Word on the street is we almost had a NFL player come out to the world last spring... But the plans fell apart.
According to the Bleacher Report, the player were set to make this happen, and then, POOF! Nothing.
What went wrong? Well, many teams were are not ready. The process could take a lot and some teams didn't have the efficient tools for success. Also, several teams passed on the player, making it challenging to move forward positively.
Bleacher Report listed more reasons, check them out after the jump:
Sad this didn't happen
First: Estimates of how many gay players are in the NFL range widely, but some of them, from people intimately familiar with the league, are far higher than might be assumed by the outside public.
Players and team executives give totals ranging from several dozen to several hundred. (There are about 2,000 players in the league.) One former general manager said he believes the number of gay players is 30-40.
Second: The NFL and union know the identities of some gay players, according to many sources—a gay-rights advocate, a union official and a team official. The league and union learn who these players are from other players and coaches. They keep the identities of these players secret. In some cases, teams do so to protect the players. In many cases, teams learn the identities to avoid signing them as free agents.
Third: The league office backs the idea of an openly gay player, but one high-ranking league official believes the NFL isn't yet ready for one. League executives think football is three to five years away from accepting such a player, according to an NFL source. The league plans to carefully and deliberately make the atmosphere more tolerant and comfortable in the meantime, setting the stage for when that happens.
The NFL actually wants an openly gay player because it would be one of the last barriers broken in the sport and show professional football as a tolerant sport. And not everyone thinks the league needs to wait. Another league-office executive said the NFL is ready now. "We are prepared," he stated. "The league would give the player and his team all the support necessary."
In response to this story the NFL issued a statement saying all players are protected by the NFL's Personal Conduct Policy. A manual given to every player during training camp includes language about violent or threatening behavior between employees inside and outside of the workplace. It includes documents relating to sexual harassment and sexual orientation.
Fourth: Some individual franchises, however, are not as enthusiastic about the prospect as the league office seems to be. Several team officials say the largest obstacle to an openly gay player is the resistance of a significant number of NFL owners and a smaller number of general managers and coaches.
Fifth: Many in the league are fearful of acting or even speaking on this subject. Quite simply, teams remain terrified of signing an openly gay player.
3 comments:
Sad it didn't happen, but this is proof that it's going to happen.
To prepare, the NFL needs to preemptively provide their coaches and players with the proper media training, and diversity education. Every team in the NFL has Gay players that team mates and coaches are aware of.
Too much media attention from "activists " who were not actually in the loop but enjoyed their 15 minutes of fame. The gay activists (Ayanbedejo, Kluiwe, Davis, etc) should prepare as well. Then they all should sit back and STFU until a player feels like he’s ready.
Interesting that the estimate is 30 or 40 out of 2000 players. That comes out to exactly 2%.
However what Kinsey showed us was the range of exclusive homosexuality (Kinsey 6) was more a range than a fixed that could go anywhere from 3% to 10%. So pick 5% and that means there are likely closer to 100 gay players in the NFL.
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