It's interesting that we've yet to see a major-league male athlete "out" himself while he was playing; a few have come forward after they retired, with John Amaechi being the most notable to me. I recall liking him as a player, a thoughtful Brit that didn't fit the dumb jock mode, but we found out after the fact that he really didn't fit the mold.
On the woman's side, the taboo isn't as big of an issue. Martina Navratilova played a good chunk of her career out and a number of WNBA gals have announced their honorary citizenship of the isle of Lesbos.
It became a bigger issue today, 6'8" big. The first pick in the recent WNBA draft, Brittney Griner, outed herself. She's good enough to be considered a NBA prospect, as Dallas Mav's owner Mark Cuban has mused about using a second-round pick on her for the regular NBA draft, or at least giving her an invite to training camp.
She might be a bit skinny to make it in the NBA, as she'd either need to get some muscle to play power forward with the guys or get an outside game to move to the small forward position. However, she's a dunking, shot-blocking freak of a talent among the distaff side; Anthony Davis at 7'3" might be a male analogue.
One of the things that comes to mind on the outing is that she's a senior at Baylor. Baptist Baylor... center-left Baptist, but Baptist nonetheless. She might have had some problems with the school's code of conduct had she gone public sooner, like the BYU guy two years ago who got kicked off the team for pre-marital sex.
It would be interesting if the first openly gay NBAer was a woman; she wouldn't have to worry about getting hit on, just getting hit driving to the rack
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