Morton: Advice for the closeted gay athlete
“For the professional athlete, the consideration is even more complex – to reveal something intrinsically private, and in the same vein become the public face of your private life.”
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At the age of 14, I seriously thought I was going to be an NBA basketball player.
I was good at shooting and handling the ball and I impressed coaches enough to begin playing on my Junior High School basketball. Alas, a combination of being terminally short in stature (I’m only 5′ 7″ even now) and a very complex fear of my own sexuality sabotaged any potential run at being a “baller”.
For boys aged of 12-15 fears about sexuality are quite common – legitimate even. Any man can tell you that it’s prime hormonal schizophrenia age.
It’s not expected that one so young can process the immense amount of information that his body sends him. Still, fear is fear, and it kept me from pursuing anything sports related until I could figure out what the hell was going on with my libido.
There’s a difference between boys, teenagers and grown-ass men. There’s a large gap between the naiveté of youth and the experience of age. It is intensely traumatic for a teenager to state to his parent’s “I’m gay” because he doesn’t have the experience to know it will be ok.
For a man who is older the considerations are more far reaching and much different. In today’s society you understand that your family should be accepting matter what, but things get more complicated when you’re thinking about your professional life.
For the professional athlete, the consideration is even more complex – to reveal something intrinsically private, and in the same vein become the public face of your private life.
I have been wrestling with what I’m going to say in this column for many, many days now. Truth be told, I had a very hard time finding my voice.
I revealed my sexuality publicly about three years ago, and for some reason it was very easy for me to do. I never once considered what the public ramifications would be if I told people I was gay. I just did it. In the intervening years it has occurred to me that revealing my sexuality publicly was something that was a much bigger deal than I supposed it was.
Every time I write an article on this subject I get angry emails. Every time I tweet out my support for marriage equality I lose twitter followers. The fact that this happens has always, and will continue, to confuse me. People say some incredibly awful things, but by and large it’s anonymous and it is the proverbial “water off a ducks back”.
If I get that kind of response, imagine what a professional athlete … say, an NFL football player would receive?
In the grand scheme of things, it’s hard for me to place myself in the shoes of an athlete when faced with the making the decision to come out of the closet. Believe me when I say, it is one of the most personal, gut wrenching decisions one can make. Far be it from me to wag the finger of moral certainty at people of whom I can’t possibly comprehend their complex issues. Yet, with the benefit of experience comes a bit of empathy.
If a professional athlete, particularly the NFL players that Brendan Ayanbadejo claims could potentially come out of the closet en masse, were to ask me what advice I would give, well, here is what I would tell them.
Be certain.
Hayseeds, bible thumpers, bigots and assholes don’t need an excuse to be vile and despicable. It’s going to happen anyway. If you are certain, have conviction and confidence then what the fringe element says won’t matter a bit. In fact, people will rally around you. Courage of your convictions is one of the most powerful human behaviors. If you are able to look someone in the eye and say, “I’m gay, back the fuck off” then people will respect you no matter what the yahoos say.
Don’t get caught in the stereotype.
One of the reasons some can’t comprehend the existence of a gay athlete is because they don’t neatly fit into a preconceived stereotype of what being gay is.
I face this all the time. Because I write for Denver Stiffs (Denver Nuggets basketball blog) and South Stands Denver and podcast for Colorado Sports Guys, people look at me, blink their eyes and leave their mouth agape.
I’m gay and I write about sports. Get over it. You should be able to say that you are an athlete, you are at the top level of your profession and you just happen to be gay. People can be pretty cruel when you don’t fit into the package they set out for you. Embrace your individualism and defy the stereotype.
Most importantly, be yourself.
Remember, above all, whatever makes you – well – YOU is more important than all the announcements in the world. While it’s easy to file that last sentence under “things a motivational speaker, aka Stuart Smalley would say” it’s important to point out that loss of identity is a leading cause of depression.
Don’t subvert who you are to fit anyone’s notion of who THEY believe you should be. You are an athlete but you must be comfortable with who you are if you are to be the best you can be. You can’t succeed in any avenue of life if you can’t present yourself to the world at the complete package. No one would take you seriously.
Think of the millions MORE you can make in your sport if you didn’t have a 10,000 lb monkey in the form of “closet case” hanging on your back? You’d be free, you be … YOU!. If you can reach the point where you look yourself in the mirror and say that you are satisfied, then you can truly say you are the best person you can be.
From my perspective as someone who only covers sports and doesn’t play them (outside of recreation), the pressure from teammates, media, fans and people who troll on the internet is undoubtedly immense.
I can’t possibly begin to understand, nor comprehend what that must feel like. I have found that for all the hate filled people on this planet, there are wonderful, funny, joyous people to associate with. I lucked out in that everyone I have the pleasure of working with, I also consider my friends. I bet you do to. I think you will find that, by and large, they just want you to be happy.
Shouldn’t you want the same for yourself?
