Via ESPN.com

By Michael Bennett

The saga of Manti Te'o and controversy surrounding Chris Culliver only emphasize how far we have to go when it comes to homophobia in sports.

I swore to myself that I wouldn’t contribute to the Manti Te’o frenzy. Every day there is some “new development,” saying this guy faked a phone call, or that guy was in on it the whole time; This guy is gay but “confused,” and that guy is “faaaar from it.” The only thing I know for sure is that even after we’re sick and tired of this story, it will continue to have legs at water coolers, bar counters and dinner tables. You can’t help but talk about something so absurd, especially with so much left to be discovered. So don’t worry guys, Dr. Phil and the gay police are on a mission!

The biggest problem — for me, at least — is that this story is getting all the wrong kind of attention. We’re too busy worrying about why someone would fake a girlfriend or why a friend would trick his man-crush into falling in love with him, or whatever is going on in this Twelfth Night adaptation. And in the meantime, we’re missing out on the broader, more important issue: the shameless and cowardly homophobia that runs rampant through the sports world. 

No male athlete in a major professional sport has ever identified himself as homosexual during his career, and in many ways it’s understandable. That brave soul would have to deal with the homophobic backlash from fans and rivals, as well as those in his own locker room. He’d have to worry about teammates always making sure that he isn’t checking them out, or that he isn’t getting too comfortable in the pile-on, or that he’s not uttering any of the hundreds of sports cliches that carry homosexual undertones. That’s all on top of the basic challenge of playing his sport at the highest level, where if he has a bad practice, doesn’t make a catch, or lets in the game-winning goal, the whispers will start up that maybe he failed because he’s too gay.

The Te’o coverage has only emphasized to me that these are the attitudes that a gay athlete would face, day in and day out. When Katie Couric asked the Notre Dame linebacker if he was gay, he sat back, laughed and as his eyes widened, said, “far from it.” Instead of responding with a “why do you care” or “that’s not an issue” or anything else that would have made the question look stupid, he chose a cowardly laugh.

“Far from it.” Far from what, exactly? So far from being gay that you fell in love with a fake Internet girlfriend? How masculine of you, Manti! Don’t worry, guys, he’s not gay, just fell in love with the wrong cyber girl. They were definitely having heterosexual cyber sex, but don’t tell Notre Dame.

If that didn’t drive home how far we have to still have to go, then San Francisco 49ers cornerback Chris Culliver this week brought an extra-large hammer to finish the job. In an interview, he said that “we don’t got no gay people on the team, they gotta get up out of here if they do.” I’m not sure whether it’s the grammar or content that makes me [sic] to my stomach. 

He later apologized, saying that the thoughts were “in my mind” but “that’s not what I feel in my heart.” But the reality is that he was just the guy young and oblivious enough to voice the feelings shared by numerous players in the NFL.

So what can we do while we wait for that brave soul to face down the blatant homophobia of professional sports? We can support programs like the You Can Play Project, which is dedicated to eradicating homophobia and promoting a safe sporting environment for athletes of any sexual orientation. We can acknowledge that Chris Culliver is not alone in his thoughts, and that homophobia can start or stop at a young age, whether in locker rooms, classrooms or at the family dinner table. We can confront that reality head on. 

Or we can keep investigating fake girlfriends. But the longer we pretend that this isn’t an issue, the longer it will be the biggest unspoken, unresolved and shameful problem in sports.

You can find out more about the You Can Play Project at youcanplayproject.org

Michael Bennett is a contributor to Began in '96 and writes on hip-hop and culture at Poetic Justice.

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By Adam Cancryn

The people harmed in the making of heroes.

Lizzy Seeberg. Declan Sullivan. Betsy Andreu. Richard Lollar. Jacinth Baker.

Remember those names. Those names belong to the little people. They belong to the ones who got in the way. The ones who threatened a Very Important Person, and in the process were defamed, tortured and even killed.

***

Lizzy Seeberg. She was 19 years old in August 2010, a freshman at St. Mary's College taking her first steps toward becoming a nurse. By September, she was dead.

What happened in between is well-chronicled and yet still shrouded in mystery.We know that Seeberg was allegedly assaulted in a dorm room one night by a Notre Dame football player, an attack cut short only by a knock on the door. She later told her friends about the episode, and then reported the assault to Notre Dame police, submitted DNA to the local hospital and sought counseling.

Then came the threats. "Don't do anything you would regret," a text from one of the player's friends read. "Messing with notre dame football is a bad idea."

