Justin's Political Corner
Since Jason Collins became the first male player in American professional sports to come out, he has received both disdain and attacks from pundits, coaches and players, but also plenty of encouragement.
On Meet The Press Sunday, former Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo — who has used the spotlight to advocate for marriage equality — said he hopes that one day gay male athletes will no longer be surprising or big news to fans. Ayanbadejo highlighted the need to reform hyper-masculine sports culture to be more accepting of all people:
AYANBADEJO: People think gayness has something to do with femininity when really we just need to erase that stereotypes from our minds. LGBT people come in all different types and shapes and forms. So I think that’s really what we’re fighting. But the beautiful thing about what Britney Griner did, it barely made a splash. That’s what we’re trying to do in men’s sports when people announce they’re gay. We don’t want it to change the climate in sports. We want everybody to be accepted and people can go out there and love who they want to love and be who they are so they cannot only be better people but they can also be better athletes.
From the 05.05.2013 edition of NBC’s Meet The Press:
One year after bringing Tim Tebow to Broadway, creating a nationwide fascination that slowly evolved into controversy, the New York Jets on Monday made the long-anticipated move of releasing one of the NFL’s most popular players.
The Jets confirmed the release in a three-paragraph news release, a long way from his Super Bowl-sized news conference last March.
We have a great deal of respect for Tim Tebow,” coach Rex Ryan said. “Unfortunately, things did not work out the way we all had hoped. Tim is an extremely hard worker, evident by the shape he came back in this offseason. We wish him the best moving forward.”
Ryan and general manager John Idzik informed Tebow early Monday morning in a face-to-face meeting at the team’s facility before he was expected to work out with teammates, a source said. Tebow left the building shortly thereafter.
Tebow was dressed in his workout clothes Monday when he was called to Idzik’s office, according to league sources.
So ends one of the strangest chapters in team history — maybe in league history.
Tebow received rock-star media coverage from the moment he arrived. His introductory news conference last March drew more than 200 media members, highly unusual for a backup quarterback. The Jets were criticized for the excess.
After using a second-round pick on Geno Smith this past weekend, the Jets had six quarterbacks on the roster, and someone had to go. The Jets tried for months to trade Tebow, sources said. His release was earlier reported by the New York Post.
The team’s plan always was to take no more than five quarterbacks into its organized team activities. When no other team offered even a seventh-round draft pick for Tebow by the conclusion of the NFL draft on Saturday, the decision was imminent, sources said.
The Jets had given permission this offseason to Tebow’s agent, Jimmy Sexton, to try to seek a trade, a source familiar with situation said. More than one team reached out to see whether Tebow was willing to switch positions from quarterback to tight end, but he was not.
Various members of the Jets organization were warming to Tebow this offseason, which is one reason Idzik released the quarterback Monday morning, the source said. Idzik did not want the type of Tebow distractions in 2013 that last year’s team endured.
Tebow attended the first two weeks of the offseason program. In fact, he reported 12 pounds under his 2012 playing weight. Despite vague comments by team officials, they never had any intention of retaining him.
h/t: ESPN.com
(via Phillies’ Jonathan Papelbon: “Obama ‘Wants to Take Our Guns’”)
Why is Papelbon talking like a righty loon?
via USAToday
In a follow-up interview Tuesday with CSN Philadelphia, Papelbon elaborated on that and also spoke of other fears in this era, such as walking through crowds at a stadium. That included Papelbon bringing into play a seemingly separate issue, that of President Obama’s efforts on gun control after the elementary school killings in Newtown, Conn
JONATHAN PAPELBON:”We walked through the crowd here on opening day and in Boston, we came down through the bleachers one opening day. I don’t feel comfortable doing that.
“Today’s day and age, has gotten so crazy. Shoot, man, Obama wants to take our guns from us and everything. You got all this stuff going on, it’s just a little bit insane for me, man. I’m not sure how to take it.”
(via Daily Kos: NHL and NHLPA agree to partnership with pro-LGBTQ You Can Play Project)
Today, the NHL and the NHLPA have announced a partnership with the LGBTQ-friendly You Can Play Project in an effort to curb homophobia in the league and making it more inclusive towards LGBTQ players and their allies.
The NHL, NHL Players Association and the You Can Play Project have agreed to a groundbreaking partnership, the league, players’ union and gay/lesbian rights advocacy group announced Thursday.The agreement, the first of its kind between You Can Play and a North American professional sports league, will see YCP implement an agenda of inclusion throughout the NHL that promotes better understanding of and respect for homosexual athletes and creates an environment where no one is judged based on their sexual orientation.
