Month: June 2011

Auburn’s Cam Newton parlayed a Heisman win into the No.1 pick in the NFL draft, while the previous winner, Alabama’s Mark Ingram, was picked in the first round, so obviously, winning the award with the famous stiff-arm is a big deal. Here is a look at the top five to watch going into the 2011 […]

Former Villanova star Will Sheridan came out in May. Have we reached a tipping point in the gays in sports debate? Will we be seeing an openly gay pro athlete soon? Will it be that big a deal? I have been thinking about this a lot in the aftermath of a wild eight weeks that […]

Here is an “It Gets Better” video with a twist: Straight players telling why they enjoy playing in a gay-oriented league. The players are with the DC Gay Flag Football League. Their stories dovetail with my experience here in LA with our flag football league. This season, about a third of the players are straight […]

The NHL needed to do something about the increasing violence in hockey, and they started with suspending Vancouver’s thug Aaron Rome (right) for the rest of the Stanley Cup Finals for his vicious hit on Boston’s Nathan Horton. The video is after the jump, but if you haven’t seen it, Rome illegally and violently sailed […]

From the Muddy York rugby club in Toronto comes this clever and creative recruiting video. "The Gay Who Wasn't Gay Enough: Coming Out of the Closet Was the Easy Part" has great production values and a terrific sense of humor. It is worth a watch: From the Muddy York rugby club in Toronto comes this […]

We have written a lot about rugby player Ben Cohen, who has now retired and started his StandUp foundation. His goal is to fight homophobia, specifically in sports. Cohen sat down last week with Thomas Roberts on MSNBC to discuss his recent tour of the U.S. and what he hopes to accomplish. Roberts, himself openly […]

Sam Maden and his late uncle Chris Nutile The Boston Red Sox have announced they will produce an anti-bullying "It Gets Better" video. The Red Sox will be the third Major League Baseball team to do so; the San Francisco Giants released theirs last week and the Chicago Cubs announced Friday they will produce one. […]

We are so thrilled to have Fox Sports columnist Jason Whitlock, one of our favorite sports columnists, join our podcast this week to discuss his column about why he’s jealous of gay people. We talked about why black athletes are more homophobic, how gay people are using sports to promote equality, and Whitlock lets on […]

Equality California’s Swim For Equality is now accepting registrations for this year’s swims! On June 26 in San Francisco, and on September 24 in Malibu, more than 100 swimmers will swim off the coast to raise critical awareness and funds to advance LGBT rights in California. Do you have what it takes to make it […]

A federal judge in Washington state ruled that NAGAAA, the national gay softball association that runs the annual Gay Softball World Series, can keep its rule that limits the number of straight players per team. However, he allowed a lawsuit against NAGAAA by three men to go to trial. US District Judge John Coughenour wrote […]

Just days after the San Francisco Giants became the first pro sports team to release an ‘It Gets Better’ video to combat homophobia in sports, the Chicago Cubs have announced they will record a video at the end of their current road trip. The Cubs have embraced the gay community, including donations (enumerated in their […]

After seeing San Francisco Giants pitcher Barry Zito appear in the team’s It Gets Better video, I was reminded of the great cartoon Dylan Edwards did for us back in 2002 when Zito was with the Oakland As. I thought the cartoon perfectly captured the stereotypes gays and straights have about sexual orientation and figured […]

The San Francisco Giants have released the It Gets Better video they said was in the works. And they didn’t hold back. Superstar Barry Zito is the featured player in the video, along with players Matt Cain, Sergio Romo, Andres Torres, and also Giants hitting coach Hensley “Bam Bam” Muelens. The message includes English, Spanish […]

We got this in today from Roger Brigham, a high school wrestling coach, Gay Games advocate and longtime sportswriter. We couldn’t think of a more perfect person to launch the project advocating equality for gay coaches, and he’s joined by many of our favorite people: Lou Tharp, Mari Burningham, Helen Carroll, Pat Griffin, Dan Woog […]