A day before Jason Collins signed his second 10-day contract with the Brooklyn Nets on Wednesday, a curious thing happened. Not one question was directed toward Collins or regarding his pending signing at practice on Tuesday.
Instead, it was a rather ordinary day for the Nets, with talk of the team’s climb back to .500 and of the team’s renewed defense. And for Cyd Zeigler, co-founder of Outsports.com, a website dedicated to the happenings of gay athletes — like Collins — the lack of interest wasn’t a surprise.
“This story is over for us,” he said in a phone interview last Monday, discussing how the narrative of Collins being the first openly gay player in league history has kind of run its course. “I mean, (I) suppose if he plays in the playoffs, I suppose there’s another angle at some point. If he leads the team in scoring then we’ll write about that. (But outside of that) we’re done with the story.”
And that’s fine with Zeigler because it suggests that Collins can finally get on with the business of playing basketball without having to continually address what it means to be a gay player. It also punches a hole in the notion that gay athletes will have a hard time assimilating into pro sports or that there presence will somehow disrupt team chemistry because Collins’ transition has been so seamless, says Zeigler, who helped orchestrate the announcement that former Missouri defensive end Michael Sam is gay.
“We’ve been told by the media that there’s going to be a huge media circus around the first gay player (and) that’s going to distract the team to the point that they cannot win and that the fans are going to reject him,” Zeigler said. “All this stuff we’ve been told by the media…has been a lie.”
As a result, Zeigler believes that Sam’s indoctrination into the NFL will be as smooth as Collins- as long as Sam carries his weight as a player.
“If he can help them win that’s going to be the beginning, middle and end of it,” Zeigler said. “And certainly some athletes and some front office people (will) wonder about the negative aspects…because they just don’t understand the issues. We’ve done (numerous) stories at Outspots and every single one of them is accepted by the team when they come out.”
As for the seemingly livelier mood of an NFL locker room, Zielger said it can’t be any more boisterous than an SEC locker room like the one Sam played for at Missouri, when his teammates knew he was gay.
“Nobody will care,” Zeigler says. “Everyone wants to keep pointing to what hasn’t happened, saying, ‘No, Jason Collins came out but it’s going to be even harder in an NFL locker room.’ It’s the same thing- the athletes want to win and that’s it. So I just keep chuckling- all of this stuff is nonsense and people are finally seeing that it was all nonsense all along.”
ONE BUM OF AN OPERA
Chalk this one up in the category of “I never thought I’d see those three words in the same sentence”: Bum Phillips opera.
Yes, that is not a misprint, as the late Houston Oilers and New Orleans Saints coach and Texas icon is getting his due in the world more commonly associated with Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo. Get ready for the “Bum Phillips All-American Opera,” which officially opens March 15 at La MaMa’s Ellen Stewart Theatre, at 66 East 4th in the East Village.
The opera’s director, Luke Leonard, who earned his MFA from the Univ. of Texas in Austin, was born in Houston in 1975, the year Phillips took the reins of the Oilers.
“It’s a testament to Bum’s impact that those are my earliest recollections,” Leonard tells The Score. “People say, ‘You were a baby when Bum was coach,’ but that’s how big he was. My memories of Bum Phillips are not associated with winning and losing, they’re associated with childhood.”
Leonard says there have been a lot of obstacles getting the opera to the finish line, but that he has “always been up for a challenge.” When he was getting his graduate degree, Leonard would hear the roar of a crowd at Longhorns’ home games — “It sounded like the Roman Coliseum,” he says. Wade Phillips, Bum’s son and a former NFL coach with the Cowboys, Broncos and Bills, will attend a special benefit performance March 20.
Leonard says Gary Ramsey, who plays Bum, “is a fantastic baritone,” and that Anlami Shaw will play Hall of Fame running back Earl Campbell. “We thought a Bum Phillips musical felt like a gimmick,” says Leonard. “It just seemed right, opera is that big, football is that big, to put the two together. It’s probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
A-10 TOURNEY BRINGS A-1 ENTERTAINMENT
The Atlantic 10 men’s basketball tournament has produced plenty of NCAA tournament-quality games over the last few years and this year’s edition at Barclays Center beginning Wednesday should be no different.
If the tournament began Sunday, as many as six conference teams — St. Louis, UMass, Virginia Commonwealth, George Washington, St. Joseph’s and Dayton — could wind up in the tournament.
With that in mind, Barclays Center is stepping up its promotion of the five-day event which concludes with Sunday’s championship game.
Prior to Saturday’s semifinals, there will be a Battle of the Bands featuring the second semifinal’s pep bands in the Daily News Plaza. The conference and Barclays Center are teaming up to launch a ticket exchange program to reallocated unused event tickets to youth social service agences for use as a merit system for underprivileged children through the Most Valuable Kids organization. There also will be two sessions set aside for Atlantic 10 Championships Heroes Day on Thursday and Sunday in which all military personnel, Wounded Warrior Project, police officers, firefighters and first responders can purchase a ticket for $10.
As if March Madness wasn’t exciting enough.
NEW YORK: ONE HALL OF A VACATION
Now batting for Gov. Andrew Cuomo, No. 6, Joe Torre.
The former Yankees manager steps up to the plate for the Governor’s newest tourism campaign. In a 30-second television spot, the four-time World Series winner promotes the Baseball Hall of Fame as one of upstate New York’s greatest attractions.
The ad depicts a father trying to converse with his son about school as they drive to Cooperstown, but the child isn’t interested, giving one-word answers. But the son is very talkative after walking through the museum for our national pastime, glowing at seenig Hank Aaron’s uniform and Rickey Henderson’s cleats.
Torre, who will be inducted in the Hall in July, offers the following sales pitch:
“In New York State you’ll find history, legends and just the thing to get the conversation started.
I’m Joe Torre. I’m headed to the Baseball Hall of Fame. You should too.”
