Sexuality remains the elephant in the room for Te’o

As the public and the media begin to grow weary (we hope) with the controversy involving former Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o, the fake dead girlfriend story hasn’t begun to die for teams interested in Te’o's talents.
The lying to his father and Te’o's failure to come clean once he knew or should have known that the dead girlfriend was neither real nor dead are minor issues in comparison to things other players do.  That’s a point former Chiefs G.M. Scott Pioli made eloquently during Friday’s Pro Football Talk on NBC Sports Network. But the elephant in the room for many scouts relates to the question that Katie Couric abruptly posed to Te’o — and that Te’o answered in a way that speaks volumes as to the current culture of football:  Is Te’o gay?
If he is, it shouldn’t matter.  Still, people go to extensive lengths in an effort to conceal who they really are, thanks to a society that in many respects still doesn’t tolerate or accept those who are different.  Thus, the fact that no current NFL player has come out of the closet proves that the NFL isn’t ready for a player to come out of the closet.  Who, after all, would be better to gauge the response to an openly gay NFL player than a closeted one?
With Te’o, the fact that his fake, dead girlfriend was actually a real, live male has done nothing to resolve questions that originated with speculation that having a pretend female in California provided plausible cover for not chasing real ones on campus.  With Ronaiah Tuiasosopo admitting to Dr. Phil that Tuiasosopo was in love with Te’o, the unanswered question became whether Te’o had any inkling that he, too, was in love with a man.
It shouldn’t matter.  In the NFL universe, it just does.  Right or wrong (i.e., wrong) for it to matter, it does.
And so at a time when everyone seems to be bracing for the moment when the league will welcome an openly gay player, teams are trying to figure out whether they would be drafting a closeted one.
This doesn’t mean that any teams would take Te’o off the board if he turned out to be gay.  (Of course, some could choose to shy away from him without ever articulating the reason.)  Given the realities of NFL locker rooms, however, teams simply want to know what they’d be getting.
Again, it shouldn’t matter.  In the NFL universe, it just does.

Source: PFT.com
Author: Mike Florio
AP Photo

Katie Couric asks Manti Te’o if he’s gay, his answer speaks volumes

The long-awaited Katie Couric-Manti Te’o interview aired this afternoon, and for people who have followed the story of the bizarre hoax that led to Te’o claiming to have a girlfriend who didn’t exist, not a lot of new ground was broken: Te’o is sticking to his story that he was a victim, not a perpetrator, of the hoax, while acknowledging that he did lie to his family about having met his nonexistent girlfriend in person, and that he lied to the media even after learning that she didn’t exist.
But one brief exchange within the interview has people talking: Couric asked Te’o, “Are you gay?”
Te’o, who up to that point had calmly answered questions suggesting that he’s naive, stupid and a liar, grew emphatic as he insisted that he is heterosexual.
“No, far from it. Far from it,” Te’o said.
The emphasis Te’o placed on being “far from” gay was striking. At other times in the interview, Couric grilled Te’o about being “the most naive person on the planet” involved in a “web of lies,” and Te’o didn’t flinch. But when Couric asked Te’o if he’s gay, Te’o took umbrage. Te’o seemed to be saying, “Katie, you can call me naive, call me stupid, call me a liar. But don’t dare call me gay.”
And that may say a lot about how a gay player would be treated in the National Football League. Although there have been encouraging stories recently about more accepting attitudes in NFL locker rooms, we may still be a long way off from a day when a football player could answer the question, “Are you gay?” with a simple, “Yes” and not fear being shunned by teammates, downgraded by coaches and heckled by fans.
The bad news is that Te’o seems to think that if you’re an aspiring professional football player, you’re better off being labeled naive and stupid than gay. The awful news is that he might be right.

Source: PFT.com
Author: Michael David Smith
AP Photo from NewsWhip.com