“People fail to get along because they fear each
other; they fear each other because they don't know each other; they
don't know each other because they have not communicated with each
other.” Martin Luther King Jr.
INTRODUCTION
April 29th, 2013. Sports Illustrated breaks the big scoop. The first male athlete in a major American team sport is to announce he is gay. Rumors of such an announcement were swirling for a few weeks now in the sports world. Who would it be? Which sport would it be? Would it be well received? Would this be the beginning of more and more gay males across the entire athletic spectrum to come out?
The
story breaks. It's professional basketball player Jason Collins. Never
heard of the guy. Huge let down. I read his
"story" in Sports Illustrated, a glorified diary entry with no back and
forth. It reads like a drive by. Within 24 hours, the media circus is
in full effect. All the usual suspects chime in with their words of
support; even the President gets in on the act with a high profile
public phone call. Oh the evolution of it all.
Something about the whole event didn't seem right to me. I dug in a little deeper in to who Jason Collins is. 34, career lows in statistics on one of the worst teams in the NBA, and a free agent to be on July 1st, 2013. He came out after his season was over, he does not have a contract for next season, meaning he really is not the first active athlete to come out in one of America's four major team sports. All the talk of this being some kind of game changing moment just didn't seem justified to me and now I was starting to see why.
It didn't take long before some high profile public figure failed his tolerance test. Chris Broussard, some two bit, back bench, anchor at ESPN pretty much declared that Collins was going straight to hell according to Broussard's Christian orthodox views. Super. Now this was the story less than 48 hours after Collins declaration. I sensed the gravity and game changing moment slipping away as all the attention shifted to Broussard's backward ass views. Thousands of young gay male athletes hide in plain sight daily from the intolerance and homophobic cultures that are male team sports. How was this ever going to change when the media can't stay with the true story for more than a news cycle? I put my head down that night encouraged by Collins' courageous act but disappointed at what I sensed again was going to be little more than just another in a long list of individual acts.
I've followed the process of male athletes coming out for some time now. Every act of coming out is equally powerful to myself, showing great courage by the individual, but in so many ways, it is always the righting of a profound wrong, addition by subtraction, the truth emerging by the cessation of the big lie. But these acts of individual courage are sporadic, random, with no cohesive plan of action associated with them to make the environment that is professional sports a safe and inclusive environment for young gay male athletes. Why could the LGBT community not get organized behind these scattered acts and employ a program to aid and support all the closeted gay athletes suffering in silence in high school and college team sports the nation round?
We keep waiting for that marquee name to come out at the pinnacle of his sporting career. But what if he doesn't appear? What if he doesn't exist? Society just runs the numbers and assumes statistically he is there. Matter of fact, they're damn near certain about it. But I know a few things about trying to become an elite athlete. I played some serious tennis back in my day; was one of the top American junior tennis players of my era, have a marquee victory over a grand slam champion at a former Grand Slam venue.
But I also know intimately the complexities of trying to build a strong and unflappable sense of self while living a lie. And I am absolutely certain my growth and development as a young professional athlete was hampered by my not feeling safe to be my true self in my sport's culture. And I'm also absolutely certain that if the Jason Collins of my era came out as this one did, that would have felt so awesome to know I was not alone in loving who and how I loved but also know his coming out would have been grossly inadequate as a source of strength and motivation for my coming out myself
Because tolerance is not a concept that gets paid lip service in the abstract by wildly successful professional athletes when the cameras are rolling. Tolerance is a mindset that gets challenged in every encounter, every conversation, every handshake, every look and glance far away from the tape recorders and bright lights of our mass media, day after day, week after week, year after year. And most in our day and age are increasingly hip and with it that gay people are no different than anyone, it's the fear of the repercussions from those who are not ok with the fact that we are exactly like you in every way except in the one detail...that being who we were born to love. Its those repercussions; the smears, the devaluing, the ostracizing, the hate, or even worse, that we fear in coming out. It can be such a lonely place, all those years knowing that if I can never get over my fears, how can I ever expect them to.
I knew the community needed to do more, and then I realized I am my community and that I needed to do more. I've been out to my family, friends, and in my professional life, but not in the tennis community that I spent so many productive years chasing excellence at the highest levels of our sport. I needed to tell my story to the tennis community, but not as some isolated act of coming out courage, but as the first important act in a program of concerted action to help make professional sports, and in particular my sport of tennis, a safe, inclusive and tolerant environment for the next generation of young up and coming gay athletes.
For the numbers are staggering. Thousands on top of thousands of young players at the junior, college and professional ranks, and not a single gay male tennis player out in the open about his sexuality. Tennis culture can say whatever it wants about being tolerant of those with different sexual orientations, but the gaping disparity between the openness of women associated with our sport as compared to men over the same time span speaks loudly that all is not right for young gay males trying to live lives of dignified authenticity in and around the sport of tennis. A lot needs to change and I have set my near future sights on being an integral part of that change by firstly telling my story and secondly being part of future courses of action to change tennis culture so young players no long have to live in shame and fear while pursuing their athletic dreams.