The YCP Project was founded in March of 2012 and has been incredibly successful in creating awareness of gay athletes in sport. But for Burke, whose late brother Brendan Burke provided the inspiration for his group, it is particularly touching to have hockey’s best league be the first pro sports operation to take the next step in the battle.
You Can Play will conduct seminars at the NHL’s rookie symposium to educate young prospects on LGBT issues. In addition, You Can Play will make its resources and personnel available to each individual team as desired.
The NHLPA and NHL also will work with You Can Play to integrate the project into their Behavioral Health Program, enabling players to confidentially seek counseling or simply ask questions regarding matters of sexual orientation.The You Can Play Project, founded by Philadelphia Flyers scout Patrick Burke, celebrated its one year anniversary on March 4, 2013. From its inception, it has had tremendous support from the hockey community and beyond. Professional players Tommy Wingels and Andy Miele, and former NHL General Manager Brian Burke all serve on You Can Play’s Advisory Board. Over 100 professional hockey players have voiced their support for gay teammates and have been joined by athletes from numerous sports representing approximately 20 NCAA organizations.
BREAKING: The #Louisville Cardinals defeat the #Michigan Wolverines 82-76. #MarchMadness #LOUvsMICH #FinalTwo
— Justin Gibson (@JGibsonDem)
(via Crooks and Liars: ESPN Reporter Slams Hannity and Fox For Defending Abusive Coach)
On this Sunday’s Reliable Sources on CNN, ESPN senior writer Andy Katz was asked by host Howard Kurtz about Fox hosts Eric Bolling and Sean Hannity and their defense of the abusive Rutgers basketball coach last week and Katz was more than happy to give Kurtz an earful with what he thought of them.
(via Is Your Team’s Owner a Major League Asshole? | Mother Jones)
In early February, a US Patent and Trademark Office court in Washington, DC, confirmed what baseball fans had suspected for more than a century: The New York Yankees are evil. After an internet startup, Evil Empire Inc., had attempted to trademark the phrase “Baseball’s Evil Empire,” the Yankees filed an injunction, and the panel of judges agreed. As the court put it, “The record shows that there is only one Evil Empire in baseball and it is the New York Yankees.” If only it were true. The ranks of Major League Baseball owners include some of the richest men—and they are almost exclusively white males—in the country, as likely to open their wallets for a super-PAC as they are a top-shelf free agent. Viewed in the context of the competition, with its anti-discrimination settlements and SEC investigations, the Yankees are, like their Opening Day roster, fairly pedestrian.
So where does your team’s ownership rank? We took a stab at it, analyzing each franchise by its level of political activity (based on campaign donations and office-seeking) and relative degree of evil—copyrighted or not. Read below the matrix for the full breakdown.
Editor’s note: Chris Kluwe is a punter for the Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League. He is an ambassador for Athlete Ally, an organization working to end homophobia in sports, as are Brendon Ayanbadejo of the Baltimore Ravens and Scott Fujita of the New Orleans Saints.
(CNN) — “Don’t be a distraction.”
These words are pounded into every single NFL player’s head from the day he enters the league until the day he leaves (and I would imagine it holds true for just about every professional sport).
The same message, over and over and over — “The team comes first,” “Sacrifice your personal goals to win,” “Only be judged by what goes on between the lines” — which is why I find it unsurprising that there are no openly gay athletes in any of the big four professional sports leagues in the U.S.: the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB.
The message is pushed on us so hard, in fact, that players run the very real risk of losing their jobs if the team deems them too much of a distraction, and unfortunately it seems gay players feel that being comfortable with who they are has to take second place to keeping their jobs.
This isn’t right.
It’s not right that professional sports, and especially the professional sports media, have created an environment where gay players are willing to hide essential components of themselves as human beings in order to pursue their dreams, in order to not be a distraction. It’s not right that our insatiable lust for sports coverage creates an atmosphere where someone would willingly subordinate his life to a backward and bigoted worldview in order to stay employed.
It’s not right that we can’t just accept someone for who he is.
Why?
Why do people care so much about someone else’s sexuality? Why do people give two s***s how someone else lives his life? Why do people have this absolutely idiotic notion that being gay has any sort of effect on how well a player can play football, or basketball, or baseball? Why the f*** do I even have to write this column for a major news organization to talk about something that shouldn’t even remotely be a factor in sports?
