Americans have increasingly favorable views of gay athletes, but their acceptance comes with some reservations, according to a new poll appearing in Wednesday's issue of Sports Illustrated.
Of the 979 people interviewed, 86 percent said it's OK for openly gay men to play sports, but nearly 24 percent think an openly gay athlete would hurt the team.
In another sign of ambivalence in the poll, 79 percent of respondents said Americans are more accepting of gays in sports today than they were 20 years ago, while 62 percent said the reason there is so little coverage of gays in sports is that America is not ready to accept gay athletes. Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates conducted interviews among the general population from March 18-21. The margin of error is 3 percent.
The results are not surprising to Helen Carroll, who directs the Homophobia in Sports Project for the National Center for Lesbian Rights.
"We've made a huge amount of progress in the last 10 years because people have seen more news and coverage of LGBT people," Carroll said. And the majority recognizes that there are LGBT athletes, and whether a good player is gay or lesbian or straight doesn't matter as much as it once did."
Carroll, who mediates between coaches and LGBT athletes from junior high to pro, added that a big area for improvement is the disconnect between society's attitudes and the attitudes of coaches and athletes themselves.
"Many coaches are from an older generation, and haven't been raised on positive media images of LGBT people," she said. "They may say they don't have a problem with gay players, but why then do so many athletes fear coming out to the coaches? It's up to the coaches and leaders to create an atmosphere that makes it safe for players to decide whether or not to come out, and it's important that they feel safe, because athletes can't reach their highest potential until they can be comfortable around others."
David Kopay knows all about this discomfort. The first NFL player to publicly declare his homosexuality, Kopay said he created a "kamikaze tough-guy image" to counteract rumors that he was gay. However, he agrees that professional sports has come a long way from what he calls "the dark ages" of the 1970s, but insists that it has a long way to go.
"There has been much, much less progress in sports than in society at large, regarding LGBT issues. Too many male athletes still equate manhood with toughness and the idea is if you're gay you can't be tough," he said.
Kopay, 62, played in the NFL from 1964 to 1972, as a running back and special teams ace with San Francisco, New Orleans, Washington, Detroit and Green Bay throughout his career. His 1977 coming out autobiography, "The David Kopay Story," was a New York Times bestseller.
Although he's been an outspoken advocate for LGBT rights since retiring, Kopay is not sure he would come out while still playing pro football, even today.
"If I had it to do over, I would definitely play pro football again. But I wouldn't come out as a player, even now. I was not the star; I spent 10 years just making the team. Maybe it would be easier to come out if I were the star, but they could have used [my sexuality] as an excuse to get rid of me."
O. Mac Chinsomboon, executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Athletics Foundation, suggests Kopay's dilemma is not uncommon, given the double standard in the world of professional athletics.
"In general, if we're talking about an Olympic gold medalist, a star quarterback, a starting pitcher with a great average, then the 'skill card' trumps the 'sexuality card' any day," he said. "The issue though is that there are a lot more professional athletes that are not the stars of the team, even though any of these athletes are already the cream of the crop compared to the general population. So the problem is why would an athlete who's still working on his or her game want to add in an additional hurdle to have to overcome, as if squeezing out a faster mile wasn't enough to worry about."
Chinsomboon says that the lack of specifically stated policies to protect athletes against harassment and unfair treatment is a key reason more don't come out.
"If there were such policies in place, they would be difficult to enforce and structure, though not impossible and -- with the right message from upper management -- could be the thing needed to get jump started."
Policies or no, the biggest improvement in attitudes toward LGBT athletes is coming from those who support the youngest players.
"I'm seeing a lot of younger athletes, 12- and 13-year-olds, coming out and their parents are supporting them strongly," Carroll said. I think in the next five years many more high school athletes will be out, and they can go on to college and go pro, already out. Because once you're out, you're not likely to go back in."
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