BY TOMMY BENNETT

In print | January 25, 2007

Among psychics and street magicians, there is a technique used commonly to influence people to arrive at a certain answer — to sort of push their thinking in a particular direction. This technique can be used to convince someone to think of one number in particular without them knowing it was being suggested to them, for example. Often this is done by carefully controlling the way the question is posed, or by choosing words in your description of the task at hand that bring up certain unrelated thoughts. I’ll demonstrate. Go ahead and think of a gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered professional athlete. I’ll give you a minute to think about it. OK, got one?

My psychic powers are telling me that you’re thinking of a female athlete and that she plays a country club sport. Golf, perhaps, or tennis? Was I right?

I’m sure I’d make a lousy psychic, but I’m willing to bet that I was right about the gay professional athlete that you chose. It may not be surprising to you that there aren’t many openly gay athletes — bigotry and hatred have traditionally found a harbor in the sports world. To be frank, I’m not sure it would be a pragmatic professional decision for any one given athlete to come out as gay. It would probably make endorsement deals harder to get, draw a great deal of attention to the player, his team and his professional league. But I think it ought to be a foregone conclusion that there are dozens of famous athletes who have hidden (and continue to hide) their sexuality in order to play the sports they love.

Take, for example, the case of Mike Piazza. Accused of being gay by detractors for his attention to his personal appearance and his endorsement of Pert Plus, Piazza undertook a preemptive strategy to combat these “malicious” rumors. So he did what any law-abiding, litigious American citizen would do: he held a press conference to set the record straight that he is not, in fact, gay. However much we may lament the fact that our culture of celebrity worship has made Mike Piazza’s private life something that is public knowledge (and I do), his example shows the ways in which issues of sexuality are not simply ignored in sports but are treated with fear and caution.

Allow me to digress for a moment. Sunday’s AFC Championship was a television advertising executive’s wildest fantasy. It was a rematch of a budding rivalry between two teams with strong fan bases. It featured an exciting comeback that kept audiences watching until the last seconds. More than either of those things, however, I think the higher-ups at CBS had occasion to celebrate the awesome star-power that surround Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. Brady, who has been accused of “going celebrity” over the last few years, cavorts at exclusive New Year’s parties and has been linked to supermodel Gisele. Peyton Manning is practically printing money through lucrative endorsement contracts (see, for example, his genius Mastercard spots: “It’s okay, you’ve still got the best arm of any paperboy in the neighborhood!”). There can be little doubt that Brady and Manning are two of the most easily recognizable and marketable names in sports. What’s more, their success and likeability make them heroes for millions of American children. This affords them a great deal of influence and importance not just in the sports world but also in society in general. I draw attention to this influence not to suggest that Brady and Manning aren’t good role models, but to underscore the role that sports celebrity plays in American society.

Tom Brady and Peyton Manning represent some of the key masculine virtues: resourcefulness, calculation and athleticism. But they also represent masculine virtues only so far as they reinforce their heterosexuality. Learning that Peyton Manning or Tom Brady were gay would lead a great number of people to look at their athletic skill in a different light. I don’t think the most tragic result of the connection between masculinity and heterosexuality is that we demand gay athletes to hide their identities. Much more subversive and frightening is the prospect that if that connection is continually reinforced, sports in general could play a large role in continuing hatred, violence and bigotry aimed at gay people.

Tommy is a senior. You can reach him at tbennet1@swarthmore.edu.

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