To the Listeners

March 22, 2010 8:40 AM

Playing basketball from the closet. From Dime Magazine's post - Secret Life of the Gay American Basketball Player.

An early commenter at Dime warns you - "No doubt there is going to be mad ignorant shit in this comment thread".

posted by cashman (38 comments total)

"You know, I hate gay people, so I let it be known,” [Tim] Hardaway said in a radio interview. “I don’t like gay people and I don’t like to be around gay people. I am homophobic. I don’t like it. It shouldn’t be in the world or in the United States."

Um, HOLY SHIT.

From his Wiki:
In a September 2007 interview, Hardaway spoke about his February comments, saying he "had no idea how much I hurt people. A lot of people." He described the controversy as "the biggest bump [in the road] in my life," and added, "I'm going to do whatever I can to correct it. That's all I can do." In an interview on February 11, 2010 on Hardcore Sports Radio on Sirius, Hardaway spoke about his recent work with The Trevor Project and The YES Institute, which he has done to educate himself on gay, lesbian and transgendered issues.
posted by sallybrown at 8:55 AM on March 22, 2010 [5 favorites]

No doubt there is going to be mad ignorant sh*t in this comment thread.

This may be the truest thing ever written on the internet.
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:01 AM on March 22, 2010 [4 favorites]

It's unfortunate, but it's unlikely that any major athlete will come out while still playing. The negative reaction from fans, consumers (and sponsors), opposing players, and even teammates would be too overwhelming. Sure, the NBA was quick to distance itself from Tim Hardaway (after his playing days were over), but how quick would they be if a star athlete (Lebron, Kobe, Carmelo) said the same things? Iverson said as much with his song 88 Bars (?), and got a slap on the wrist.

The late Bison Dele, who, unlike Rodman, was a quiet yet eccentric player, was always talked about, and almost never in a positive way, as being "different" or "strange." Even if he was straight, he was too far from normal to be accepted by players in the league.

The fucked up thing? I remember being excited whenever I found out an athlete was Jewish. Vicarious thrills, a feeling that maybe I could do something similar to what they'd done. How long will gay kids have to wait to have an NBA/NFL/MLB player to look up to?
posted by Ghidorah at 9:03 AM on March 22, 2010 [2 favorites]

I, too, was going to quote the Tim Hardaway section, saying that that was the day I lost all respect for him. I would say that his work to educate himself has been a positive step. I would also say that I was disappointed, but not shocked, when very few, if any, other NBA players told Hardaway to STFU.
posted by beelzbubba at 9:04 AM on March 22, 2010

Am I the only one who read that as "Secret Life of Gravy, American Basketball Player"?
posted by stoneweaver at 9:08 AM on March 22, 2010 [5 favorites]

I would also say that I was disappointed, but not shocked, when very few, if any, other NBA players told Hardaway to STFU.

Yeah, Lebron James's followup comments on Hardaway's anti-gay screed were pretty fucking stupid in their own right.
posted by saladin at 9:10 AM on March 22, 2010

And Bison Dele was strange. He was reported to have been killed by his brother on a South Seas sailing trip. His brother overdosed on insulin (apparently intentionally) and maintained that his brother and Dele's fiancee were still alive in Polynesia. The evidence suggested otherwise.

Iirc, Dele missed training camp with the Pistons b/c he was trying to get water treatment facilities built in Gaza or the West Bank. He walked away from about a $5 or $6 million contract with the Pistons at the time. Neither of those things makes him especially strange. It was just the whole package.
posted by beelzbubba at 9:13 AM on March 22, 2010

George Takei's followup comments, however, were one of the greatest things I've ever seen.
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:13 AM on March 22, 2010 [20 favorites]

sallybrown: “Um, HOLY SHIT.”

Yeah, I remember that Tim Hardaway thing. I should say that my favorite moment to come out of that was George Takei's response on the Conan O'Brien show.
posted by koeselitz at 9:13 AM on March 22, 2010 [2 favorites]

goddamnit, FoB.
posted by koeselitz at 9:14 AM on March 22, 2010 [2 favorites]

Think how many closeted gay male NCAA basketball players there must be playing in the tournament right now. It won't be too long before there are at least a few out NBAers. All it will take is one all-star coming out.

