My Sportsmen: Two guys who said it was OK

Every year, Sports Illustrated names a Sportsman or Sportswoman of the Year (or both, like it did last year). Sometimes, it's for someone who achieved something great during the year, like Michael Phelps in 2008 or Drew Brees in 2010. Other years, it's a combination of that year's achievement and a lifetime achievement award, like Mike Krzyzewski and Pat Summitt last year or Derek Jeter in 2009.

If I had to hazard a guess off the top of my head, I would guess LeBron James or Miguel Cabrera, maybe Gabby Douglas, but I'll also be interested in reading who SI's writers in the "My Sportsman" pieces it runs on its website. (An example, Richard Deitsch's nomination of Maya Moore last year.)

This year's pieces haven't started yet, but given recent events, I'd like to throw in a couple nominations of my own.

* * * * *

Chris Kluwe got mad, and so he wrote himself a letter. Perhaps you heard about it. It was brilliant; it was profane, and it basically set the Internet on fire. It also made him kind of famous, for of all things, smacking down a Maryland state legislator complaining about someone supporting same-sex marriage. (Quick, name three other NFL punters. I got Mike Scifres of the Chargers, Zoltan Mesko of the Patriots and Steve Weatherford of the Giants.)

Kluwe wrote some other stuff, like after former teammate Matt Birk wrote an op-edit piece against same-sex marriage. And he did it without one profanity. When he thought the stance the newspaper he wrote for took on the proposed marriage amendment in Minnesota was dishonest, he stopped blogging for them.

After the amendment failed on Nov. 6, he had this to say:

 Together, we made a statement that America is tired of division. America is tired of discrimination, of exclusion, and of unthinking oppression—the belief that people have to live their lives according to someone else's views rather than their own free will.

 Together, we made sure that the world our children will grow up in is one step closer to tolerance, love, and equality; a world where our children can make their own choices instead of being shackled to dusty hate from the past.

But let us not forget who Kluwe was defending in the letter that made him famous.

* * * * *

I've written about Brendon Ayanbadejo before, and why his advocacy of same-sex marriage got Emmett Burns Jr. all worked up in the first place, but absent a Sports Illustrated profile of him, I didn't know much about him or his motivation for supporting the cause, so I looked it up. In addition to his background, there was this:

The linebacker spent critical adolescent years living in a building designated for LGBT students at the University of California at Santa Cruz. His stepfather worked as the resident director, and the family lived in an apartment at the base of the dorm.

“It was sort of their safe haven, where the students could be themselves," Ayanbadejo said. “I was in eighth or ninth grade, and we’d do these activities with everyone, skits or plays with me and my brother and sister. Men would be holding hands with each other, and women with women, and I was so young I didn’t really think much of it. Now, I kind of rejoice when I see same-sex couples together, sharing their love, and being able to be themselves outside, not just in their homes."

I wasn't exposed to gay people in any serious way until I was an adult, when I worked on the Outer Cape in Massachusetts, where there a lot of gay people, including one of the couples involved in the lawsuit that brought same-sex marriage to Massachusetts, who I came to know through my job.

A funny thing happens when you spend time around gay people ... they stop being "strange."

When Maryland voters approved same-sex marriage Nov. 6, Ayanbadejo said, "It's like I woke up and it was Christmas."

I'm normally against any references to Christmas before Thanksgiving, but this time, I'll make an exception.

* * * * *

We are eight years removed from a presidential candidate possibly being helped in his re-election by state ballot measures restricting marriage to one man and one woman. Until Nov. 6, same-sex marriage had lost more than 30 times at the ballot box.

Kluwe and Ayanbadejo are not the only sports figures to support same-sex marriage and gay rights. Scott Fujita and Sean Avery made videos supporting marriage equality (as, by the way, did one of the daughters of the president who probably benefited from the anti-same-sex marriage initiatives). Teams and athletes have recorded "It Gets Better" videos. (I picked Sergio Martinez's because I'm a fan.)


But Kluwe's and Ayanbadejo's activism this year was during a time when the people of the states where they play football were deciding on same-sex marriage, and those states, along with Maine and Washington State, accepted it.

I don't know how much of an impact they had on the vote, but I can't imagine it hurt to have football players tell football fans, their fans, that it was OK to support gay rights.