Legacy. It's a word with a lot of meaning. It defines who we are, often times long after we are gone. Miami's legacy is one of greatness. Miami is one of just four schools to produce both a US president and a Super Bowl winning quarterback, one of the oldest and best universities in the Midwest and one of the best business schools in the country.
While every student has their own legacy and makes their own mark on the university in their four (or more) years in Oxford, as of late one name pops up more and more in the news, and no, it's not Ben Roethlisberger. Brendan Burke, who passed away in February at the age of 21, had already cemented his legacy at Miami by November 2009. He was the kid that came out to ESPN.
Burke's story was originally told to the world by John Buccigross in a story on ESPN.com in late November 2009. With that story, Burke, who had already come out as a homosexual man to his friends and family, came out to the world. Burke raised a few questions in the hockey world, the most important being how the hockey world would react to an openly gay man working in an atmosphere that, like most sports, has never been kind to guys who aren't the typical macho jock.
Now, this isn't a story about Brendan's coming out, and how we all should be accepting of a person for who he or she is, not who he or she wants to be with. This is a story of legacy.
Burke, being the son of one of the hockey community's most well respected members, Brian Burke (currently the general manager of both Team USA Hockey and the NHL's Toronto Maple Leafs), became the poster boy for the super-secretive gay hockey community. His story was one of the biggest stories of the year in the hockey world. Unfortunately, his death meant that his story could only be step one. His legacy was left unfinished.
That is, until this past June. The Chicago Blackhawks winning their first Stanley Cup in over 40 years was one of the biggest stories in Chicago this summer. The victory parade drew over 400,000 people into the city's downtown Loop neighborhood (or, depending on the news source, two million). The team was on Leno, on TMZ and of course they were on ESPN's SportsCenter. And just when you thought all the "Hawkey" talk was over, the Stanley Cup made headlines again when it went to another parade.
Brent Sopel, a key part of the Blackhawks' championship run, made headlines for his announcement that he was going to take the Stanley Cup, arguably the most macho trophy in sports, to Chicago's Gay Pride Parade, making it the first championship trophy in American sports to do so. To those who know Sopel, the announcement was not a surprise. After all, Sopel came into the league with the Vancouver Canucks, the same team that Brian Burke ran from 1998 to 2004, and was good friends with the older Burke. It only made sense for Sopel to honor the man that helped get him to where he was by honoring his family, and that meant honoring Brendan.
"Obviously the reason I was there was for Brendan," Sopel said. "Coming out is not easy for anyone. They're human and they deserve to come out. I know he had a hard time telling his dad. When we were rolling and looking at all the people I was thinking of Brendan and all the things he went through."
Sopel's mindset is not that of many athletes. After all, who can forget the reaction from the NBA when John Amaechi, who played in the league from 1995-2003, came out in 2007?
Former NBA All-Star Tim Hardway openly admitted to hating gay people in an interview when he said, "You know, I hate gay people, so I let it be known. I don't like gay people and I don't like to be around gay people. I am homophobic. I don't like it. It shouldn't be in the world or in the United States."
ESPN commentator LZ Granderson, who is one of only a handful of openly gay sports writers in the U.S., is quick to point out however that while Hardaway's response is still considered the norm in a lot of locker rooms, athletes' opinions on the GLBT community are determined by the same factors that determine anybody's opinion on the subject.
"When you think about the athletes who have expressed support of having a GLBT teammate or even GLBT rights, they tend to fall in the same sort of demographic that you would find within the general public," Granderson said. "Now, while it is true there is pressure to respond a certain way with regard to GLBT issues in the athletic world, but I would also say those same expectations are held for people within a conservative religious or political sect. And similarly, as the general public becomes more educated and familiar with what it really means to be GLBT and thus more tolerant, this same trend is mirrored within the athletic community. Men like Tracy McGrady, Shaq, Scott Fujita, etc. are not anomalies - their attitudes are becoming the norm - not because the sports world is changing but because the nation is changing."
However Sopel, now a member of the Atlanta Thrashers, doesn't see it that way. In fact, he believes that there are currently gay men in pro sports in the U.S. right now.
"Every year we have 750-plus guys in the league," Sopel said. "Not to mention all the other leagues. You've got a lot of individuals among them. The chances of someone being gay are pretty good."
Granderson doesn't even blink at the question. He doesn't just think there are homosexuals in the "Big Four" of American sports leagues: the NFL, NHL, NBA and Major League Baseball, he knows it. While he won't name names, he's written about it in stories before, and when asked provided a very quick answer to the question: "Yes, I know of gay athletes in the Big Four."
This brings us back to Brendan Burke and the idea of legacy. Whether he had intended to blaze a trail for gay athletes or not, Burke did just that. Because of his last name, and the respect that it demands from the members of the hockey world, Burke's legacy will now be that he was the most famous homosexual in hockey, even without playing after high school. The next step will be for someone else to become "the most famous homosexual in hockey" and the only way for that to happen is for a player to come out.
"Until that one athlete on a professional team comes out and says it, I think that'd be the time that people open their eyes," Sopel said.
Though Burke is gone, his dream lives on. Between Sopel and the Stanley Cup's appearance at the Chicago Gay Pride Parade and the NHL's new internship named after him, it's clear that people are dedicated to continuing to champion his cause.
"I believe there is a lot of evidence to suggest Brendan's life and passing were not in vain," Granderson said. "And as long as there are people who fight for equality, Brendan's spirit will never die."
This piece is a column and reflects only the opinion of the author.
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