Coming out is not about you getting to know everything about my private life. It's about not having to keep private one of the most important aspects of my life. It's about no longer having to hide an essential aspect of who I am while standing in plain view. It's about being able to honestly and with courage being able to tell my story to you here now, about being able to share my experience with you now in the hopes that it helps this next generation of aspiring gay athletes, it's about being able to declare with pride and confidence that my name is Bobby Blair, a former a professional tennis player, and a gay male.
And this is my story...
Something about the whole event didn't seem right to me. I dug in a little deeper in to who Jason Collins is. 34, career lows in statistics on one of the worst teams in the NBA, and a free agent to be on July 1st, 2013. He came out after his season was over, he does not have a contract for next season, meaning he really is not the first active athlete to come out in one of America's four major team sports. All the talk of this being some kind of game changing moment just didn't seem justified to me and now I was starting to see why.
It didn't take long before some high profile public figure failed his tolerance test. Chris Broussard, some two bit, back bench, anchor at ESPN pretty much declared that Collins was going straight to hell according to Broussard's Christian orthodox views. Super. Now this was the story less than 48 hours after Collins declaration. I sensed the gravity and game changing moment slipping away as all the attention shifted to Broussard's backward ass views. Thousands of young gay male athletes hide in plain sight daily from the intolerance and homophobic cultures that are male team sports. How was this ever going to change when the media can't stay with the true story for more than a news cycle? I put my head down that night encouraged by Collins' courageous act but disappointed at what I sensed again was going to be little more than just another in a long list of individual acts.
I've followed the process of male athletes coming out for some time now. Every act of coming out is equally powerful to myself, showing great courage by the individual, but in so many ways, it is always the righting of a profound wrong, addition by subtraction, the truth emerging by the cessation of the big lie. But these acts of individual courage are sporadic, random, with no cohesive plan of action associated with them to make the environment that is professional sports a safe and inclusive environment for young gay male athletes. Why could the LGBT community not get organized behind these scattered acts and employ a program to aid and support all the closeted gay athletes suffering in silence in high school and college team sports the nation round?
We keep waiting for that marquee name to come out at the pinnacle of his sporting career. But what if he doesn't appear? What if he doesn't exist? Society just runs the numbers and assumes statistically he is there. Matter of fact, they're damn near certain about it. But I know a few things about trying to become an elite athlete. I played some serious tennis back in my day; was one of the top American junior tennis players of my era, have a marquee victory over a grand slam champion at a former Grand Slam venue.
But I also know intimately the complexities of trying to build a strong and unflappable sense of self while living a lie. And I am absolutely certain my growth and development as a young professional athlete was hampered by my not feeling safe to be my true self in my sport's culture. And I'm also absolutely certain that if the Jason Collins of my era came out as this one did, that would have felt so awesome to know I was not alone in loving who and how I loved but also know his coming out would have been grossly inadequate as a source of strength and motivation for my coming out myself
Because tolerance is not a concept that gets paid lip service in the abstract by wildly successful professional athletes when the cameras are rolling. Tolerance is a mindset that gets challenged in every encounter, every conversation, every handshake, every look and glance far away from the tape recorders and bright lights of our mass media, day after day, week after week, year after year. And most in our day and age are increasingly hip and with it that gay people are no different than anyone, it's the fear of the repercussions from those who are not ok with the fact that we are exactly like you in every way except in the one detail...that being who we were born to love. Its those repercussions; the smears, the devaluing, the ostracizing, the hate, or even worse, that we fear in coming out. It can be such a lonely place, all those years knowing that if I can never get over my fears, how can I ever expect them to.
I knew the community needed to do more, and then I realized I am my community and that I needed to do more. I've been out to my family, friends, and in my professional life, but not in the tennis community that I spent so many productive years chasing excellence at the highest levels of our sport. I needed to tell my story to the tennis community, but not as some isolated act of coming out courage, but as the first important act in a program of concerted action to help make professional sports, and in particular my sport of tennis, a safe, inclusive and tolerant environment for the next generation of young up and coming gay athletes.
For the numbers are staggering. Thousands on top of thousands of young players at the junior, college and professional ranks, and not a single gay male tennis player out in the open about his sexuality. Tennis culture can say whatever it wants about being tolerant of those with different sexual orientations, but the gaping disparity between the openness of women associated with our sport as compared to men over the same time span speaks loudly that all is not right for young gay males trying to live lives of dignified authenticity in and around the sport of tennis. A lot needs to change and I have set my near future sights on being an integral part of that change by firstly telling my story and secondly being part of future courses of action to change tennis culture so young players no long have to live in shame and fear while pursuing their athletic dreams.
Coming out is not about you getting to know everything about my private life. It's about not having to keep private one of the most important aspects of my life. It's about no longer having to hide an essential aspect of who I am while standing in plain view. It's about being able to honestly and with courage being able to tell my story to you here now, about being able to share my experience with you now in the hopes that it helps this next generation of aspiring gay athletes, it's about being able to declare with pride and confidence that my name is Bobby Blair, a former a professional tennis player, and a gay male.
And this is my story...
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