Gay Men in Sports

Today in class we talked about how whether or not gay men would be accepted if they came out during their playing careers. No professional male athlete has ever come out during their career. We talked about the study that asked each of the major sports whether or not a player would be accepted by his team mates and the fans. It also asked them to estimate the number of people they thought was gay in their league.


In my opinion, I believe that players will not be accepted if they do come out during their career. In our society people that come out that do not play sports are not even accepted, so how is a guy that plays sports with other men going to be accepted? The main reason that they will not be accepted is because of the reason that we talked about in class and that is if guys know that someone in that locker room is gay that will not feel comfortable. That will cause tension in the locker room and it could hurt the team. Even thought this is not right, this is the way our society is. It would take one of the top athletes in any of the major sports to come out before it would be acceptable to be gay and play a professional sport.

We talked about how it was said that a athlete who beat his wife or got caught with drugs is not as bad as being called gay. I agree with that statement because of what we have seen in recent years with some players. Ray Lewis was accused of murder and most people do not even remember that he was. One of people in the class named Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez who used steroids. There are many more athletes that have been accused of serious crimes but as long as they are helping their team win they will be accepted by fans and teammates.

Maybe someday a person that is gay can come out and be accepted by society.