Basketball
star Sheryl Swoopes, a three-time Olympic gold medalist and
three-time MVP of the WNBA, has come out publicly as a
lesbian, making her the highest-profile team sport athlete
to come out while playing.
Swoopes,
34, has been hired as a spokeswoman for Olivia Cruises,
which specializes in tour packages for lesbians. In
connection with this, she is doing an extensive round of
interviews with media outlets to talk about her decision to
come out.
Swoopes told ESPN the magazine
for their issue hitting newsstands Wednesday that she is
"tired of having to hide my feelings about the person I care
about."
Swoopes, a
native Texan who led Texas Tech to the 1993 NCAA title and
the Houston Comets to four WNBA crowns, becomes the rarest
of athletes – someone who comes out publicly during their
career. No North American male team sport athlete has ever
done so. Among women, WNBA star Sue Wicks declared she was a
lesbian two years ago, and Michelle Van Gorp of the
Minnesota Lynx did the same last year. Wicks, however, would
not discuss anything besides her declaration to a New York
City weekly newspaper.
Swoopes
is the most prominent team sport athlete to declare her
homosexuality. How big? She is the first woman to have a
Nike shoe named after her, “Air Swoopes,” in 1995. She is
author of a children’s book, “Bounce Back.” She’s won two
ESPY awards. She helped lead the USA to Olympic gold in
1996, 2000 and 2004. And she’s still at the top of her game,
leading the WNBA in 2005 in points scored per game and
minutes played among other categories.
It will be
hard for sports fans to miss Swoopes in the upcoming days.
She appears Thursday on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” and
will be featured in the New York Times, Boston Globe,
Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles
Times, Associated Press, ESPN the Magazine, ESPN, MSNBC, Fox
Sports Net, Gay.com, Planet Out and Outsports (where she
will have a Friday interview).
“That’s
awesome, that’s incredible, that’s a huge step for gays in
sports. I’m really happy for her,” Esera Tuaolo, a former
NFL player who came out to great fanfare in 2002 after he
retired, told Outsports. Tuaolo said it was courageous of
Swoopes to come out while still playing.
“Maybe this
will help other athletes who are wrestling with whether to
come out of the closet,” Tuaolo said, adding that the
reaction to Swoopes will be a key factor. “She should just
know that she has support. When you come out, you find a new
family and we’re all going to rally around her.”
Helen Carroll, who runs the Homophobia in Sports
project for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, is a
former college basketball coach and says Swoopes'
announcement "dispels comments" by coaches like Penn State's
Rene Portland who say they don't want lesbians on
their team.
"This can
change the landscape for women in sports and also for
spectators and fans to see an athlete the caliber of Sheryl
Swoopes simply speaking the truth and being the whole person
she is," Carroll told Outsports.
The
decision by Swoopes to go public came after she and her
partner, Alisa Scott, booked an upcoming Olivia cruise. Through an
intermediary, Swoopes wound up meeting with Olivia CEO Amy
J. Errett in August in Los Angeles. Errett offered Swoopes
an endorsement contract that she accepted. Swoopes, who is
playing in Italy this fall, flew to Houston this week to
begin telling her story to various media outlets. Reporters
who interviewed her on Wednesday said she admitted to being
nervous but also articulate and confident.
“This is
phenomenal,” Errett told Outsports. “It’s a really big thing
for sports, for Sheryl personally … and a big thing for gay
African American community.”
The endorsement deal is worth about six figures, the New
York Times quoted Errett as saying. Swoopes told the Times "she
had struggled with debt that forced her to file for
bankruptcy in 2004 because she mismanaged her money." The
paper cited "bankruptcy records from June 2004 [that] show
that Swoopes owed $711,050, including $275,000 to the
Internal Revenue Service. When her Chapter 13 bankruptcy
claim was dismissed last month, she had not paid all of her
creditors in full." Swoopes said she is "working on things."
Swoopes,
who named her 8-year-old son Jordan Michael Jackson after
Michael Jordan, joins tennis legend Martina Navratilova and
pro golfer Rosie Jones as athletes who endorse the cruise
company.
Oct. 26,
2005
List of Out Athletes
'
