Bill Russell Likens the Challenges of Today's Gay Athletes to those he Faced

I'm nor certain whether this article is a rerun of an earlier one or is new.  Either way, I think the title is a bid for sensationalism because it could easily be interpreted as Russ bashing gays.  (Maybe that's just me.)  But he has some interesting and relevant things to say.

Sam


Bill Russell, Boston Celtics Veteran, Sounds Off On Gay Athletes
   |  By JIM VERTUNO   

 
 

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — NBA Hall of Famer Bill Russell said Wednesday that gay athletes' current fight for equality and acceptance reminds him of some of the same struggles black athletes faced in the 1960s.

Russell, who won 11 NBA championships with the Boston Celtics, said talk about whether gay athletes can be good teammates or if they might disrupt locker rooms are the same questions black athletes heard years ago, when colleges and professional leagues were struggling with the concept of integration.

"It seems to me, a lot of questions about gay athletes, were the same questions they used to ask about us," Russell said during a panel discussion at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, which is hosting a summit celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act.

Russell said he would have only one question about a gay teammate: Can he play?
Russell, 80, joined NFL Hall of Fame running back Jim Brown, 78, on a panel about sports and race during the three-day Civil Rights Summit. Former President Bill Clinton is scheduled to address the summit Wednesday night, and President Barack Obama is scheduled to speak Thursday.

Brown and Russell were key figures, as athletes and black leaders, during the civil rights movement. Both men said they approached civil rights as a struggle for respect for human beings based on their character and merit, not the color of their skin.
Their comments came just hours after UMass basketball player Derrick Gordon became the first openly gay player in Division I men's basketball.

The former athletes also addressed the question of whether college athletes should be able to form unions and collectively bargain with their universities. Brown said he opposed unionizing college athletes, but also said he disliked the model of the NCAA.
"It's not going to be a struggle between the NCAA and the union, that will just be (about) money ... put the value back on education," Brown said.

Russell, however, remembered fighting to form the NBA players union to get better contracts. That only worked when players threatened to sit out an all-star game and the playoffs, Russell said.

"All great fortunes are amassed with either cheap or slave labor," Russell said. "The NCAA is the one group everybody is focusing on. They have this money machine. To keep it this way, the labor force has to be free or very low wages ... All the agreements with the NBA now are based on collective bargaining."

i don't see this article as bashing gays at all.  Quite the opposite.  He's saying the same things gays are saying "we can do this just as well or better than you if you give us a chance and if we can't then that's why we shouldn't be here and no other reason".  Athletes, military service personnel; both groups that fear their esprit de corps will suffer if someone is uncomfortable being around gays (as if boot camp for recruits and advanced SEAL/Ranger/Recon/Delta training isn't deliberately uncomfortable both mentally and physically and they're expected to overcome these roadblocks to success and focus on their job, or resign).

This will probably continue to be a struggle, even if it's just a low level intra-locker room grumble, until a player of Russ's or LeBron's or Jackie Robinson's abilities come along and everybody has to admit that getting along with that player helps the team more than any other resolution.  That's what happened despite Jackie, Russ and pretty every other trailblazer in every endeavor, in every field.

Bill Russell was a leader in the civil rights movement for an oppressed minority of which he was a member.  All this article says to me is that it truly was the principle of equality for which he fought and not just for what was in it for him and his family and friends.


bob



.

Bob, I didn't mean the article, in any way shape or form, had overtones of gay bashing.  If you'll read my brief comment again, my issue was solely with the title, which I felt was sufficiently ambiguous that it could have represented an invitation to anyone who would delight in the prospect of "getting something" on Russell.  In other words, a double entendre title that had an intentional ring of sensationalism.

Sam