Creepy, kooky, mysterious and very gay - Dallas Voice

28 dallasvoice.com • 09.28.12
l+s sports
Scouts’ honor?
BSA could learn something from
Major League Soccer
Earlier this summer, after a supposed twoyear,
super-secret study by a group of unnamed
people, the Boy Scouts of America announced
that their next hike would take them all the way
back to the 1950s. The Scouts vowed to deny
their own law mandating values like courtesy
and kindness by continuing to ban gays at every
level of scouting, from the youngest Tenderfoot
through the oldest administrator.
That portion of America not stuck in the 1950s
reacted with outrage. Editorial writers tsk-tsked.
Eagle Scouts returned their badges.
And Major League Soccer acted. Within days,
president Mark Abbott announced that the
league’s seven-month-old strategic partnership
— including cross-promotions, “Scout Nights”
at stadiums with discount tickets and player visits
to local BSA troops — would not be renewed.
MLS cited “a variety of business reasons” for
the alliance’s abrupt end. But the connection was
clear. Since when does an organization go out of
its way, seven months after its start, to announce
that five months later a partnership will end?
This was not the first time the soccer league
acted so decisively. In March, officials fined and
suspended Dynamo’s Colin Clark for three
games after the midfielder screamed “faggot” at
a ball boy who was slow to toss him a ball during
a game. Weeks earlier, the Vancouver Whitecaps
gave Lee Nguyen a “formal warning” for
tweeting the word “fag” to describe a teammate.
Soccer seems to be a sports world leader in
many LGBT-related ways. The MLS team
Chicago Fire has hooked up with Equality Illinois
in a very visible way. Team reps marched
with the organization’s float — and its “I Do”
support marriage equality banner — during
June’s Chicago Pride Parade. Players Gonzalo
Segares and Jay Nolly showed up at an Equality
networking cocktail party. Last month, the Fire
donated a portion of ticket sales at their Pride
Night to Equality Illinois’ Education Project.
Meanwhile Chivas USA sponsored Equality
Night with a pre-game reception with the NOH8
campaign. The Los Angeles Gay Men’s Chorus
sang the national anthem. The It Gets Better Project
staffed a booth at Home Depot Center’s main
concourse. Cheerleaders performed a halftime
routine to “Born This Way.”
Soccer fans have started private efforts to get
professional soccer players to publicly affirm
their support for gay rights with a drive at
Gay4Soccer.com. (The tagline: “Because soccer
isn’t gay, but once in awhile it kinda is.”) The online
petition, signed by scores of players (including
national team members Carlos Bocanegra
and Jay DeMerit, broadcaster Kyle Martino,
Sports Illustrated senior writer Grant Wahl, and
whole team fan clubs), says “sports are about
fairness and equality, respect and dignity. Sports
MLS player David Testo came out last year.
teach individuals how to strive and succeed,
how to cope with success and disappointment,
and to bring people together to achieve a common
goal.” Take that, BSA!
Petition signers promise to reach out to LGBT
people and make soccer “a welcome, inviting
and inclusive place for everyone.”
It already seems to be. Late last year, David
Testo quietly came out. He’d been in the closet as
a player with the MLS Columbus Crew — and
before that, when he helped the University of
North Carolina win the NCAA Division I championship
— but after moving to the Montreal
Impact in the second division, most teammates
knew. Testo said he felt comfortable with teammates
and coaches, and they with him. That’s
the kind of low-key coming-out tale the sports
world is ready for, but scouting can’t understand.
It’s actually easy to understand why the North
American soccer world supports LGBT issues so
fervently. Soccer is a game that celebrates independent
thinking. Unlike most other sports,
where coaches call timeouts and diagram plays
— particularly football, where every block and
pass pattern must be executed to perfection —
soccer players constantly figure out problems on
their own. They don’t need to be told what to do;
they know the right thing to do, and they do it.
Soccer is also an international game. Players
are used to teammates with different nationalities
and accents who do little differently. Sexuality
is just one more difference to appreciate.
The Scouts’ oath includes the words “physically
strong, mentally awake and morally
straight.” But it’s Major League Soccer — and
millions of fans — that truly walks that talk. •
— Dan Woog