Boston’s professional lacrosse team signed the first out male pro athlete in America a few years ago; what would it take for a Red Sox, Patriot, Bruin, or Celtic to come out as gay?
It’s March 3, 2009. It’s been almost four weeks since the New England Patriots won their fourth Super Bowl. The team calls a press conference for that morning. The subject of the press conference is a secret as tightly kept as a Bi ll Belichick gameplan, but the buzz is red-hot about the chances the Patriots landed another big name in free agency. Wi th the retirement of Rodney Harrison, rumors swirl about Chicago Bears safety Mike Brown.
At 10:30 a.m., in front of a packed house, several men enter the room. Patriots PR man Stacey James steps to the podium and introduces wide receiver Clay Cooper. The buzz in the room turns to panic. Cooper’s two-year stint in New England has been an incredible ride, and all that’s on anyone’s mind is that, for some reason, the young receiver is leaving.
Cooper steps to the microphone, a hush falling over the room. Cooper thanks the reporters for being there. He starts talking about how much this past year in New England has meant to him, how much his teammates mean to him, and how he’s looking forward to being a New England Patriot for a long time. He describes the faith in himself that coach Belichick has inspired in him. And without a flinch, the receiver changes the Boston sports scene forever with two words: “I’m gay.”
It Could Happen In Boston
Cooper, of course, is imaginary. But the reality is, any real player could come forward at any time now and utter those same sportsshattering words. Since former NFL running back David Kopay came out of closet in 1975, there have been more rumors about gay men living secretly in professional sports than there are championship banners hanging in the New Boston Garden.
“When will a male professional athlete come out?” has been possibly the most-asked gay-themed question outside of “Did you hear Madonna’s new single?” But it’s been 33 years since Kopay, who at the time was already retired from football, took the leap. And while Kopay and others hoped for a fl ood of athletes to follow in his wake, no one has since taken that leap while still active on a roster.
But if they did, what would that look like? And what if they were one of the star members of an adored Boston franchise? There is, in all likelihood, a closeted gay professional athlete in Boston. Between the big four teams, their active rosters include more than 130 players at any given point, and that’s not including the Revolution soccer club or the Cannons lacrosse team. Add to that the coaching staffs, and you have a virtual guarantee that someone in a New England pro team is a closeted gay man.
If such a person—a Patriot, Bruin, Celtic or member of the Red Sox—were to call a press conference to announce he’s gay, what would happen next? Many people in sports, often sports reporters, claim spuriously that an athlete can’t come out while active. But that’s as out-of-touch with the present as those who said in 2004 that the Red Sox couldn’t win a World Series because of an ancient curse.
Certainly, coming out on particular teams would defi nitely pose a problem. Religion, preached by head coach Tony Dungy, dominates the culture of the Indianapolis Colts.
John Amaechi’s stories about bad treatment by Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan certainly can’t make any gay athletes on that team feel comfortable. Players could also make the locker room hell for an out player. Despite a gay-positive New York Giants front offi ce and a gay-positive veteran leader in Michael Strahan, comments like those made by Jeremy Shockey—who once said he didn’t want a gay person on his team because “they’re going to be in the shower with us and stuff, so I don’t think that’s gonna work”—can make it tough.
In Boston, there is great hope. Everyone I March/April 2008 45 spoke with for this article said they believed that not only would the teams—from the front offi ce to the players—be able to handle a gay teammate, but so would the fans.
Boston’s first-In-the-natIon status One Boston pro sports team has already been down this road before. The Boston Cannons became the fi rst professional team in America to draft an openly gay player when they selected goalie Andrew Goldstein from Dartmouth in 2005. Goldstein was openly gay male when he played lacrosse at Dartmouth and was well liked and respected by his teammates, many of them speaking on camera to ESPN about their teammate in 2005. Goldstein had made a mark in the 2003 NCAA tournament when he became the fi rst goalie to score a tournament goal in over two decades. That summer, he became the fi rst openly gay, team-sport athlete to play professionally in the United States.
Goldstein has maintained that his sexuality was never an issue on any team he played on. Given the low profile of lacrosse, few Cannons fans had any idea that their backup goalie for a year was gay.
“I think lacrosse is completely different,” says Stephanie Krauss, director of communications for the Cannons. “Would it be an issue if it was a New England Patriot? Probably.”
But Patriots spokesperson Stacey James said that he hoped and believed that the sexuality of a member of the team would not be an issue for the rest of the team.
Christopher Price, sports editor for daily newspaper Boston Metro, agrees.
“I’ve been around the Patriots more than I’ve been around the other [Boston] teams, but I think the Patriots would do the best of making it a non-issue,” Price said. Price’s knowledge of the inner workings of the Patriots runs deep: He’s the author of The Blueprint: How the New England Patriots Beat the System to Create the Last Great NFL Superpower.
