As a lifelong San Francisco Giants fan, it makes me just so HAPPY that my team listened to the voice of the people and will go ahead and make an "It Gets Better" video! I can honestly say I'm probably more proud of my team for this than for winning the World Series last year! Bravo Giants! Way to stay classy!!
(05-16) 17:50 PDT San Francisco
The San Francisco Giants will become the first professional sports team to jump into the burgeoning anti-homophobia campaign with an upbeat "It Gets Better" video designed to bring hope to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender young people.
While celebrities, politicians and everyday people have posted more than 10,000 "It Gets Better" videos to YouTube to build awareness of the continuing problem of gay suicide and anti-gay bullying, no teams in the pro sports world have stepped forward to produce a video.
Recently, Grant Hill and Jared Dudley, who play for the Phoenix Suns basketball team, filmed a public service advertisement for the "Think Before You Speak" campaign, telling viewers that anti-gay remarks aren't cool. And on Sunday, Suns President and CEO Rick Welts came out publicly as a gay man, hoping, he told an interviewer, to peel back the veil that shrouds homosexuality in pro sports and to serve as a role model for others.
6,000 sign petition
Now comes the effort of lifelong Giants fan Sean Chapin, who began an online petition drive on the San Francisco website Change.org to get his hometown team on board the "It Gets Better" project and persuaded more than 6,000 people to sign on.
"The San Francisco Giants are in an extraordinary position to lead the rest of the professional sporting world and possibly make the most important 'It Gets Better' video yet - not just as the recent world champion of Major League Baseball, but also as ambassadors of an iconic city, revered for celebrating diversity and differences with open arms," Chapin said in his own online video pitch to the Giants.
In an interview Monday, Chapin, a 35-year-old accountant who lives in San Francisco and works in Oakland, described the team's decision, announced Monday, as a "breaking bubble" that will have profound reverberations.
Giants spokeswoman Staci Slaughter said that the team had been thinking of joining the campaign before Chapin started his petition drive, but that his efforts speeded things up. She said the exact content of the video and which, if any, players or members of the coaching staff will participate have not been determined.
Originally, the plan was to produce the video for the Giants LGBT Night home game in August, Slaughter said, "but now we're trying to get it done sooner than later."
Previous incidents
The Giants have a strong gay and lesbian fan base and as an organization have a history of promoting tolerance, she said. In 1994, the Giants became the first team in the majors to dedicate a game every year to raise money and awareness for the fight against AIDS.
Chapin said he got the idea to lobby the Giants to make a video after Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant, angered over a foul called against him, mouthed an anti-gay slur at a referee last month. The National Basketball Association fined him $100,000 for the offense.
That was followed by an April 23 incident in which Atlanta Braves pitching coach Roger McDowell reportedly asked three men in the stands before the start of a Giants game in San Francisco, "Are you guys a homo couple or a threesome?" A witness said McDowell then made suggestive gestures with a bat. McDowell, who later apologized, was suspended by Major League Baseball for two weeks.
Chapin, a native San Franciscan who came out as gay in high school, said he would like to see a day "when LGBT people can go to a pro sports game and be themselves, not feel like they have to hide who they are." He said he never really felt threatened, but noted that he wouldn't feel comfortable holding a boyfriend's hand or giving him a big smooch when the "kiss-cam" came around.
"Professional sports is one of the last havens for homophobia," said Susan Zieff, professor of kinesiology at San Francisco State University, who has focused on the socio-cultural study of physical activity.
She said the Giants planned video "could make a huge difference" in helping blunt acceptance of anti-gay rhetoric and behavior.
"A large number of fans are young people who look up to athletes as role models and there's a real potential to raise awareness about an issue that is bigger than sports."
Even if the Giants get some complaints from fans, Zieff said, "it's the right thing to do."
For more information or to make your own "It Gets Better" video, please go to http://www.itgetsbetter.org/.
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