The Feed: The Final Frontier

Unless you were buried in a tree stump with Punxsatawney Phil over the weekend you know that Tony Dungy became the first black coach to win a Super Bowl and that Lovie Smith became the first black coach to lose one. It was a big story in the aftermath of the game.

To Peter Vecsey it's not much of anything at all, however. Since Jackie Robinson, he writes, there's never been a racial barrier broken that's meant a bucket of warm spit.

OK, while everyone associated with the NFL was rejoicing over the last two weeks the fact Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith are the first African-Americans to coach against each other in the Super Bowl, I'm trying to figure out what's the fuss.

Vecsey writes about the NBA Finals in 1975, back when the league was still on tape delay and wasn't in the forefront of the sports world. In that series Al Attles of Golden State outcoached K.C. Jones of Washington for the title, the first time two black coaches faced off for the title in that sport. It wasn't, Vecsey writes, much of a story at all. I think if it had taken until now it would be a story and I think it's the nature of the NFL and its two week runup to the game that any story gets picked up on and blown up to a grand scale.

That was one of the few remaining hurdles for African-Americans to cross in professional sports, I think it's pretty much down to needing a black left-handed reliever to win Game Four of a World Series, and to me that's a good thing, obviously. It also means that the only real taboo left in sports is homosexuality.

I saw a brief note in a blog by Phil Arvia of the Chicago Daily Southtown this weekend which hinted that there would be a former NBA player coming out of the closet in the next week.

Something tells me NBA All-Star weekend, Feb. 17 and 18, is going to get a whole lot more interesting.

At Leigh Steinberg's annual Super Bowl party, publicist Howard Bragman told several media members one of his clients, a former NBA player, is coming out of the closet - yes, revealing his homosexuality - in a book being released on Valentine's Day.

Bragman has experience in this area. Another client, WNBA star Sheryl Swoopes, made a similar revelation last year.

Of the former NBA player, Bragman would only say that he was not an ex-Bull, that he's been out of the league for "about three years" and that he was not a star player.

I'll admit my first guess was Christian Laettner, although he hasn't been out of the game quite that long. There were always rumors about him and whatnot, he never played for the Bulls and, well, that's just who came to mind. I know he fails the star player test but figured perhaps they were talking strictly about the guy's NBA career.

Dwil at Sports on my Mind and the guys at The Big Lead (they posted it at the Fanhouse as well) did my idle speculating one better though and did some investigating that turned up the name of both the book and the player. It's former Penn State, Magic and Jazz center John Amaechi and he will be discussing his homosexuality in his forthcoming book "Man in the Middle."

How this gets covered will be of great interest. The last time a player went public about being gay, that I remember, was Esera Tuolo who had been with the Minnesota Vikings and it was met with a bunch of NFL players making derogatory comments about playing, showering and sharing a locker room with a gay teammate. Let's see if pro athletes have come any further since then.

November 2007