“They’re very much a bottom-line franchise,” Price said. “Can this player help this team? And I honestly believe that Bill Belichick wouldn’t care if a player were gay or straight. All he cares about is, can this guy help our team or not?” In the locker rooM Celtics coach Doc Rivers thinks that a gay player could get by in his locker room, as long as he could take some ribbing.
“I think if he would have come out they would have gotten on him jokingly,” Rivers, who coached out former NBA player John Amaechi while they were with the Orlando Magic, told the Associated Press when Amaechi came out. “And I actually think that when guys do come out, when that day happens, it will make it easier. …
John Amaechi, when I was coaching him, was a great kid. He did as much charity work as anybody in our city, and he’s still doing it. That’s what I wish we focused on.
Unfortunately, we’re talking about his sexual orientation, which I couldn’t care a flying flip about.”
Former Red Sox player Gabe Kapler talked with me about that locker room teasing years ago. When he was new to Major League Baseball, he did a photo shoot for Gym Magazine wearing nothing but a very tight bathing suit—classic “beefcake” that 40 years ago would have gone by the name of “gay porn.” Kapler is not gay, but he got teased mercilessly in the locker room about the photo spread. He has since been very careful about how he is portrayed in the media, lest the locker-room teasing about his sexuality start all over again.
Could it happen at the Patriots?
The dynamic of the Patriots locker room is very well defi ned. While Belichick is the mind behind the team, several veteran players—Harrison, quarterback Tom Brady, and linebacker Mike Vrabel—are the de facto leaders in the locker room. If a Patriot were to come out of the closet, he’d be well advised to get these guys on board fi rst. And if he did that, they would do a lot of the dirty work for him.
“When it comes to team building, [Belichick] gets a lot from [legendary San Francisco 49ers coach] Bill Walsh,” Price said. Walsh is credited by former 49ers President and CEO Peter Harris as having brought a progressive attitude to the franchise that opened the doors to same-sex domestic partner benefits there. “You create a positive infrastructure within the locker room. So you can take a chance on guys like Corey Dillon, Randy Moss, or Brandon Merriweather, whom other teams might not touch. The Patriots have a lot of guys in that locker room like Brady, like Harrison, like Richard Seymour, like Vrabel, who can pull a guy aside and let them know, ‘That’s not the way we do things around here.’” Price said that if an athlete wanted to come out and got those leaders in the locker room to help him, “I can’t see a problem happening.”
Mike Reiss, who runs the popular Patriots blog “Reiss’s Pieces” for the Boston Globe, also expressed optimism for at least a neutral reaction by Patriots team members.
“The Patriots’ locker room is full of mature, veteran leaders, and I don’t think it would be an issue among the players,” Reiss said. “I don’t think the reaction within the locker room would be any different, regardless of the stature of the player. I think the players would be accepting.”
The Red Sox?
Nick Cafardo, who covers the Boston Red Sox for the Boston Globe, had the same analysis of the Sox.
“I think front offi ces ten years ago would have wanted to trade or cut the player immediately,” Cafardo said. “Now, I think most teams wouldn’t think twice. That might be a naive statement on my part, but I just think the ‘shock’ factor of something like that is long gone.”
He said the majority of players on the team wouldn’t care, but there likely would be a select few who insisted on setting “ground rules” for how the gay player could interact in the clubhouse.
The Red Sox have, in the recent past, demonstrated a willingness to “gay it up.”
In 2005, after they won their fi rst World Series in 86 years, the team made an appear- ance on Bravo’s Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Actually, appearance is understating it.
Johnny Damon got a pedicure, Kevin Millar got a pumpkin facial, and Jason Varitek (gulp) had his back waxed by the show’s Fab Five. Before a home game around the premiere of the episode, some of the Fab Five, including Carson Kressley in a pink Red Sox jersey, threw out the ceremonial opening pitch of the game as Jai Rodriguez sang the national anthem. That isn’t just a passing nod to the gay community. That is a demonstration of outright acceptance.
The Patriots also have a positive history with the gay community. When Boston’s gay flag football league hosted Gay Superbowl 3 in October 2003, the New England Patriots sent official NFL footballs for all of the teams as a welcome gift; and they sent former Pro Bowl linebacker Andre Tippett to ceremoniously flip the first coin of the tournament. Tippett now works with the Patriots in community relations.
In the stands The Bay State attitude toward gay people is as much of a paradox as any in America. On the one hand, the state is open and welcom- ing. The only state in the union to legalize gay marriage, it joins much of the rest of New England in moving more and more toward institutionalized acceptance of gay relationships and gay people. And, of course, there’s Provincetown. On the fl ip side, the image of the Boston sports fan harks back to the brash, crude, sometimes racist and sexist actions of a bygone era. For years, black athletes avoided playing in Boston, allegedly because of the racism here. Stories of Patriots fans urinat- ing on medical crews at games (as told in Christopher Price’s The Blueprint) rival anything ever told about ruckus Philadelphia Eagles fans. A gay professional athlete in Boston has good reason to worry about the reaction of fans.