Well, the reason is simple. I’m writing this because no gay player is currently out, and the first gay player who eventually does come out needs to know that — despite all the indoctrination from the league about not being a distraction — if he’s the one to take the first step, he will have allies. He will have support. He will have those of us who realize that people’s sexuality doesn’t define who they are, just as their jobs don’t define who they are, and that guys who bring our wives and children to games and team events are no different than those who would bring their husbands and children.
Most importantly, I’m writing this so that coaches, managers, players, owners and fans realize that the first gay player who comes out won’t spontaneously cause rainbows to erupt out of everyone’s rear.
In professional sports, the players on a team are a team. We eat together. We practice together. We watch film together, and we succeed or fail together. We see each other more than our own families during the season. To think that a gay player is suddenly going to destroy all that because he’s out is asinine.
The idea that a gay player will be a distraction needs to change.
Coaches, administrative personnel — will an openly gay player bring extra attention? Maybe, but guess what — there’s a whole bunch of other crap that happens during the season every year, anything from sexting to arrests to profane letters, and somehow we’ve managed to find a way through it each time without the entire edifice of football collapsing into ruin.
Players — Those of you worried about a gay teammate checking out your ass in the shower, or hitting on you in the steam room, or bringing too much attention to the team — I have four simple words for you. Grow the f*** up. This is our job, we are adults, so would you kindly act like one?
There are millions of people across America who work with gay co-workers every day, and they handle their business without riotous orgies consuming the work environment. In the extremely unlikely event that a gay player harasses you? We have an HR department. File a complaint, just the way a female employee would if you harassed her. If the media want to ask you about a gay teammate? He’s a teammate, and you’re focused on winning — together. As a team.
And finally, to the gay player who does eventually come out, whoever that brave individual happens to be — will you have to deal with media attention, with heightened scrutiny? Yes. Despite everything Brendon, Scott, myself, and all your other allies do, despite all the articles we write and interviews we give, despite the growing acceptance across this entire country, there are going to be people who insist on looking at you through the lens of your sexuality, and not at your skills as a football player. But you know what? All of us understand the truth.
h/t: Chris Kluwe at CNN
Eric Bolling and people like him are out of touch with what’s happening with America.
Fox News host Eric Bolling bemoaned Rutgers University’s decision to fire men’s basketball coach Mike Rice, after video surfaced of Rice abusing players by throwing basketballs at them, shoving them, and harassing them with profane and homophobic language, including “fucking faggot.”
“We’re in the midst of political correctness crushing our ability to teach kinds, to discipline kids, to disagree with people or one another or kids,” Bolling complained. “Our culture is in decline, but this is an example of our culture in free fall and I’m saying this because he got fired, not because of what he did.”
But Bolling dismissed all this, arguing that the players are “used to this coach, he does this.”
One day after footage of his behavior during practices was shown on the ESPN program Outside the Lines, Rutgers men’s basketball coach Mike Rice has been fired by the school as originally reported by multiple outlets.
In three seasons at the school Rice, formerly the head coach at Robert Morris, posted an overall record of 44-51 but managed to go just 16-38 in Big East play.
Despite the lack of on-court success it’s the video footage of abusive behavior in practices that led to Rice’s ouster.
Allegations of abusive behavior made by former Rutgers director of basketball development Eric Murdock, whose contract was not renewed by the school following the 2011-12 season. In the video shown by ESPN Rice is seen throwing basketballs at players and using profane language, including a homophobic slur.
After originally viewing the tapes athletic director Tim Pernetti suspended Rice for three games, fined him $50,000 and ordered him to undergo sensitivity training.
Once the public saw the video and realized the severity of Rice’s actions it became clear to many that the original punishment did not fit.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie released a statement on Tuesday that he was “deeply disturbed” by the footage, and other state politicians called for Rice to be fired.
The question now is whether or not more changes are made within the athletic department given the initial punishment.
Fox News contributor and self-identified “comedian” Steven Crowder published a transphobic FoxNews.com column smearing a transgender Mixed Martial Arts fighter by repeatedly referring to her as a male and incorrectly accusing her of having an unfair advantage over her opponents as a result of “being a man.”
