By Michael Kelley ’14 & Mick Kowaleski ’14

According to NFL prospect Nick Kasa, NFL teams are asking potential draft picks about their sexual orientation. 

Kowaleski:  Come on, NFL. Get with the program. Gay rights are what’s in right now. Look, they’ve even breached the rap scene, which was once the breeding ground for homophobia. The efforts of Frank Ocean and Macklemore (with his song “Same Love”) have contributed leaps and bounds towards securing acceptance in that arena. So what’s holding you guys up?

This is a messed up situation that was probably instigated by the whole Manti Te’o scandal. Allegations of Te’o’spossible homosexuality probably scared teams into these questions. With so many homophobic players, including 49ersCB Chris Culliver, teams are going to want to know this information to prevent possible locker room friction.

But including these questions on a combine interview is not only immoral and invasive, but it’s also illegal.

As the most popular professional sports league in America, the NFL should be the one that other leagues look up to. They should be breaking barriers, not reinforcing them. At least maybe this whole situation will spark another period of reinvention for sports—who will be the gay Jackie Robinson? Professional sports’ answer to Frank Ocean?

The unveiling has to be soon.

Kelley: The NFL locker room is a different world. While general managers and owners understand there will never be a completely harmonious locker room, the search for factors that could cause future problems within a team is always occurring.

This past combine highlighted just how deeply NFL teams pry into the personal lives of the prospects they consider drafting. But questioning sexual orientation brings about a whole new array of issues that cannot be solved by litigation.

Say a player believes he has been cut because of his actual or perceived sexuality. How would he prove that the decision to cut him was based on his sexuality and not his football skills?

The solution has to come from a change in the culture of the NFL locker room. There are no openly gay players in the NFL—no one has felt comfortable enough to come out of the closet.

The most effective way for that to happen is still to be determined. But one thing is for sure: Roger Goodell better respond and take a stance on this before the damage is irreparable.  

Last week, former NBA player Dennis Rodman became the first American to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un

Kowaleski: Mike, I’m scared. I’ve lost the ability to discern reality from satire. This is alarming. The headline “Dennis Rodman Becomes First American to Meet Kim Jong-un” seems ripped from the pages of The Onion.

For those who don’t know, Rodman is a former NBA star, who played for the mid-90s Chicago Bulls, alongside Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. He’s also a wackjob, known for his bridal gowns, pro-wrestling career, piercings, tattoos, hair dyes, and reality shows.

So of course he’d be the man to act as ambassador to North Korea, the country that in December claimed to have discovered a secret unicorn lair. It makes perfect sense. But in an Alice in Wonderland, absurdist sense.

He was apparently invited there, along with the Harlem Globetrotters, to visit Kim Jong-Un, who is apparently a huge basketball fan. They are now, as Rodman calls it, “friends for life.”

This is, I guess, a victory for basketball, the newest method of peaceful ambassadorship? I don’t know, Mike. My brain doesn’t know how to take this news.

Kelley: Following his visit, Rodman said, “He loves basketball… I said Obama loves basketball. Let’s start there” as a way to improve the relationship between the U.S. and North Korea.

TERRIFYING. Of all the aforementioned “wackjob” stuff this clown has pulled in the past, this one takes the cake. Simply put, Rodman is off his rocker.

In January, North Korea’s National Defense Commission said, “Settling accounts with the U.S. needs to be done with force, not with words.”

It is a tense time between the U.S. and North Korea, and for Rodman to classify a dictator who inherited one of the world’s worst crises of human rights as an awesome guy is just pathetic.