ESPN Men's Basketball

Yesterday brought a strange confluence of gay-men-in-team-sports stories.

Of course, there was Will Sheridan's fascinating story of his semi-open lifestyle among his Villanova teammates during his college years, as written brilliantly by our own Dana O'Neil. Before Sheridan's tale went live, the New York Times published the story of longtime NBA executive Rick Welts, who decided to publicly reveal his sexual orientation after decades in the closet.

The ensuing conversation -- where do gay male athletes, long seen as would-be outcasts and pariahs, stand in the current jock culture? -- rightfully ruled the day. Sheridan appeared on ESPN's Outside the Lines. Welts spoke with the B.S. Report's Bill Simmons.

Tweets flew. Blogs reacted. Commenters commented. But for a few unfortunate examples, which I'll go ahead and choose to ignore here, the reaction was overwhelmingly encouraging. Many seemed to wonder what all the ruckus was actually about. Surprisingly, even some of the negative reactions seemed to focus on whether the story was newsworthy or not: "So what if the guy's gay? Why do I care?"

Guess what? That should be the reaction. That's how Sheridan's teammates felt. The old tropes about a gay athlete undermining his team's locker room didn't apply through four successful seasons at Villanova. Why should they apply anywhere else?

Sheridan's story was especially interesting -- beyond the basic premise, of course -- because it spoke to a generational gap. His friends, roommates and teammates had no problem with their friend's sexuality. It wasn't a constant topic of conversation. It just was. Meanwhile, Sheridan's father continues to struggle with his son's identity, even as he slowly learns to accept it.

That got me thinking: Could college sports lead the way? Discrimination toward homosexuals is much less common among younger demographics; the younger you are, the less likely you are to be intolerant toward sexual orientations that aren’t your own. College athletes are, you know, young. Maybe it's easier for a college athlete to be openly gay among members of his peer group than it would be for an NBA player who counts among his teammates longtime veterans whose attitudes were defined during earlier, less tolerant decades. We're just a few years removed from longtime NBA veteran Tim Hardaway's infamous "I hate gay people" rant. Maybe guys like that are still in the NBA. Maybe the unenlightened attitudes are still too prevalent for professionals to adapt so quickly. Maybe college hoopsters can set the example.

That might be some rambling wishful thinking, but if comments like the following from TNT and CBS analyst Charles Barkley are any indication, maybe some level of encouragement is warranted. Because Barkley is absolutely dead-on here. From the Washington Post:

After all, Barkley has no doubt he played with several gay teammates. “I didn’t think it . . . they were gay,” he said [...]. The Hall-of-Fame player and TNT analyst added he was certain he had gay teammates “on two of three teams I played on.”

“First of all, every player has played with gay guys. It bothers me when I hear these reporters and jocks get on TV and say, ‘Oh, no guy can come out in a team sport. These guys would go crazy.’ First of all, quit telling me what I think. I’d rather have a gay guy who can play than a straight guy who can’t play.”

[...] “Any professional athlete who gets on TV or radio and says he never played with a gay guy is a stone-freakin’ idiot,” Barkley said. “I would even say the same thing in college. Every college player, every pro player in any sport has probably played with a gay person."

That last bit is simple math. If you assume a certain percentage of the male population is homosexual, then at least some portion of that percentage will make its way into collegiate and professional sports locker rooms. Acting like that's not the case is ignorance. Acting like Sheridan’s story will suddenly change the nature of that locker room is ignorance. Sometimes the ignorance is chosen. Sometimes it's a default setting. But as anyone with a gay friend can tell you, that's not how things work, whether on the field or off.

Granted, there are larger concerns in the professional realm. Would being openly gay hurt endorsement possibilities? Doubtful. Would it be a prohibitive, media-driven distraction? That seems more valid. Maybe college, a more sheltered media environment where there aren't millions of personal endorsement dollars on the line, is a better place to take on some of these barriers.

Either way, the barriers are there. It's going to take a very brave person to be the first to actively confront them in the midst of a playing career, whether that career is at the collegiate or professional level.

Eventually, it will happen. In the meantime, it's clear the conversation is changing. The shock and disbelief that might have accompanied Sheridan's announcement 10 or 15 years ago seems to be fading. Now, for the most part, people -- including longtime NBA guys like Charles Barkley -- are reacting the same way Sheridan's teammates did:

Wait ... what's the big deal?

That's not about agenda, or your political beliefs, or your religious code, or anything else. That's about accepting people for who they are.

If sports retain any measure of cultural importance in 2011, that's why: On the floor, it doesn't matter what you look like, where you're from, or how much money you have. Team sports, from youth soccer to "Monday Night Football," are about what you earn and how you earn it. They test equally. They teach universally. That's why this stuff matters.

Someday soon, we'll be able to add "who you date" to that list of non-qualifiers. These games we love so much -- and the lessons they teach -- will only be better for it.

If you weren't swallowed up by football (and/or mononucleosis) this weekend, you probably already heard the news jovial NBA commentator Charles Barkley managed to generate over the weekend. If you haven't heard, Barkley admitted on Dan Patrick's radio show that he took money from agents when he was a college basketball player at Auburn. His comments:

"I got money from agents when I was in college. Most of the players I know borrow money from agents," Barkley told Dan Patrick on his radio show. He said he borrowed from two or three agents and got "Like chump change. Just walk around money." Adding "I paid them back when I went to the NBA."

"Let me tell you something, these agents are well known, and they've been giving kids money for 30 years, and I have no problem with it. Borrowing money from an agent ain't the same as a college paying you."

The question now is what to make of Barkley's oh-so-courageous admission. No, the NCAA should not start looking into old Auburn box scores. No, the Auburn Tigers should not have to vacate the three mediocre seasons Barkley spent at the school from 1981 to 1984. (In that time, Barkley's teams only qualified for one NCAA tournament; it's not as if we're talking championships here, anyway.) I think we can all agree that pretty much no one should want to punish Auburn for the walk-around money Charles Barkley says he took almost 30 years ago.

The issue here is, naturally, more philosophical. Barkley's essential stance -- that "borrowing money from an agent ain't the same as a college paying you" -- is about as wrong as one can be on this issue. Yes, it is. In fact, it's worse. If a college pays you, at least you're taking part in a one-to-one transaction: You're getting paid for the financial value you generate for your school, same as any other business. That seems at least somewhat fair. If an agent is paying you, there's no such agreement. The lines become blurred. All manner of nefarious situations become possible. The very core of what the NCAA is doing becomes null and void. Dogs and cats lay down together. Mass hysteria.

There are arguments to be made for paying college athletes, and I'm one of those crazy dudes who think we ought to hear a few of them. But if a college kid is going to be rewarded for his ability on the field in financial terms, a borrow-lease situation with an agent is the absolute last way that should happen. I think we can all agree on that.