She became so fearful of the backlash that she went out of her way to show support for the Fighting Irish, donning Notre Dame gear and attending the football team's home opener. That night, Seeberg would watch as her attacker take the field to the approval of thousands of fans around her. The next week, she was found dead, stomach pumped full of anti-depressants.

That's what we know. It's been more than two years now, and there have been no arrests. There has been no more information. Notre Dame and St. Mary's administrators have stonewalled reporters. The accused attacker, whose yearbook photo Seeberg showed to police, remains free and anonymous. In January, he suited up for the BCS National Championship Game. He continues to live his life, uninterrupted. You don't mess with Notre Dame football.

***

Declan Sullivan. A junior at that same so-called higher institution and the videographer for the Fighting Irish. He rode a scissor lift 50 feet in the air one day in October 2010, ordered up there by head coach Brian Kelly. Standing five stories above the practice field, winds whipped past him at more than 60 miles per hour. In between taping the team's workout, he tapped out a quick tweet: "Gusts of wind up to 60 mph. Well today will be fun at work. I guess I've lived long enough."

An hour later: "This is terrifying."

And then he was falling. After they finished loading Sullivan's battered body into an ambulance, practice continued for nearly a half-hour more.

An investigation concluded some time after Sullivan's death. It found that Kelly, the newly minted and high-profile head coach who put a 20-year-old 50 feet in the air amid high winds to tape a routine practice, had acted with the character and values in "accord with the highest standards of Notre Dame."

In January, Kelly led the Notre Dame football team and Lizzy Seeberg's alleged attacker onto the field for the BCS National Championship Game. As for Declan Sullivan, I guess he'd lived long enough.

***

Betsy Andreu. She's the wife of cyclist Freddie Andreu, and the ex-friend of Lance Armstrong. She is also the one who witnessed Armstrong confess to doping during a hospital visit in 1996, and who found herself alone when she refused to lie about it. Andreu endured a public smear campaign and private threats. She was "crazy," a "psycho" and a "bitch," according to Armstrong and his operatives. A message left on Andreu's phone hoped someone would break "a baseball bat over [her] head." For years, she was the villain. She was the one trying to tear down Lance, the Great American Hero. The public crushed her in its scramble to sit at Armstrong's feet.

It's been 17 years since Andreu sat in that hospital room. She is finally vindicated, yet the scars remain. Given a chance to make amends this past week as part of his public rehabilitation, Armstrong admitted to calling her crazy and a bitch, but: "I never called you fat."

A smug smile crept across his lips.

***

Richard Lollar and Jacinth Baker. Shortly after the St. Louis Rams won Super Bowl XXXIV, they went to a party at an Atlanta nightclub and never came home.

The man who knows why they were stabbed to death, and by whom, now prepares for his second shot at a title since that night in January 2000. Ray Lewis is an NFL icon and a sure Hall of Famer now, but back on that night was just the witness to a double murder. He then jumped into his limo, told the other passengers to "keep their mouts shut," and fled the scene.

Lewis would later negotiate a deal to drop the murder charges against him in exchange for testimony against two of his friends. In court, he refused to link those friends to the killings, and all were acquitted. Lewis paid the NFL a $250,000 fine and began a reinvention that turned him into the favored son of both Baltimore and the NFL's marketing team.

Lollar and Baker's murders remain unsolved, their families left with only grief and unanswered questions. As Lewis heads toward retirement and a cushy job at ESPN, Lollar's aunt told USA Today that she headed for the funeral home, "because that's where my nephew retired."

***

Lizzy Seeberg. Declan Sullivan. Betsy Andreu. Richard Lollar. Jacinth Baker.

Remember those names. Remember them when Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick tears up and promises justice over star linebacker Manti Te'o's fake girlfriend, yet issues no comment after no comment on the subjects of Seeberg and Sullivan. Remember them when Brian Kelly trots out onto a field surrounded by sea of cheering fans. Remember them when Lance Armstrong embarks on his image restoration tour, and when the cameras find Ray Lewis in the midst of his pregame histrionics.

These are just five of the millions like them in Steubenville and at Penn State and all around the world that threatened Very Important People, and then got swept aside. They are the victims of institutions that place power over justice, that enable the most heinous acts because to not do so would mean sacrificing money or status. It would mean tearing down heroes and exposing flaws. When there are only little people at stake, those like you or me, it's all just too inconvenient.

Lizzy Seeberg. Declan Sullivan. Betsy Andreu. Richard Lollar. Jacinth Baker.

Remember those names. Remember them because those in power desperately want us to forget. Remember them because it's the only way we can start to make things right.

Adam Cancryn is an editor and co-founder of Began in '96.

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al.com

By Adam Cancryn

Notre Dame and Alabama are the best teams left. Whether they're the most enjoyable to watch is another story.

