By David KalanThe Daily Northwestern

Jon Amaechi is gay.

Yes, gay. A homosexual.

This week he became the first NBA player to come out of the closet, though he didn’t do it while he was active.

But in my opinion the only reason I should ever have heard about him is because he’s 6-foot-10 and has a knack for putting a leather ball into a hoop.

Well, not much of one if you look at his career numbers, but that’s not important. The key is with another athlete out of the closet we once again face the question of whether or not an openly gay athlete could survive while playing.

The answer appears to be, “Not really.”

Whenever an athlete comes out, we get a barrage of stupid comments from other professional athletes. This time it was no different.

They weren’t as offensive as Jeremy Shockey saying he wouldn’t stand for a gay teammate on the Howard Stern show, or when Garrison Hearst told the Fresno Bee, “I don’t want any f—–s on my team.”

If football players are that afraid of being close to other males they shouldn’t play a sport where muscular men grapple and squeeze each other with tight pants on.

Most NBA players insisted this week it doesn’t matter to them as long as he plays hard. But it always comes with one caveat: “As long as he doesn’t hit on me.”

Why?

According to ESPN.com, Lebron James had the bizarre reaction of saying if you were gay and didn’t admit it to the locker room it meant you broke the sacred trust of being teammates, which I guess is progress of a sort. But why do the rest have the typical, “stay away from me” reaction.

Philadelphia 76ers center Steven Hunter falls into this category, having said in that same article he didn’t care as long as his gay teammate didn’t make any advances on him.

Fellow Sixer Shavlik Randolph was somewhat less eloquent, “As long as you don’t bring your gayness on me I’m fine.”

Do they know homosexuality isn’t contagious? It’s not pinkeye.

And just because your teammate is gay, it doesn’t mean they want to sleep with you. I’m a heterosexual but there are plenty of women I have no interest in sleeping with.

Gay men don’t want to sleep with every man they see. And if a gay man did make an advance on me, frankly, I’d be kind of flattered.

But these quotes still infer hesitancy and weariness about homosexuals in locker rooms.

There isn’t much difference between myself and a gay man and there is even less to be afraid of.

Unfortunately, the world of sports hasn’t come to grips with that yet. And we won’t know if it has until we don’t have to ask these questions anymore.

David Kalan is a Weinberg senior. He is surprisingly PC every Friday. Reach him at [email protected].