I don't really get the advertising angle, at least for the average role player who doesn't get many endorsement deals while closeted. It seems to me that being the first out NBA player would bring a host of marketing opportunities.
posted by callmejay at 9:20 AM on March 22, 2010 [3 favorites]

What are the rules of Gay American Basketball anyway?
posted by Pollomacho at 9:40 AM on March 22, 2010

on the Conan O'Brien show.

I'm 99.999% sure that's Jimmy Kimmel, confirmed by the ABC logo.
posted by nomisxid at 9:54 AM on March 22, 2010

I was thinking about this not too long ago, and I could only find evidence for one player from each of the main sports (NBA/NFL/MLB/NHL) coming out, and all only after they'd retired. Sad, really.
posted by graventy at 9:54 AM on March 22, 2010

He's gay. A lot of people are gay. I'm not.. So what? Some folks like brunettes, others like blondes (of whatever gender). It affects my life absolutely zero.

I figure whatever people do in private is their business, and that's the reason they call it private. I have no moral or religious objections whatsoever, other than maybe reading a few Savage Love columns and thinking, "OK now that's pretty damned weird."

In the same respect I guess I get a little tired of folks wearing a cause on their sleeve, and thinking if I don't vocally support them, I am against them. I'm not, I'm just letting them live their own lives as best they see fit.

I wish the guy no harm, and hope he can navigate whatever intolerance and assholes he comes across in his professional life. Beyond that, I have more important things to worry about.
posted by timsteil at 9:58 AM on March 22, 2010

Ironically, timstell's comment about not caring was longer than most of the comments by people that care..
posted by HuronBob at 10:28 AM on March 22, 2010 [7 favorites]

People wear their causes on their sleeves for a variety of reasons. One of the better reasons is because they care about the cause, and want to bring attention to something that isn't going away. I'll suffer the rainbow flags and pink triangles as long as same-sex hand-holding day is a news-worthy event, and otherwise unknown gay couples can get married without media coverage. But once everyone's cool with homosexuality, I demand that those flags and pins come down.

Sadly (predictably?), the three comments following the "No doubt there is going to be mad ignorant sh*t in this comment thread" comment were ridiculous and homophobic. My favorite line: here is the thing, with some of these dudes, its not gay, its just being with girls gets old, so they start messing around. Not Gay, where they are looking to love a man or men forever, but Gay as in they do homosexual activity with men because they get so much tail its boring. Because they're such ballers, they get poon-tang overload, and just want some quality dude-on-dude time.

Fortunately, many of the next comments bring the discourse up a notch or ten, calling out the other comments and Hardaway for mindless homophobia, even giving examples about how they were once homophobes, until they realized teh gays weren't slimey proto-human things, but just people who love people of their own gender. Why, your own brother might be gay!

And to the Dime Mag author, Austin Burton: the reason the people who know you best say you're homophobic is because you clarified that the all-gay SF team you saw on TV were 1) good at playing basketball and 2) didn't have a different style of playing. And then you ended your article with the "honest, albeit controversial, opinion" quote from Hardaway withouth the follow-up that sallybrown posted in this thread, then went on to pose the question: how many of us, at the core, hold values that aren’t much different?
posted by filthy light thief at 10:53 AM on March 22, 2010

How long will gay kids have to wait to have an NBA/NFL/MLB player to look up to?

When the guy who comes out (or a supportive friend and teammate of that guy) is so good that teammates and fans will have to decide whether they want to remain ignorant assholes or they want to be supportive of and win with the big star.

