Sports Illustrated Says There's Nothing Wrong With That (Really)

In the newest issue of Sports Illustrated, self-described "Tom Wolfe of Sports" Gary (Take Out The "R" and I'm Still Not Gay) Smith profiles boxer Emile Griffith, the boxer who was rumored for years to be gay and once killed a man in the ring for calling him queer. The profile, just in time for the upcoming USA movie, is accompanied by a sidebar by L. Jon Wertheim that's the next journalistic attempt to track down that great white whale: The gay athlete. The story has the usual poll results (62 percent say an athlete would hurt his team by coming out) and usual sky-is-falling quotes from marketers and agents saying a gay athlete would lose endorsement opportunities, but the real gold is Wertheim's digging up of the great Kordell Stewart. The Ravens backup QB has been dogged by gay rumors through his Steelers career, to the point that he once called a meeting to let his teammates know that "You'd better not leave your girlfriends around me, because I'm out to prove a point!" (The presentation included, according to other players, actual pictures of Kordell's favorite sexual positions. With a woman. Yes. You see.) Somewhere, Brendan Lemon is laughing ... if he's not doing it with Todd Zeile. (Whoops!)

Gays In Sports: A Poll (CNNSI.com)
Ring of Fire (official site)