General Discussion

dsc

(52,162 posts) Wed Feb 27, 2013, 11:44 AM Feb 2013

In case you are wondering why we still have no openly gay NFL players this might give a clue

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/26/nfl-combine-gay-nick-kasa_n_2770102.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

NFL prospect Nick Kasa was asked by scouts about his sexual orientation at the NFL Combine, the tight end said in a radio interview on Tuesday.

Kasa, a senior at the University of Colorado, is one of a few hundred players who participated this week in the NFL Scouting Combine, an annual showcase for NFL prospects in advance of April's draft. Over the course of the Combine, participants submit themselves for a variety of physical and mental tests, as well as interviews with NFL teams. According to Kasa, it was during these interviews that the topic of his sexual preferences came up.

“[Teams] ask you like, ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’ Are you married?’ Do you like girls?’” Kasa told CJ and Kreckman of ESPN Radio Denver on Tuesday. “Those kinds of things, and you know it was just kind of weird. But they would ask you with a straight face, and it’s a pretty weird experience altogether.”

The comments come a day after Mike Florio of NBC Sports and ProFootballTalk told radio host Dan Patrick that NFL teams were extremely curious about the sexual orientation of Notre Dame's Manti Te'o. Te'o, of course, has been dogged by such questions since the Lennay Kekua bombshell dropped last month.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2013/02/nfl-manti-teo-gay/62538/

The National Football League, still reeling from a gays-in-the-locker-room controversy that overtook its last media frenzy during the Super Bowl, is now facing an emotional explosion of controversies at once at its annual rookie scouting combine: Manti Te'o, the hoax victim and would-be NFL linebacker who has denied throughout his fake-girlfriend scandal that he is gay, is reportedly raising eyebrows among general managers doing the hiring who "want to know" about his sexuality — all this as teams refuse to speak out about gay players and critics charge that GMs still actively recruit players with criminal pasts.

At the week-long combine for college-football standouts in Indianapolis, Te'o has been underperforming athletically and facing a sea of questions publicly, but privately NFL executives see his sexuality as "the elephant in the room," and it may or may not affect his draft status, according to the well-sourced Mike Florio of NBC Sports. "We have to step aside from the rest of reality and walk into the unique industry that is the NFL," Florio said on Dan Patrick's syndicated radio show Monday afternoon. "Teams want to know whether Manti Te'o is gay. They just want to know. They want to know because in an NFL locker room, it's a different world. It shouldn't be that way." Patrick interrupted Florida to ask if general managers are asking Te'o the question directly, or if they're dancing around it, or if they're doing investigative work to see if he lied to Katie Couric. Florio continued (emphasis ours):

snip

The NFL, of course, reacted swiftly after troubled Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher killed himself at a league practice facility after allegedly killing his girlfriend in December. The NFL, of course, watched as 31 players were arrested during its last offseason alone. The NFL, of course, has watched over 631 instances of a player getting arrested, for "something more than speeding tickets" since 2000, according to data compiled by the San Diego Union-Tribune. Some of those instances resulted in suspensions, but not all, and usually the players were welcomed back with open arms. And NFL general managers seemed to have no problem with quarterback Cam Newton, who was cited in police reports of stealing laptops but went on to become the No. 1 draft pick in 2011 and the NFL's Rookie of the Year. Tight end Jerramy Stevens was drafted in the first round in 2002 despite arrests for assault, marijuana use, sexual assault, and a hit-and-run in college — and he has bounced around the league despite at least eight other pretty terrible run-ins with the law ever since. (He has been suspended for two games in his 10-year career.)

Meanwhile, at the combine, one of the other brightest spotlights shining on any prospect has been former Louisiana State University cornerback and Heisman finalist Tyrann "Honey Badger" Mathieu. Despite his own social-media firestorm when he ran into off-field troubles with drugs and the law that forced him to cut his college career short, Mathieu is attempting a professional resurgence. There was some suspicion he would return to LSU next year, but instead he opted to go straight to the NFL. He was most recently busted for marijuana possession in October, after a rehab stint last summer, and so far, he's impressed the judges in the general managers' offices. (Mathieu was expected to be chosen in the first round before his off-field troubles, but now isn't expected to go until the second or third day,
according to mock drafts.)

end of quote

Well guess now we know.