It would be interesting. Imagine the support a gay player could get on a team in a big market like the New York metropolitan area. They could fill an awful lot of seats each night.
posted by pracowity at 11:05 AM on March 22, 2010

The focus should be on what the guy does on the court., That's every fan's business. What he does in his bedroom is his business, and no one else's.
posted by timsteil at 11:17 AM on March 22, 2010 [1 favorite]

I used to not care if people were gay.
I live in a liberal country where gay marriages are allowed. Plenty of openly gay people in media, politics etc. I grew up considering homosexuality as normal as heterosexuality. But even in this relaxed climate my own brother didn't come out of the closet until he was 19. That may be considered early (compared to, say, James Randi), but my point is, there still is a closet.
And until that closet becomes non existent, I'll care.
posted by charles kaapjes at 11:21 AM on March 22, 2010 [7 favorites]

How long will gay kids have to wait to have an NBA/NFL/MLB player to look up to?

Gay, straight, or whatever, I hope kids aren't looking up to professional athletes for their sexual role models!

Also, are we just talking about boys here?
posted by Pollomacho at 11:24 AM on March 22, 2010 [1 favorite]

Imagine that someone in your workplace came out as gay. Everyone else calls him names, threatens to quit, and physically attacks him. The employer is required by law to protect that person from a hostile workplace. This happens all the time; and it works, in a clumsy, inefficient way, but it works. The NBA would not be required to do follow the law. I firmly believe that if one brave man would come out and demand his rights, the NBA would have to protect him from discrimination and hostility,or face huge penalties. it could change the entire climate in the struggle for equal rights. Organized sports have huge influence. Just think of the importance of Jackie Robinson in the struggle for equal rights for African-Americans.
posted by charlesminus at 11:25 AM on March 22, 2010

It would be interesting. Imagine the support a gay player could get on a team in a big market like the New York metropolitan area. They could fill an awful lot of seats each night.

They're already thinking of that. From the article:

The NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers and Golden State Warriors have had Gay Community Night promotions this month.
...
“It’s a good practice to market yourself to every group and every type of person, and I felt like there’s definitely room to include Philadelphia’s gay community; no group should be singled out or not included, because our products can be enjoyed by all types of people.”

They're already thinking of ways to sell more of their products (tickets to games, merchandise, food and drink) appealing to the gay sports fan market.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:26 AM on March 22, 2010

filthy light thief: My favorite line: "here is the thing, with some of these dudes, its not gay, its just being with girls gets old..."

That seems a fair enough description of experimentation. I think that for many casual homophobes (what I mean by that is people who are not committed to an ideology of hatred of homosexuality as their core identity, but immersed in a culture where that hatred is pervasive) the idea that someone could experiment and not automatically become gay when they touch another man's penis may be a profound insight, and in an odd way may even be a step toward tolerance.
posted by idiopath at 11:26 AM on March 22, 2010 [2 favorites]

Oops. Mistake in last post. Should read: The NBA WOULD be required to follow the law.
posted by charlesminus at 11:27 AM on March 22, 2010

"No doubt there is going to be mad ignorant shit in this comment thread."

Plutor, can I get a script that will automatically place this at the top of every MeFi thread tagged with circumcision, obesity, religion, veganism, music, or fashion?

And also every single Metatalk page?
posted by Ian A.T. at 11:32 AM on March 22, 2010

The focus should be on what the guy does on the court

You're right, of course, but it's just not the case. The world is full of assholes who loudly declare that what queers do in bed makes them bad (evil, creepy, skeevy, faulty, damned) subpeople. Sensible people have to push back in the same public forums.
posted by pracowity at 11:39 AM on March 22, 2010

What he does in his bedroom is his business, and no one else's.

That sounds dismissive to me. Being gay isn't just about what you do in the bedroom. It's about who you are attracted to and who you date and who you have long-term relationships. Being closeted in the NBA means not only hiding casual sex partners, but significant others, too. It means hiding any flirting or courting or dating. It means not cohabiting without pretending that someone is just your "roommate." It probably involves pretending to be attracted to the opposite sex as well.

In a world where all couples took separate, hidden entrances to the bedroom and that was the only place they saw each other and neither person ever mentioned the relationship outside that bedroom, then being gay would be about "what he does in the bedroom." In reality, it's about a lot more than that.
posted by callmejay at 11:43 AM on March 22, 2010 [13 favorites]

The focus should be on what the guy does on the court., That's every fan's business. What he does in his bedroom is his business, and no one else's.

