Scamp
10-30-2005, 08:25 AM
Kate Benson Allen played at Shawnee Mission South and Nebraska in the 1990s. She’s heterosexual, but had gay teammates, roommates and friends in college and thinks it’s imperative for the issue to be in the open.
“On my team at Nebraska, it was a massive ordeal, and I think it greatly affected how we performed,” she said. “I would say at one point that about half of our 15-player roster was gay. The problems we had weren’t because anyone was gay. They were because no one could really honestly acknowledge it.
“We had sports psychologists come in to work on team-building, but it would have been so much better — and probably have helped us solve most of our issues — if we could have just talked about it. You have some people in relationships for the first time in their lives, and sometimes with teammates. There were people who were trying to be themselves for the first time. Sometimes, they just needed some advice, some mentoring.
“And I don’t know if a lot of head coaches feel comfortable in that situation talking to them, especially if the coach is gay and they’re worried about their employment.”
Allen said that as a straight player, she had to deal with other people’s assumptions that she might be gay because she was an athlete and had gay roommates.
“That just seemed ridiculous to me, so I didn’t really care what they thought,” she said. “But I had teammates who told me that on recruiting visits, their parents would ask the coaches if there were lesbians in the program. My parents didn’t; it wasn’t a concern to them. Not every family really cares or makes a big deal of that. They just want their kid to have a good experience and get an education.”
Allen is now executive director of the Blue Valley Educational Foundation. She also coaches recreational and AAU girls basketball teams. So she sees that lesbianism is still an issue in recruiting. For some players, it is a religious matter and of serious concern.
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/sports/13032608.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
We are so lucky to have Mechelle Voepel covering Big 12 women's basketball (and the rest of the NCAA and the WNBA, too).
“On my team at Nebraska, it was a massive ordeal, and I think it greatly affected how we performed,” she said. “I would say at one point that about half of our 15-player roster was gay. The problems we had weren’t because anyone was gay. They were because no one could really honestly acknowledge it.
“We had sports psychologists come in to work on team-building, but it would have been so much better — and probably have helped us solve most of our issues — if we could have just talked about it. You have some people in relationships for the first time in their lives, and sometimes with teammates. There were people who were trying to be themselves for the first time. Sometimes, they just needed some advice, some mentoring.
“And I don’t know if a lot of head coaches feel comfortable in that situation talking to them, especially if the coach is gay and they’re worried about their employment.”
Allen said that as a straight player, she had to deal with other people’s assumptions that she might be gay because she was an athlete and had gay roommates.
“That just seemed ridiculous to me, so I didn’t really care what they thought,” she said. “But I had teammates who told me that on recruiting visits, their parents would ask the coaches if there were lesbians in the program. My parents didn’t; it wasn’t a concern to them. Not every family really cares or makes a big deal of that. They just want their kid to have a good experience and get an education.”
Allen is now executive director of the Blue Valley Educational Foundation. She also coaches recreational and AAU girls basketball teams. So she sees that lesbianism is still an issue in recruiting. For some players, it is a religious matter and of serious concern.
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/sports/13032608.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
We are so lucky to have Mechelle Voepel covering Big 12 women's basketball (and the rest of the NCAA and the WNBA, too).