On a crisp November night in 2011, a group of friends and I packed into a narrow Washington, D.C. bar. We were there to watch Alabama and LSU in a late-season matchup of the nation's top-ranked teams. Most everyone in that bar was there solely for that purpose too, if I recall, which was a bit odd on a Saturday night in Adams Morgan. But that's how big this game was, hyped nonstop for the past week as the most momentous meeting in recent college football history.

I hadn't seen much of either team at that point, but based on the attention surrounding them, I figured it could be a treat. At best, we'd witness some sort of history. At worst, it'd be a few enjoyable hours of football.

I was wrong. What unfolded that night was neither historic (Alabama and LSU would meet again a few weeks later in the title game) nor enjoyable. It was, quite simply, the dullest sporting experience I can remember. The teams traded three-yard runs and wobbly passes for a few quarters, crashing into each other again and again and yet rarely making it past the opposing 40-yard line. When the dust cleared, LSU had "won," 9-6, in overtime. After hanging in for the entire game in hopes that something great might happen, we fled the bar before football could inflict any more damage on our psyche.

Come the morning, though, I wondered whether I'd been watching the right channel. LSU-Alabama was hailed as an instant classic, the epitome of football at its old-school, smash-mouth best. By 1930s leather helmet standards, maybe. Here in the modern world, the term for something that produces this ugly of a box score* is "painful." The defenses were impressive, sure. But they were rarely tested, unless you count the challenge of staying awake while LSU debated which quarterback would attempt its next half-hearted throw.

* It's worth combing through the box score just to marvel at the absolute lack of offense that went on here. LSU, the best team in the country, used two quarterbacks who combined for 99 yards passing! Their starting running back averaged 1.8 yards per carry! And this was the team that won!

Needless to say, that game stuck with me in a way I imagine is most closely comparable to a bad acid trip. And this past Saturday, when quarterback A.J. McCarron flung — Tebow-like — a 45-yard touchdown pass to put Alabama up late, I immediately thought back to that night. By the time Georgia became the latest SEC team to fail at the maths portion of the game and turn three shots at the end zone into one orgy of ineptitude, that November night in 2011 was front and center in my mind. It's unavoidable now. We're in for what will surely be the most hyped snoozer of a title game possible.

That doesn't mean Alabama and Notre Dame don't deserve to be in this spot. They took care of business while others faltered, and while there are always cases to be made for other teams*, these two are abundantly reasonable choices. Fans of both schools will certainly enjoy the show.

* Florida has the best case by far, having lost only to Georgia while beating seven teams with winning records, including Texas A&M. Georgia beat just three with winning records (Florida, Georgia Southern & Vanderbilt), while Alabama lost to Texas A&M and played an easier overall schedule.

But for the rest of us: Oof. In one corner, you've got Alabama, that paragon of SEC stubbornness. Their mentality is so traditional that for much of the game against Georgia they all but abandoned the forward pass. Before McCarron's fourth-quarter fling, he'd completed four passes for 22 yards in entire the second half. The Crimson Tide's game plan is simple; they're going to run right, run left, and run up the middle and dare you to stop it. When the defense crowds the line, McCarron's leash is loosened (but just a little) to take advantage of single coverage. It's simple and effective, and brutal to watch.

I'll take three yards and a cloud of dust over Notre Dame, though. The Fighting Irish have one of the worst offenses of any ranked team this year, and are historically bad compared with previous national champions. By Sports Reference LLC's Simple Rating System, Notre Dame's offense is 1.55 points above average, good for 57th in the nation (Alabama ranked 43rd at 3.89 points). By comparison, potential title contenders Oregon, Georgia and Florida finished third, 16th and 49th, respectively. You have to go back to the 2002 Ohio State Buckeyes, quarterbacked by Craig Krenzel, to find a team anywhere close to approaching Notre Dame's lack of production. Their 12-0 record is a tribute to the defense, which held onto numerous slim leads while the offense tried to get out of its own way. That squad will have to turn in its best performance of the year against Alabama, which boasts a defense of its own that could hold the Fighting Irish to single digits.

Everyone enjoys a defensive struggle once in a while, and the national title game should certainly deliver on that. Whether that struggle is exciting is another story. There's a difference in football between competitive and enjoyable, and Alabama-Notre Dame are prime contenders to demonstrate just how wide that gap is. Keep that in mind as the chatter surrounding this game hits full volume over the next five weeks. Adjust your expectations accordingly. And if you insist on watching, do it in a group. Friends don't let friends watch a snoozer like this alone.

Adam Cancryn is an editor and co-founder of Began in '96.

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