In a March 20 FoxNews.com column, Crowder railed against transgender MMA fighter Fallon Fox, repeatedly depicting her as a male who’s interested in “beating up women”:
Let me paint you a picture: your daughter is playing a contact sport. Say, football or hockey. She’s gone from being your little girl to becoming a beautiful young woman. Opposite her on the field (or ice), is somebody who once was a man, until he decided that he didn’t feel like being one anymore.
[…]
Enter Fallon Fox, a male-to-female transgendered person, who has now decided to make a living by beating up women.
[…]
Unless you were born and raised a woman, you don’t go around hitting chicks.
Crowder’s insistence on referring to Fox as a male is clearly meant to be derogatory. Mentally, physically, and legally, Fox is considered a woman. Given she also self-identifies as a woman, Crowder is violating basic journalistic standards by failing to identify a transgender person by his or her stated gender.
Crowder is unqualified to be making statements about the physical characteristics of a transgender woman.
According to experts who have looked at Fox’s case, Fox is unlikely to experience any significant physical damage over her female opponents.
And James McDonald at Bleacher Report recently noted that much of the criticism about Fox’s alleged physical advantage has been based on bias and ignorance, not real medical expertise.
This clearly seems to be the case with Crowder, who has no basis in his column for blindly insisting “she’s a man!” Like his fellow Fox News contributor Dr. Keith Ablow who regularly misinforms about LGBT issues, Crowder is more interested in mocking and stigmatizing transgender people than doing actual research about the subject he’s commenting on.
h/t: MMFA
UGH. I am too fucking tired of these incredibly retarded ass backwards idiots…
Here’s the story:
MLB Network has exclusive U.S. rights to broadcast the World Baseball Classic, but those rights begin and end with the English language. Lacking compelling content for a slow Sunday night, ESPN elected to use its loophole in owning Spanish-language rights to simulcast its ESPN Deportes feed of tonight’s Dominican Republic-Puerto Rico game on the network’s flagship station. Any time the WWL introduces a new audience to content usually found on another station, people react poorly. And ESPN’s no stranger to stirring up a racist hornet’s nest, either. So here’s a sampling of what people are saying online about the broadcast, which we’ll remind you cannot be shown in English on ESPN (and is being shown in English just a few channels away on MLB Net).
Chicago Cubs legend Ernie “Mr. Cub” Banks joined other celebrated Chicago athletes in support for extending the freedom to marry to gay and lesbian couples in Illinois.
Banks, along with three other sports stars, voiced support in an open letter urging the Illinois House of Representatives to approve the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act, which has already been approved in the Illinois Senate and has the support of Gov. Pat Quinn.
The athletes wrote that, “treating any group of people as second-class citizens hurts us all, because discrimination is wrong no matter whom the target is.”
“We come from a variety of backgrounds, and we have played different sports for different teams. But one thing that binds us together is our belief in the importance of fairness and respect – in all aspects of life,” the letter stated. ”In Illinois today, gay and lesbian couples who are in lifetime committed relationships do not have the freedom to marry. This violates our sense of fairness and respect. It also goes against the Golden Rule of treating others as you would like to be treated yourself.”
Those signing the letter are:
Ernie Banks – a beloved Chicago icon nicknamed “Mr. Cub,” Banks played as a shortstop and first baseman for the Chicago Cubs from 1953 through 1971. Banks was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1977 and the Major League Baseball All-Century Team in 1999.
Richard Dent – played defensive end for the Chicago Bears for eleven seasons. He was the MVP of legendary Super Bowl XX and was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2011.
Hunter Hillenmeyer – played linebacker for the Chicago Bears from 2003-2010. Along with All-Pro linebackers Brian Urlacher and Lance Briggs, Hillenmeyer was part of a linebacking corps considered one of the best in the league.
Brendon Ayanbadejo – Having played for the Chicago Bears from 2005-2007, Ayanbadejo now plays linebacker for the Super Bowl XLVII champion Baltimore Ravens. A three-time NFL Pro-Bowler, Ayanbadejo was born in Chicago and lived in the Lathrop Homes as a child.
The athletes, in the letter, continued, “We come from a variety of backgrounds, and we have played different sports for different teams. But one thing that binds us together is our belief in the importance of fairness and respect – in all aspects of life,” the letter stated. ”In Illinois today, gay and lesbian couples who are in lifetime committed relationships do not have the freedom to marry. This violates our sense of fairness and respect. It also goes against the Golden Rule of treating others as you would like to be treated yourself.”H/T: Chicago Pride
Kudos to these athletes for supporting decency and equality.
