By Dan Woog
It's hard being a lesbian athlete or coach. You're never sure what's being said behind your back – or when. In the college ranks, verbal gay-bashing takes many forms. One of the most insidious is "negative recruiting": trying to deter a high school prospect from attending a rival school by insinuating, or declaring outright, that a particular coach or team members are lesbians.
One female basketball coach – a national championship winner and Olympic veteran – has been the subject of whispering campaigns for years. Prospects have been told to look into her "lifestyle." Another coach – openly lesbian – has had doors slammed in her face by players' fathers.
It's a tactic that's hard to quantify, and in the complex world of college athletics, it would seem low on the list of priorities to address. But thanks to the persistence of Helen Carroll and the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), the powerful National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is making a start.
Last year, the NCLR and NCAA co-hosted the first-ever Think Tank on Homophobia in Sport. This year, the organizations are putting words from that conference into action.
The Think Tank, held at NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis, brought together NCAA staff, athletic directors, conference commissioners, coaches, athletes, and researchers. They heard stories of coaches talking disparagingly about unmarried coaches on rival teams, or suggesting that the atmosphere on certain teams would lead female athletes to choose "unhealthy lifestyles." Tales have been told of coaches who "ran off" with players, and entire teams have been tabbed "gay programs."
"Negative recruiting is a difficult topic to talk about, because of the fear people have of lesbians," Carroll, who helped found the NCLR's Sports Project in 2001, said. "But it shackles straight people as well as lesbians. So we're trying to create an atmosphere where everyone in sport sees this as a harmful practice." Carroll noted that, although negative recruiting also involves gay male athletes and coaches, stereotypes make it more of an issue in female athletics.
The Think Tank turned words into action. In 2007, the NCAA will conduct its first-ever national campus climate survey. Carroll calls this information-gathering project "the beginning of a process of change that will transform the environment of intercollegiate athletics."
In addition, a subcommittee involving the NCAA, NCLR and other participants will develop a "Best Recruiting Practices" paper, which will include ideas from around the country. One example: The prestigious Pacific-10 conference has a policy in place barring negative recruiting, with a focus on or insinuation about sexual orientation specifically prohibited.
"That gives other conferences something to work for," Carroll said. "Instead of allowing hints to be made about lesbians, it says that coaches should focus on their own teams. The premise is that they'll talk positively about all kinds of people playing in their program."
In addition, the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics is now examining NCAA legislation to identify needed revisions to regulations in order to address antigay discrimination.
And both the NCAA Coaching Academies and the National Association for Collegiate Women Athletic Administrators will include discussion of negative recruiting in their course curricula.
College coaches resort to negative recruiting because they think others are doing it, or because they believe it is a crucial way to land top athletes. That's why, Carroll said, the NCLR and NCAA advocate a "sandwich approach." "If college presidents and conference commissioners at the top and student groups at the bottom demand a stop to this, coaches will feel supported from both sides," she said. "The fastest way to change the climate is to have a large number of people at the base of the pyramid, and important people at the top, all on the same page."
How hard will it be to eliminate negative recruiting? "It's very difficult to make cultural changes," Carroll admitted. "But it's already started. Athletes are coming out of the closet, so it's not something hidden and shameful anymore. For the NCAA leadership to say that discrimination must stop is a big step.
"Sports are important for everyone. But our actions must match our intentions. If we talk about sports as promoting fairness and good sportsmanship, we have to lead the way and be fair to all."
She is optimistic that 2007 will be a watershed year in the war on negative recruiting. "This is the most exciting initiative I've been involved with at the NCLR," she said. "As a former NCAA athletic director and national championship basketball coach, I know how harmful negative recruiting can be. Putting an end to this will do a lot of things. It will protect gay athletes. It will help attract and retain excellent, qualified coaches. And it will help heterosexual athletes and coaches too, by eliminating the atmosphere of fear and intimidation that can be created when negative stereotypes are allowed to flourish."
