OK, kiddo! Here are all the fantastically amazing posts tagged with Sports
Homophobic Baseball Manager Gets The Boot
Gay people put up with a lot of abuse. Umpires, too. I imagine, then, it’s not easy being a gay umpire. Just ask Billy Van Raaphorst.
On July 31st, after two Edmonton players were tossed out for misbehaving at a minor league game, Van Raaphorst found himself enduring a spectacular assault by the team’s manager, Brent Bowers. The homophobic tirade, complete with slurs, obscenities, threats, and gestures involving grabbed ankles, shocked onlookers.
The scene was reportedly so offensive that other umpires refused to officiate games for the entire Golden Baseball League until Bowers was punished—which he was, late last week. Originally given an unsatisfactory two-day suspension, the league eventually decided upon a $5000 fine along with a suspension for the rest of the year. Bowers has since resigned.
Probably for the best, too. His team lost all three games that weekend, 3–2, 6–2, and 2–1. Ouch!
- Caps manager accused of anti-gay rant [Edmonton SUN]
- Edmonton baseball coach resigns [Globe and Mail]
Girls’ Hockey Team Wins Award Over Equality Button
The world of sports is notoriously homophobic, but one girls’ high school hockey team in New Brunswick has come up with a novel way to counter it. After experiencing negativity and discrimination first-hand over having two lesbian teammates, the Woodstock High School Lady Thunder hockey team distributed tons of rainbow buttons for supporters to wear at their games. Eventually, teammates, coaches, parents—and even rival teams—began wearing the buttons.
Sporting the unique buttons has now netted the team a human rights award from the provincial commission. Score!
Canada Heads Effort To “De-Gay” Figure Skating
Skate Canada, the governing body for figure skating in Canada, is trying to re-imagine the sport in an attempt to increase spectatorship for Vancouver’s 2010 Winter Olympics. Their approach: Get rid of the gay. (Or, to put it in their words, inject some “masculinity” to draw in the “hockey crowd.”)
Elvis Stojko, the Canadian gold medal figure skating champion, is feeling rather smug about the suggestion, communicating a firm “I told you so” to Skate Canada:
Skate Canada is saying “we want to make men’s figure skating more macho, we want to make it more masculine.” And I’m like, “I told you guys that, like 15 years ago, and you guys hammered me for it.” And now they’re paying for it.
If you’re very lyrical and you’re really feminine and soft, well, that’s not men’s skating. That is not men’s skating, OK? Men’s skating is power, strength, masculinity, focus, clarity of movement, interpretation of music.
So, basically, femininity is bad. Men behaving artistically? Pfft! Leave that to the women. For men, it’s gotta be more like hockey! Where’s the tripping? The fights? The shattered teeth shards sliding across drops of frozen blood?
Oh! They should totally add some explosions. Kaboom! And maybe have everyone come out in teams and blast paintball cannons at each other. The first to triple salchow over their injured, bloodied competitor wins—then BAM! Medicine ball to the back of the neck!
Skate Canada can practically taste the ratings now…
And all they had to do is give everyone who’s secure and respectful enough to appreciate the beauty and art of figure skating—regardless of the athlete’s gender—a massive slap in the face.
- Figure Skating Gets Macho Makeover [ABC News]
- Elvis Stojko: If you’re very lyrical and you’re really feminine… [Toronto SUN]
Whistler Reaches Out to Gay Olympians
GayWhistler, in partnership with the Pan Pacific Whistler Village Hotel, has announced that Pride House, a safe space for gay athletes, is being set up for gay athletes at the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games. While it’s not unusual for communities to get their own clubhouse at the Olympics, Pride House is the first official attempt to reach out to gay people in Olympic history.
The world of sports is one of the last places in western culture where homophobia remains the norm. Gay althletes are under enormous pressure to hide their lives and loved ones from fellow athletes and the media. In this sense, I think Pride House is a wonderful opportunity to reach out and make gay altheletes feel safer. A lot better than the Shame House from the 1988 Olympics, at least.
- Gay athletes get ‘safe space’ at Olympics [Montreal Gazette]
Gays Not Fit To Play Soccer, Says Manager
Luciano Moggi, the former managing director of Juventus, Italy’s largest soccer club, went on a bizarre tirade against gays this week during a televised interview. The controversial official, who is currently being tried for corruption scandals, said that…
Well, actually, I think I’ll just let you read it verbatim:
There are no gays in football. I don’t know if players are against having them in their team but I definitely am. In the teams where I worked there were never any. I never wanted to have a homosexual player and I still wouldn’t sign one.
I’m old school, but I know the ambience of football and a gay wouldn’t be able to survive within it. A homosexual cannot do the job of a footballer. The football world is not designed for them; it’s a special atmosphere—one in which you stand naked under the showers.
So, there you have it: Gays don’t like soccer, and even if they did, any latent athletic ability would be invariably foiled by their beacon of gayness. Which is alright, I guess, since us gays couldn’t handle after-game showering without, presumably, violating all our teammates anyway.
Incidentally, while former professional soccer players have come out as gay in the past, no current players are openly out of the closet. I can’t help but wonder why that is…
Thanks to Slap reader Kathrine for this gem, with an extra hat tip to The Offside.