Being gay in the US involves a lot more than what people do in their bedrooms. It's not some secret fetish that people should have to hide from public view, it's a normal type of relationship that should be no different than any other. It would be a lot easier for people like the anonymous blogger if everyone completely ignored sexual orientation (just like it would be easier for ethnic minorities if everyone ignored race), but the reality is that openly gay people face a lot of discrimination and hate. Having openly gay professional athletes would be a major step forward in the acceptance of different sexual orientations in the same way that previous barriers being broken was a step forward in racial or gender relations.
posted by burnmp3s at 11:45 AM on March 22, 2010 [2 favorites]

I care if people are gay. I care a lot. We need gay people in this world. I mean, let me name just three things we wouldn't have, were it not for gay people, and we would be a lesser world for it:

1. The movie Fright Night
2. That Willie Nelson song about gay cowboys
3. Paul Lynde.

I'm sure there is more. That's just off the top of my head.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:11 PM on March 22, 2010 [1 favorite]

What he does in his bedroom is his business, and no one else's.

I hear this often in these debates, but unless this proverbial "he" is just wanking to the air, isn't there a whole other set of people involved here? What about his partner(s)? If he is wanking, what about the models and actors he's wanking to? Do they not have rights and/or protections?

If it were simply about what one person does by themselves, I think the bigots and prohibitionists would have a far tougher time drumming up support. Throw sexual politics and exploitation into the equasion and things get far more difficult to parse. I'm not saying this to dismiss the rights of the original individual or the debate in general. I just don't think the "in his own bedroom" argument can be used as a simple black and white.
posted by Pollomacho at 12:21 PM on March 22, 2010

I figure whatever people do in private is their business, and that's the reason they call it private. ... What he does in his bedroom is his business, and no one else's.

Y'know, there's a flip-side to this sort of thing: "flaunting". If it's private, then it behooves the person to keep it private. If it's his business, then he should make sure that he doesn't make it anyone else's business.

The last time that I encountered the Flaunting Argument in person, it was the first really warm spring day. I was sitting on the campus lawn with a bunch of people. University lovebirds were laying all over each other in the sunshine.

"I don't really care what gays get up to in private, but why do you have to shove it in our faces so much? Why force it on people?" he said, while his girlfriend nuzzled against him.

I'd like to think that he didn't catch the irony because he was distracted by all the spaghetti strap tops and the press of her breasts on his arm, but I doubt it. He was just thick in the head.
posted by CKmtl at 1:02 PM on March 22, 2010 [6 favorites]

I have a feeling that it's only a matter of time before a major pro athlete is outed. Considering that TMZ is going into the sports business, I'd wager that sooner or later TMZ or some other site will post incontrovertible proof of an athlete's homosexuality, creating a Tiger Woods-like media shitstorm.

Deadspin ran a story in January that seemed to out an NFL player.

It would be nice to have an active pro athlete come out of the closet on his own terms, but considering today's media landscape, it may not play out that way.
posted by kalimotxero at 1:27 PM on March 22, 2010 [1 favorite]

As Pollomacho said, "are we just talking about boys here?" It's worth noting that Natasha Kai (Women's Professional Soccer, Sky Blue FC, and on the US Women's National Team) came out in 2008; and as the Dime Magazine article mentions, Sheryl Swoopes (WNBA) came out in 2005.

I think the sexual politics in sport are really different for female athletes than for males - though probably equally fucked up. Just in different ways, is all I'm saying.
posted by nickmark at 2:12 PM on March 22, 2010

filty light thief: And to the Dime Mag author, Austin Burton: the reason the people who know you best say you're homophobic is because you clarified that the all-gay SF team you saw on TV were 1) good at playing basketball and 2) didn't have a different style of playing. And then you ended your article with the "honest, albeit controversial, opinion" quote from Hardaway withouth the follow-up that sallybrown posted in this thread, then went on to pose the question: how many of us, at the core, hold values that aren’t much different?

