Homophobia is a big one. That needs to be challenged in the same way racism has been. And there’s still what I would call institutional discrimination in football. We’re actually running a campaign at the moment called ‘Fair Share’, which is aimed at getting better representation for women and minorities in boardrooms, committees, councils and in coaching itself. What we’re talking about here is equality of opportunities. That’s a huge challenge for us, and I’m excited by the prospect of taking it on.

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Herm Edwards has complained that the Saints’ search for an interim head coach has not included any black coaches. The NFL’s “Rooney Rule” requires that a minority candidate be interviewed for every vacant head coaching position. The Saints is an interesting situation, and it will be interesting to see what the league makes of it.

I’m left wondering what protection there is for gay coaches. While a quarter of the NFL head coaches right now are racial minorities, not one is an openly gay man. In fact, there isn’t a publicly out gay man in any coaching or staff position in the entire NFL. Part of that reason is perceived job security. Closeted gay men think if they come out they will lose their job.

The NFL has included sexual orientation protection for players in its latest collective bargaining agreement.  The next step is to protect the coaches who coach those players. Commissioner Roger Goodell should publicly state that the Rooney Rule includes gay coaches. They need as much hope and opportunity as anyone else.

PHOTO: Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin during the fourth quarter of the 2011 AFC wild card playoff game against the Denver Broncos at Sports Authority Field. Mandatory Credit: Chris Humphreys-US PRESSWIRE

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Does SNL make a point? What would be the reaction if the guy made homophobic comments? And is it possible that SNL actually had a funny skit?

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We again apologize, especially to Mr. Lin. His accomplishments are a source of great pride to the Asian-American community, including the Asian-American employees at ESPN. Through self-examination, improved editorial practices and controls, and response to constructive criticism, we will be better in the future.

The network clearly took this issue as seriously as could possibly be expected of them. This review and action must have taken an inordinate number of ESPN executives hours to discuss and vet. The fact that they did it over a long holiday weekend, when the news cycle is slower and many of them are enjoying a couple days off, speaks volumes.

Plus, the dismissal of an employee, particularly in this economy, is a harsh outcome that clearly conveys the serious nature with which ESPN approached this issue. I know people were demanding that “heads roll” over this incident. I personally hate to see people lose their job over a mistake, so I’m hoping ESPN found that the headline was intentionally racially charged, as that would certainly be grounds for the most serious of action.

An ESPN spokesperson graciously declined a question about the nature of their internal findings.

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Last night, ESPN.com’s mobile web site posted an offensive headline referencing Jeremy Lin at 2:30 am ET. The headline was removed at 3:05 am ET. We are conducting a complete review of our cross-platform editorial procedures and are determining appropriate disciplinary action to ensure this does not happen again. We regret and apologize for this mistake.

ESPN.com editor in chief Rob King offered a strong statement on Twitter:

To be sure, the headline is a double entendre. “Chink in the armor” is a perfectly legitimate term to express vulnerability. But when you use the term to refer to someone of Chinese or Taiwanese descent, it takes on a whole new meaning.

Longtime Outsports reader Canmark shared this on our previous story:

As someone who’s been called a chink (many years ago), I’m not getting too excited about this. The phrase “chink in the armor” isn’t in itself offensive. For example, I recently saw this headline: “Santorum’s victory may expose chink in Romney’s armor.” Now, applying the “chink” phrase to someone who is of East Asian descent is questionable, but I’m willing to give the headline writer the benefit of the doubt (I don’t think there was any negative intent).

The phrase was also uttered by a SportsCenter host earlier in the day (below). Saying it off-the-cuff on live TV doesn’t bother me personally, given that it is a legit term; But somebody should have caught it, sitting at a desk carefully considering a headline, before publishing it on the Web.

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Update Sunday, 8:30AMPT: ESPN has fired and suspended people responsible for headline, comments.

Update Saturday, 8:20AMPT: ESPN has apologized for the headline.

ESPN has been the biggest champion of New York Knicks star Jeremy Lin’s rise during the team’s seven-game winning streak. But they have potentially undone it all with a horribly racist headline that appeared on tablets, iphones, Androids and other mobile devices following the Knicks’ loss to the Hornets. It may have appeared online as well, but Outsports was only able to see it on ESPN’s mobile sites late Friday night.

Lin had nine turnovers in the game and inspired the headline, “Chink in the Armor” (screen capture after the jump). The term is akin to any other racist epithet you can imagine. Gay athlete Rod Silvestre, who is of Filipino descent and plays in the New York Gay Football League, was understandably outraged by the headline. He posted on Facebook:

Is ESPN serious with their lead story on their web page?

How do you go from celebrating one of the best underdog stories, to now talking about Jeremy Lin for all the wrong reasons. ESPN should be embarrassed.

We want to give ESPN the benefit of the doubt here, but it’s impossible to believe the person who wrote that headline didn’t know exactly what they were writing. Especially since ESPN previously came under fire for using the same headline…to describe a USA basketball game in China.

Update, Feb. 18, 12:10AMPT: ESPN has changed the headline to “All good things….” We have reached out to them for comment.

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Rose quickly took to Twitter to give the middle finger to everyone who might have not liked his racial and homophobic comments:

Notice the all-caps YOU – making it crystal clear he’s not apologizing to anyone else. He gave a half-hearted “apology” on air after he got caught in a whirlwind of reaction, but he laughed it off.

