Outside The Lines

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Outside The Lines
Provocative But Flawed

ESPN Tackles Delicate Homophobia Issue But Lets Some Items Slip

By George Stahl

ESPN, as it did with other sensitive social issues, such as race and religion, explored the role of homosexuality in sports in the latest edition of its award-winning Outside the Lines series.

The provocative but slightly flawed examination successfully conveyed the pressures that gay athletes, especially male ones in team sports, must feel about hiding their sexual orientation. The show also did a nice job featuring certain players and administrators who have had to deal with being open in a close-minded sports world.

[Note: The show is just one part of ESPN's examination of homophobia in sports. ESPN.com, as a companion to the show, begins a three-day series on the subject.]

However, the show also contained a few defects, none individually outrageous but enough of them to point a finger at as a whole. The problems I had with the show included:

the use of a 2-year-old interview between Andrea Kremer and Ernest Givins, of whom there were rumors that the former three-time All-Pro receiver was gay. He denies the rumors in the interview; however, Kremer never asks him if he has a girlfriend or if these rumors make it hard for him to get dates. I know these aren't easy questions to ask, but they are legitimate given the context of the subject matter. Plus, all this still doesn't explain why ESPN used an old interview. How about revisiting the subject with him? What has happen to him since the interview? (Givins is now retired from the NFL.) If he declined to be interviewed, then say so, but don't leave us wondering why we are watching an interview from two years ago.

Kelly Neal's interview with a gay college swimmer, who was the only active gay athlete in college or pro that ESPN contacted who would talk on camera. Although he is out to his family and teammates, he appeared in a shadow on the show to prevent any future incidents. Neal asked him about how he is treated in the locker room but didn't ask him how his teammates reacted to news about his sexual orientation. Do they treat him differently now than before? And because this was the only active gay male athlete in mainstream sports to speak to ESPN, I would have liked to have seen more of the interview.

the neglect of women's golf and tennis. The show acknowledges the "image" problem that women's golf and tennis have but doesn't try to refute or confirm the image. Nor does the show discuss those infamous comments a couple years ago by Ben Wright on women's golf.

Like I said, none of these issues is earth-shattering individually, but taken as whole, it leaves a little stain on the whole show, which for the most part was very good. Greg Garber did an excellent job examining why there are no openly gay athletes in the four major sports. Much of the show's best work was done in that opening piece.

I also enjoyed the sad piece on Greg Congdon, a high school football player who was forced off the team after he became "outed" before he was ready. But even this segment contained a faux pas. Congdon said in it that the football team's coaches didn't do or say anything to help ameliorate the problem with his teammates; however, ESPN never talked to the coaches to get their version.

Big deal? No. But it would have been nice to have the whole story, which ESPN didn't provide often enough in its look at "the World of the Gay Athlete."

Other notes on the show:

Top stats:
1. Garber said that of the 4,000 athletes in the four major male team sports, none have declared themselves gay. He said this figure goes against the belief that 5%-10% of the general population is gay.
2. A former female basketball player said 35%-40% of the players in the ABL and WNBA are gay, while a current ABL player raises it to up to 60% in the ABL.
3. None of the 30 NHL general managers would talk to ESPN about this topic.

Unanswered question:
1. Did ESPN interview Martina Navratilova, possibly the most famous gay athlete in the world, for the show or use an interview that was old or from another source? ESPN didn't say, but Martina's interview did have a different look than the show's other interviews. But that could be just me. ESPN did not, though, include any new interviews with Billie Jean King, another famous gay athlete. The network showed some of King's comments to a gay and lesbian conference earlier this year.

Good quotes:
"I think it would be much easier, in many senses, for someone to be convicted of robbery and serve time, and then come play in the NFL or major-league baseball, than be gay," agent Leigh Steinberg said in a SportsCenter piece on David Kopay, a former NFL player who has since come out.

"I think it would be tough for a lot of the athletes that I play with to think that, 'Wow, I am showering, I am performing on the field, I am bleeding, I am fighting with a person that is a homosexual,'" Viking receiver Cris Carter.

"I have been in their company, in their company meaning at specific parties for gay people, whether it be a fund-raiser or whether it be just a gathering at certain places, that's how you know for sure. And when you see them face to face and when you talk to them face to face, that's how you know for sure," former National League umpire Dave Pallone, who said he knows more than 15 current professional athletes that are gay.

"I really have never had an athlete say that he was gay. And in the case of some of the athletes who are speculated about, they happen to be not only not gay but heavily heterosexual. And so it is all the more ironic," Steinberg said.

"I think as long as sports remains the last bastion of acceptable homophobia, gays and lesbians are going to stop participating or they are not going to be able to be open about their participation," Roz Quarto, co-president of the Federation of Gay Games.

"So often, sports has been a leader for social change. But not here, and not now. In hearing some of the voices tonight, one wonders, 'if ever,'" host Bob Ley said in closing the show.

Grade: B. Give ESPN much credit for attacking this ignored issue.

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