I don't think that's quite fair; he was writing to an audience he fully expected to be full of homophobes, people whose heroes come out with things like the Hardaway quote. He may well have pointed out the gay team isn't different from the straight team because he fully expected most of his audience to believe, consciously or unconsciously, that a gay player would, like, mince around the court lisping and shrieking and playing grab-ass and refusing to engage in anything that might break a nail. Ditto not doing the followup bits for Hardaway (irrelevant to the main point, which is that pro basketball and sports in general are huge bastions of unapologetic homophobia) and the final question (which has an expected answer, for the audience, of "most of us.")

Now, if he was writing an indictment of Hardaway and failed to come out with the followup info, then he's definitely arguing in bad faith, but I don't really think that was the point of the Hardaway quote.

I dunno. If you're going to accuse someone of homophobia because they didn't write their anti-homophobia article just the way you would have, that seems like an awfully hard test to pass.
posted by Scattercat at 2:59 PM on March 22, 2010 [1 favorite]

"are we just talking about boys here?"

Yes, I was, mostly since I'm a guy, and I was reflecting on personal experience finding out that a talented athlete was Jewish. Honestly, I don't follow the WNBA, and it just didn't occur to me.

Back to Hardaway, honestly, I don't buy his "re-education." He spoke plainly and honestly the first time around, in a way that showed he had total confindence in his view. I imagine after years of similar views being voiced by his colleagues, he miscalculated, and thought his remarks, which to him were voicing the everyman's thoughts, would be either received well, or he'd at least be backed up by his peers. His problem was that enough people took it for what it was, outright hate and ignorance, that his employer (TNT? the NBA directly?) realized it was a PR disaster, and fired him. I feel his attempt at "re-educating himself" is simply an attempt at getting back into the league's orbit, and getting back into paying work in the field he's qualified in. I feel it's no more sincere than Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan going into rehab for the nth time. It's just something they have to do for show.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:06 PM on March 22, 2010 [1 favorite]

Back to Hardaway, honestly, I don't buy his "re-education."

While understanding your position on anyone who seems to be blatantly attempting to wallpaper over negative statements from their past, as you say Hardaway is doing, I will defer judgement. I like to think we live in a world where people can grow and evolve and learn from their mistakes, and I won't be the one to stand up and call someone a liar when they say they have done so. I don't know the man, and think the only real way to accurately judge someone's personal attitude toward Teh Gay is through prolonged exposure to their words and actions over time. Public statements are easy. Still, I don't see why I should doubt the man just on principle. I wouldn't want to be treated that way if I had worked hard to rewire a part of my thought processes that turned out to be wonky.
posted by hippybear at 10:23 PM on March 22, 2010 [2 favorites]

He spoke plainly and honestly the first time around, in a way that showed he had total confindence in his view. I imagine after years of similar views being voiced by his colleagues, he miscalculated, and thought his remarks, which to him were voicing the everyman's thoughts, would be either received well, or he'd at least be backed up by his peers.

I agree that he was confident in his view, but I don't think it was calculated at all. The statements were so over the top and tone deaf, that to me they sound like comments from someone who is completely ignorant of the issues involved. My guess is that he just never had any significant contact with gay people in his life, and grew up in a homophobic environment, rather than that he had really spent a lot of time thinking about the topic and reached those conclusions.

His problem was that enough people took it for what it was, outright hate and ignorance, that his employer (TNT? the NBA directly?) realized it was a PR disaster, and fired him. I feel his attempt at "re-educating himself" is simply an attempt at getting back into the league's orbit, and getting back into paying work in the field he's qualified in.

I obviously don't know his motivations, but I take his statements at face value when he says that he hurt a lot of people with his remarks and didn't expect the backlash that followed. I also think it's relatively unusual for someone to actually take steps to make amends with the community that they offend, instead of just issuing an apology or standing by the statements and criticizing the people who were offended (like John Rocker did).
posted by burnmp3s at 7:31 AM on March 23, 2010