Of course, ESPN has deleted that portion of the interview so we cannot hear it (listen for the edit three seconds in).

While the comment may seem innocuous, Rose made it clear he doesn’t want two men touching one another with their bodies. Where do you think that comes from? He’s perfectly fine with men being naked, showering together. But once they touch? All bets are off. As we saw with ESPN’s Rob Parker earlier this week, his comments reflect the root of homophobia.

Rose knows a thing or two about losing championship games. He lost in the NCAA championship game two years in a row with Michigan; And he lost in the NBA Finals with the Indiana Pacers in 2000. He was also suspended by ESPN last year for a DUI arrest.

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When he missed on the Hall of Fame vote again this year, failing to top 50 percent for the third time, Galindo felt some of that rejection all over again. He rarely turned serious during his 15-minute chat with reporters, but he spoke quietly and carefully when asked whether he suspected bias.

“It always comes to the forefront when I don’t get nominated or selected to do something. ‘Is that why?’ ” Galindo said. “That was my whole life growing up in amateur skating. (Not being) the All-American boy. But times have changed. … Still, it’s always in the back of my mind, so I can’t say no.”

Ann Killion at Sports Illustrated adds:

Off the ice, Galindo was a breakthrough figure for skating. He is Mexican-American, raised in a trailer park in San Jose and struggled financially over the years to keep skating. Shortly before his ’96 performance, he came out as a gay man – a revolution in a sport where homophobia remains closeted still. In 2000 he announced he was HIV-positive.

Galindo deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. Skating officials were so certain that he would be elected, they planned how to handle and market the event. But he failed to get the required 51 percent of the votes.

Throughout his competitive career, Galindo struggled to be accepted by the figure skating powers. So there’s good reason to speculate that the old guard still doesn’t want to acknowledge his accomplishments.

While figure skating is a stereotypical “gay” sport, the homophobia there is well-documented. Resentment about the stereotype rains down from the mostly straight people running the sport. Four-time U.S. champion Scott Hamilton has not held back at times when talking about gay people. From our friends at Rainbow Ice:

It is clear from [his] book that Hamilton has attempted to do some soul-searching on the issue. “‘Homophobic’ was an accurate description of my feelings toward gay men,” he wrote (p. 192). “I used to joke about the lifestyle, partly because I had spent the previous 16 years fending off the cruel humor directed at me. ‘Fairy,’ ‘sissy,’ ‘faggot,’ I had heard them all.” Hamilton’s story is a clear example of how homophobia affects U.S. male skaters regardless of their personal orientation.

From Hamilton’s general tone, it is difficult to imagine that he will ever be fully pro-gay, but he makes an effort. His final words on the subject (p. 194) deal with the fact that in skating, all things boil down to the essentially personal and honest nature of the sport: “If your sexuality is an important part of your makeup and you want to show it on the ice, then go for it. Do what makes you happy. Some people will like it, and some won’t.”

Even as recently as 2010, homophobia showed its ugly face by keeping Johnny Weir from an Olympic medal.

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As I have gotten older, I have only developed more admiration for Dr. King.  He made a great personal sacrifice to champion the cause of many people who didn’t have the benefit of equal rights and protection.

Let’s be clear. Dungy fights against the “equal rights and protection” of many people, yet says he admires King for fighting for the “equal rights and protection” of many people. What’s the disconnect?

For Dungy, and sadly for many, King simply stood for racial equality. He didn’t intend to bring about justice for gay people. When King talks about “all God’s children,” apparently Dungy thinks that gay people aren’t God’s children. Dungy talks about the scope of King’s reach…

And it hit me very hard because I felt he had done so much–and not just for African Americans, but for our country as well.

Interesting that he would single out African-Americans but wouldn’t mention other races or sexual orientations. Why? Again, to so many King simply stood for the freedom of one racial group, not all people. As Dungy talks about equality for the whole country, does he not believe gay people are part of this great country?

As his column goes on, he further reveals my conclusion:

Today, my wife Lauren and I have to remind our children of what it was like when Dr. King was alive and how he and others had to fight for things we now take for granted.  Things like going to school in the neighborhood where they live, eating at any restaraunt [sic] they like, shopping at any store they happen to go into–these are things that never even cross their mind.  So it comes as a shock to them when we tell them there was a time when that wasn’t the case and that people like Dr. King helped bring about change.

All of his examples reference the horrible struggle that many Black Americans faced in the 1960s (and sadly, some of whom still face it today). They also reflect a head-in-the-ground approach to equality: “If I’ve got equality, if I can coach in the NFL and get paid millions to talk on TV, then everybody’s fine.”

It’s sad to me that someone who has openly fought against equality for so many Americans would invoke the name of Martin Luther King Jr. on this day of remembrance.

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Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke told ESPNNewYork.com that he thinks any gay slur should come with some punishment, though he left open the possibility that Simmonds’ denial in this case is true:

That type of comment has no place in the game.

If that happened, that is just so embarrassing and the league should not tolerate it. That should be treated on the same level as a racially charged incident. It’s the same level of offensiveness and inappropriateness.

You can reach the NHL via their Web site where there is a pull-down option to write about “NHL Diversity.”

Meanwhile, police have charged a man for the banana-throwing incident last week involving Simmonds, though police say there’s no evidence of a hate crime…which is about as logical as the NHL saying they’re not sure Simmonds called Avery a “fucking faggot.”

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