COming Out in Sport

I know that in class we basically only studied how hard it is for women in sport to come out and how they have to risk their careers if they do come out. I found an interesting article on yahoo news about the NBA Sun's President R ick Welts recently came out to the New York Times and said that he is gay. This made hedline new, although if it was a woman basketball player or a woman president her career could be finished. I wanted to see the way that the media portrayed him coming out and if they made it look like a positive or a negative thing and how it would impact the team and the NBA as a whole. He said in the article that he had to keep his sexuality secret since he worked for the NBA and that he couldnt even talk about his peronal life nor the death of his partner which i know had to be devastating and i know he wished he could have some support, but he was unable to speak about that at the time in fear that it would not be accepted. He said that he came out to some people such as David Stern, Bill Russell, and Stever Nash and felt that it was a good time to come out to the public. Especially following Kobe Bryants slurs that he said about gays during a game. I think tha this is a tranformation for the NBA i dont think that they will necessarily accept the players that are gay right now, but i think that they would be able to accept the more executive people in the industry. Rarely do we hear about male athletes being gay and i think that that is why i brought it up. This can help with other sports as well, but as far as athletes and them coming out i think they have a long way to go unfortunately.

BRITTANE JOHNSON
KIN 338I
2-315