The big sports story of the most recent 24 hour news cycle, now that we have gotten tired of looking at broken shin bones that morons posted on social media, is the abusive tirade of fired Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice.  In clips filmed at Rutgers practice he is seen kicking players, shoving players, throwing basketballs at players and at one point calling a player a “fag*ot.”  I played college basketball and never witnessed more than a coach grabbing a point guard by the shoulders or the back of a neck and sternly reiterating a point.  Curses were occasionally used (at which point my coach might then blame the team for making him cuss, which was sort of funny if you were the guy at the end of the bench working on impressions of the coaching staff), but NEVER any slurs of any kind.  In fact the closest I ever got to hearing a slur in my entire time playing basketball was when my uncle would sometimes call me a “Mary” if I was not playing tough enough in my Church league games in junior high.

If you missed Coach Mike Rice’s horrible impression of Alec Baldwin in Glenngary Glen Ross here it is:

I remember when I started at Williams College I was a fairly liberal (arts) user of the “f word.”  I never really though about what it meant, but if pressed I could have told you it was for a “gay guy.”  Williams had a gay/queer pride week, most of which I never paid attention to, except during that week each year there would be chalkings around campus that I found offensive.  Things like “Jesus sucked dick,” or “Mary ate pussy” (along with admittedly unoffensive comments regarding homosexuality) would be scrawled on campus walkways and I always thought “what purpose does that serve?”  But the college’s consistent actions of openess and inclusion (only highlighted by that week) clearly had an effect on me after four years.

I don’t know when the transformation from user of homophobic slurs, to finding them offensive occurred, but I remember the day I realized it.  I was sitting with some friends from high school during my first year of law school and one of them called someone a “fag.”  It was not meant as a matter of fact, but just as a way of calling the person stupid or having less than manly tastes in something.  I immediately said “come on man – don’t use that word” and received a backlash ranging from curiosity if I was gay to hostility at my “stupid liberal arts college” for making me too soft.  10 years later I am sure my friends’ sensibilities have changed either due to changes in heart or simply changed because of public sentiment, but I hear a lot less “fags” then I used to from my friends.  And this is not to say that once in a blue moon my old vocabulary does not crop up in my head, but I do not say it because when my sensitivity fails me I at least have a brain that tells me it is not right, even if at the moment I don’t feel that way.

However, from music and comedy to sports the F word still sturs up controversy whenever someone becomes offended by the usage of it.  The “I didn’t mean it towards a gay person,” excuse is often invoked.  Of course the unspoken part of that excuse is “I just meant it to mean shitty or stupid or weak,” which carries with it the implication that being gay has an automatic negativity associated with it. (I have come up with a new subsititute anyway – cu*t)

Now I am not here to be the next spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign.  After all I am a Catholic who has no real problem with the Church limiting marriage to heterosexual couples.  Maybe in 20 or 40 yars, or even now, that will make me a prejudiced person in some eyes.  But I also believe that civil marriage and the associated rights that the state gives to married people should be accorded to all people, gay and straight – and this represents a changed opinion of mine over time.

But the idea that slurs can still be used just because you did not directly mean it towards the usual target of the slur should not be a viable anymore.  As a half black man who appears Caucasion, or at least not black,  most of the year (look out August tan) I hear a lot of comments ranging from stereotypes to slurs against and about black people to my face or in my presence when people do not realize someone with a black father is standing near them.  Now had these people known I was half-black would most of them had made the comments? Probably not.  Does that make it OK then?  That had they been mentally prepared to exhibit better manners they would have never offended me?  In the same way, the coach of Rutgers may not have a gay player on his team.  And perhaps if he did and knew it he would have tempered his language (though perhaps not – which would make this at least more intellectually interesting, if not less or more offensive).  But so what if there are no gay players on the Rutgers basketball team – is this an appropriate way for a coach or leader, especially at a public university to conduct himself?

I don’t really have too much of a problem with the physical and verbal machismo the coach was displaying, though if I were a parent of one of those players I might say my son is a basketball player, not a member of the cast of Full Metal Jacket.  But what if there is a gay player on Rutgers – or at another college hearing the same slurs from his coach, a man who is supposed to be a leader and entrusted by the school and that player’s family with guiding the young man through a transitional point in his life.  Is hearing that stuff going to make the student-athlete feel comfortable on his team?  Perhaps his teammates do not mean anything cruel by just letting the coach’s comments go by without reply, but perhaps a 19 year old college student might feel alienated on his team and interpret their silence as condoning the sentiment behind the slur.  And the coach who made a dream come true by giving the student a scholarship as a reward for all his hard work and training is now someone who feels betrayed.  Why would a gay student athlete want to risk asking his coach or teammates if they really are OK with calling gay people “fag*ots?” On the upside he has outed himself, perhaps before he wants to, but find out his team and coach are ok and just meant it as a word and they promise not to again.  On the down side what is the worst that can happen? A lot.  But instead the burden is placed on the people judging the usage of a word to lighten up because “it was not meant that way.”

So the coach has been fired and I am OK with that.  I would have also been OK if he were given an opportunity to make amends and learn from the error of his ways, if only as a reflection of how quickly our society has moved on the issue of gay rights and sensitivity to those associated issues.  But the apology and defense of the F word needs to stop.  It is a slur.  Now if you use it in a comedy act or in a story or whatever else I am OK with that, but the whole idea of the perpetrator of a slur being the one who gets to define it has to stop.

There has been a rumor going around that an active NFL player will come out of the closet.  I think this would be a brave thing to do and an important thing at the same time.   Of course when at a football game I have heard N bombs and F bombs thrown around and it may not make a difference to that player now or in the future if the comments are meant to question his sexuality or merely his toughness.  But I just hope one thing – I hope that if the player comes out he is not a punter or a kicker because gay or straight those guys are not very tough.

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