The New Black and Still the Same Old Gay

You know what I love to hate? When people make a big deal about something being done by someone because they're (fill in the blank). Wow. The first black quarterback to do this. The first woman to do that. The first Latino to do something else. Dumb. Some of these things are interesting factoids. And they should be treated as such. Not as some revolutionary event that changes how things work in society.

Now there are some events that warrant mentioning. The first black baseball player. Important because baseball is America's Pastime. Important because it was an example of the racist hierarchy that existed in America back in the day. Other examples that come to mind - the first black Supreme Court Justice (Thurgood Marshall, if you're curious), the first black billionaire (some hints - not Oprah, is Michael Jordan's boss, founded BET, for better or worse), first Asian mainstream gangster rap star (the soon-to-be infamous YelloSno, a.k.a., yours truly).

But I was sick of hearing about Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith being the first two black football coaches in the Super Bowl. Shouldn't all this stuff be irrelevant in a league where there are more and more black coaches? Besides, Tony Dungy isn't really all that black. He's sort of milk chocolate to Lovie Smith's dark chocolate. But whatever. It's the Super Bowl. The press is lazy and dumb, and needs to find an angle.

What's sort of getting to me is this whole John Amaechi coming out of the closet bit. First of all, who the hell's John Amaechi? Well, he's a big 6'10" black dude who used to play basketball. And he likes dudes. Oddly enough, even in his "best" season he only averaged 3.3 rebounds a game, in about 21 minutes per game. Pretty crappy for a big 6'10" dude. I guess that he didn't really enjoy all of that contact down low. Maybe he's a top and not a bottom. Unfortunately, he didn't really shed the stereotype of gay dudes being soft, as the knock on Amaechi was that he wasn't tough enough to be a real player in the NBA.

There's an article on ESPN's Page 2 by LZ Granderson that talks about how he isn't impressed by a retired athlete coming out. I'll take it a step further. How about not having a good ball player come out? The guys that have come out have pretty much sucked. I only knew Esera Tuaolo because I had a football card of him singing (not making that up) the national anthem once before a Packers (also not making that up) game. He wasn't much of a players. We need some good players to make it acceptable to be gay in sports. Now, the lesbos have it right. They had Billy Jean King and Martina Navratilova. It's sort of different in an individual sport, but at least those two were good. I mean, they were probably men, but they were good tennis players.

And even if we don't have superstars saying that they're gay, how about guys who would turn the "soft" image of gays upside down? Like, say, Tank Johnson. Or Stephen Jackson. Or Charles Oakley. Or better yet, Ray Lewis. If any of those guys were gay, you'd get a little more street cred than you would if say, Marvin Harrison came out. Could you imagine that confrontation if someone made fun of Tank or Jax being gay? You'd definitely have gunplay there. Ray Lewis may stab you in the face. And Charles Oakley would probably just disentegrate you with his stare. Or a clothesline.

But instead, we get to watch John Amaechi as the current gay pride bearer. Yep. It's pretty gay.

Oh - Illini. Jamar finally shot well. If he shoots well again today, it should carry over to Saturday, and I like our chances to pull out an upset at Indiana, pretty much locking up our bid, and giving us a shot at 3rd place in the Big Ten.

Chairman