by Mickey Weems
It all started in February, a couple months after the scandal that led to Coach Jim Tressel’s dismissal.
Ohio State football strength coach Mickey Marotti created a fitness program for the Buckeyes. They would be stronger, faster and more agile than any other time in their lives. His project is a good one, both for the program and for the players.
But how do you get the young men to give their utmost effort for this physically and mentally challenging program? Negative reinforcement through clothing: Make slackers wear something that marks them as objects of derision.
The plan was to make less-than-motivated players wear workout shirts that were a different color from their teammates. Certain considerations had to be weighed, such as the possibility of the slacker shirt becoming a plus instead of a minus. The color could not be read as anything other than bad.
So what color would be the biggest punishment? Lavender. It’s meant to imply the offending player actually played for the “other” team. (Pun intended.)
Blowback
The Straight press reported the story as a fluff piece with rah-rah humor so often seen in business porn (keep in mind that sports is big business, especially in Buckeyeland). It’s not surprising that they saw nothing wrong. Usually, hurtful things that seem painfully obvious in the LGBT world are blithely ignored in the sports world. Most Gay fans just simply ignore the petite digs and casual insults thrown our way, just as we grudgingly accept our erasure, our invisibility in many arenas.
But this one was too much. Controversy generated by the Gay media went national. There was a weak attempt at deflection and denial. According to a representative from the athletic department: “The pullovers that our coach mistakenly referred to as ‘lavender’ are actually purple. Very purple. Our coach sincerely but mistakenly thought the color was lavender when he mentioned the pullovers during an interview… Purple, quite simply, was the only color left from a handful of different colored pullovers that are typically worn in-season by members of our “scout” team as practice jerseys of our upcoming opponent.”
The denial rings hollow. Even if the shirts were deep indigo, the strength coach himself publicly identified them as lavender, so he would have used that same term with his athletes. Some players called the purple/lavender shirt the “queer shirt.” Wonder where they got that idea?
The focus on who was responsible was not so much assistant coach Marotti but head coach Urban Meyer. Lavender shirts were linked to another issue: Meyer mentioned how he offers players optional Bible study and church services in addition to a bruising training schedule.
People in the LGBT community tend to be wary of anything smelling of homophobia with Christian undertones.
Homophobia aside, offering the players Bible study is like a lavender shirt: whether intentional or not, it sends a signal to a group that has been conditioned to conform to the coach’s wishes. If you don’t listen, there is hell to pay.
Coach Meyer oversteps his authority in recommending anything outside of training that would cut into what precious little time football players have to pursue their education. If he had his priorities straight, he would encourage them to attend more tutoring sessions so they can actually graduate, theoretically their real purpose for being at OSU. Regardless of how religious you are, prayer is no substitute for studying.
Coach Meyer issued a gracious apology for the lavender scare:
“Thank you for sharing your concerns regarding the purple mesh pullovers. The use of purple was never intended to offend anyone but since it has, we have taken steps to change the color.
“Please accept our sincere apologies. We have core values of respect and honor within our program, and these are two principles that are central to my personal life, my coaching philosophy, and to Ohio State and its athletics programs. Bias has absolutely no role in how we think or operate.”
This was the right thing to do, after the fact. But many of us cannot help but think that Tressel would never have allowed the problem to arise in the first place. Sigh.
Fans’ Reaction
Let’s face facts. There is only one reason for a Straight coach to make lavender (even if it’s really purple) the punitive color of choice: if you don’t work out with enough zeal, you are an effeminate pansy.
Columbus LGBT activist Terry Penrod is a dedicated Buckeye fan who has attended every national championship game in the 21st century. This is what Terry has to say:
“The use of lavender shirt to ‘penalize’ football players is certainly insensitive to a segment of fans, students, faculty and staff. In my opinion, it comes very close to being downright offensive. I would like to think that The Ohio State University football program is better than that. If it wants to aspire to be one of the top programs in the country, it needs to be much more mature, inclusive and professional. I don’t know where this strength coach last worked, but I would like to think we have a higher standard of excellence in Buckeye Country.”
Those who disagree with Penrod may ask, “Isn’t that a bit presumptuous to assume this was the case? For years, men have been wearing lavender dress shirts, ties, polos. There was even a pro football player named Joe Lavender. Straight men have gotten past that whole color thing. Gay people are just being too sensitive.”
But the remarks did not stop there in sports blogs and comments. A nasty echo of rabid sports fans who Gay-bashed in the name of now-deceased criminal Joe Paterno came across in some posts, insinuating that critics of Urban Meyer are sexual perverts who can’t wait to get their faggy little hands on some manly parts.
Atheist perverts at that.
Nothing proves that the lavender shirts are a really bad idea more than homophobic-plus-anti-atheist rhetoric.
Homophobia is not always associated with Bible study, just ask Gay Christians. Neither is it always a sports thing, just ask Gay Buckeye fans. But within the American sports-military-Christian-macho blend that so dominates much of men’s discourse in this country, it is all too easy to see the lavender shirt as part of Christianist homophobic code.
First Solution: Man Up, Meyer
Meyer’s apology was gracious but ultimately insufficient. First of all, there was somewhat of a dodge when he implied that the shirts were fine. The only problem was when outsiders raised hell about it.
We have seen so many apologies from people who don’t really act like they mean them. “I’m sorry if what I did offended anyone,” is what you say if you do not think what you said was bad in the first place, but you want to smooth things over. A better way of handling the situation is to recognize the problem, apologize, and set forth ways to mitigate it if possible. Meyer could have said something like this:
“We were told by members of the LGBT community that the idea of punishing a football player with a lavender shirt is deeply offensive, and I understand why. Our intention was to motivate our players, but using coded language like lavender was completely inappropriate as a motivator, regardless of intention or actual color.
“We have no idea who might be closeted in our program. I now realize the message to both Gay and Straight players (as well as fans and their kids) was, “Don’t come out, not even to us, not even to yourself, or we will ostracize you.” This is unacceptable. We are not bullies, but this time we were wrong.”
You man enough to say this, Meyer?
Second Solution: Give the Shirts to Us!
Rather than throw the pullovers away, why not give them to Gay boosters? Just a thought.
I’m sure we’d wear them with pride. Or at Pride.
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