The couple are raising Swoopes' 8-year-old son, Jordan. Swoopes was married to Jordan's father, football player Eric Jackson, until 1999.

Swoopes’s decision to come out is commendable, but most sports websites, magazines and columnists agree that it’s unlikely to make much difference for gay males in the professional sports world--an entirely different kind of beast.

“It’s certainly admirable on (Swoopes’s) part, but I don't think it's the sort of announcement that took anyone much by surprise. It was a pretty safe thing for her to say,” says Ross von Metzke, entertainment editor for Hyperion Interactive Media, which runs the gaysports.com website.

“Men in sports--it's still uncharted territory. Our stars are supposed to be masculine and heroic, or they are supposed to be almost asexual, where we know nothing about their sex lives. I'm not sure what will have to happen before that one becomes a safe announcement.”

In a recent story on the subject, Boston Herald writer Mark Murphy illustrates a good example of the clear--and accepted--issue of homophobia in professional male sports.

He says “The very mention of how Sheryl Swoopes and her groundbreaking announcement might apply to the NBA jerked (Boston Celtics captain) Paul Pierce into abrupt laughter. What if ... an NBA athlete--not necessarily a star--announced that he was gay? “I probably wouldn’t want to guard him,” Pierce is quoted as saying. Murphy adds that Pierce is “seemingly only half joking.”

Unfortunately, that's the attitude most coaches and some players seem to be taking in response to the reality of gay men in professional sports. A public admission of homosexuality, the media says, just isn't something major-league sports is ready for, and they probably won't be ready for a very long time.

In his recent story in The Journal News, Ian O’Connor says, “the culture of male athletics is built around the Jurassic notions of he-manhood, notions that don't jibe with the unfortunate stereotypes tethered to homosexuality.

By and large, the media seems to agree that professional male sports is a long way from acceptance of homosexuality--but many writers are also taking players and coaches to task for it.

Washington Post sports columnist Sally Jenkins, in her piece Their Words of Discouragement, says, "Judging by some of the witless remarks in the sports world over the past few days, athletes and coaches are having a nationwide contest for Moron of the Week. The question becomes, should we ask these people about anything important, ever? Should we once and for all restrict the questions we put to sports figures to such matters as, what should the Red Sox do in the offseason, and, what are the merits of a 3-4 scheme versus the 4-3?"

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