But Marc Davino thinks that players would be accepted. Davino has firsthand knowledge of how Boston fans treat gay people. He founded Pride Sports Boston and has helped create and develop “Out at Fenway Park,” an annual organized trip to a Red Sox game for gay fans.
He said that in the three years they have organized the group, they never experienced problems with any of the fans, even though the group wore special shirts that loudly and proudly announced their presence.
“The fans in Boston are probably a little more open-minded than your average American sports fan,” Davino said. “But there will always be an ignorant fan making com- ments about the locker rooms.”
Price said that who the player was would be the determining factor for fans.
“If it’s a top-tier Boston athlete like Brady, Moss, David Ortiz, Kevin Garnett, one of them, 90 to 95 percent of Boston sports fans would be completely open and accepting,” Price said. “There are going to be 5 percent whose minds you can’t change. I also think there are other outside factors that can go into it. A player who cultivated an image of good will, and had a blue- collar work ethic, like Troy Brown, Mike Lowell, or Ray Bourque, guys who were really portrayed, and fairly so, as the working-class, blue-collar guys, I think they would succeed with it.”
When the Queer Eye guys threw out the opening pitch at Fenway, according to the Boston Globe, many cheered, while the team reportedly fielded “only a few complaints.”
“As long as they win,” fan Paul Herschen, 50, told the Globe at the game. “As long as they win.”
For a town of sports fans used to winning championships while at the same time hankering for more, winning can be everything.
Many think the first openly gay athlete will arrive in one of the big four sports the way Goldstein arrived in Major League Lacrosse: He’ll be out in high school or college where it isn’t a big deal, he’ll prove himself too good of an athlete to be overlooked, and a team will call his name on draft day.
But what would it look like if a member of one of Boston’s most revered teams called a press conference and came out of the closet? Paul Pierce or Tom Brady could do whatever he wanted, and fans and the team would welcome him with open arms; a career jour- neyman like Scot Pollard, who happens to be on the Celtics roster for a year or two, would have a tougher time; and someone like Red Sox pitcher Kyle Jackson, with little experi- ence and even less of a public profi le, might have the toughest time of all.
Why hasn’t it happened yet?
If there is so much reason to expect a neutral, if not outright positive, reception for a player who comes out, what’s the hold up? That 5 percent of people whose reaction is a mystery. A team’s success is predicated on playing as a team. Any distraction to a team can undermine their chances of winning. A member of a team coming out of the closet would create a heavy storm of media and public scrutiny. In individual sports like swimming and tennis, there are no teammates to distract or upset. While an anonymous survey by Sports Illustrated of players in all four major pro sports leagues said they would not have a problem with a gay teammate, all it takes is one or two men to disrupt a team’s focus or chemistry. It just takes one man to hurt that out player, no matter what the rest of the team thinks.
But that risk is only part of the equation. Endorsement dollars is another. It’s hard to believe a company would drop a star spokesperson because he came out of the closet. Nike stood by Sheryl Swoopes after she came out; Kraft Foods refused to back down from their sponsorship of the Gay Games when boycotts were threatened.
The bigger risk, though, is new endorsement deals. Would Nike or Gatorade sign a deal making someone who already came out as their spokesman? While Swoopes and Amaechi both picked up minor endorsements after they came out, it’s a complete unknown whether a major company would spend tens of millions of dollars around an athlete who was openly gay.
Epilogue
It’s September 10, 2009, six months after Clay Cooper’s bombshell. The New England Patriots are hosting an NFL kickoff Super Bowl rematch against the Carolina Panthers.
It’s late in the first half with the Patriots driving. While the Super Bowl had been a blowout, the first half of this game sees the Panthers leading, 13-7. The Patriots’ record-setting offense has been stymied by a series of blitzes that have left Brady on his butt after almost half of his dropbacks.
Third and seven at midfield, this is the Pats’ last chance to take momentum into the locker room. The called play is a screen to Cooper, and it’s executed brilliantly. Cooper takes the one-yard pass past his blockers, jukes a safety out of his jockstrap, and speeds into the end zone for the go-ahead touchdown.
It’s been a tough six months for Cooper; he’s gotten more attention than he had previously in all his time playing football. While mostly positive, the attention has been wearing on him. Getting back to just playing football is just what he needed.
After Cooper crosses the goal line, he’s quickly followed by all of the players, receivers, backs and linemen who made the play possible, as they join him in the end zone to celebrate. The fans cheer wildly, not a boo or a heckle in the entire stadium. The celebration draws a penalty flag from the officials, but it’s worth it to the team.
Cooper just scored a touch down, and that’s all anyone care’s about. He’s a hero.
