwood), was surely seething when he sat down at his computer. Reynolds began to type: “Very sad to read Sean Avery’s misguided support of same-gender ‘marriage.’ Legal or not, it will always be wrong.”

And then, two hours later: “But I believe in the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman. This is my personal viewpoint. I do not hate anyone.”

Whatever your reaction to Reynolds’s tweets, it is worth noting that this is not an obscure opinion for the country at large. Polls show that 46 percent of the population agrees with him. Reynolds did not write that gays are an abomination. He just said he was personally against gay marriage. You and I might disagree with him, but his opinion does not make him crazy, or even fringe. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://nymag.com/news/sports/games/gay-athletes-2011-9/

[closeupready]

1. If he's against gay marriage, he's hateful and bigoted.

Sorry. That's MY belief.

[marmar]

2. I agree.

nt

[racaulk]

3. Ayup.

It really is that simple. :thumbsup:

[Stuckinthebush]

4. He's a simpleton and a fool

Sorry. That's my belief.

[MrSlayer]

5. In the big four of team sports, not for a long, long time.

You have a much better chance for a tennis player or other individual sport player to do so. An NFL player doing so would be maimed by his own teammates at the next practice. I remember an interview with Sterling Sharpe a few years a go who said that very thing.

[vanbean]

6. Did the article mention Billy Bean?

[marmar]

7. He came out after he was no longer playing, I believe.

nt