Kicked Off The Team

After answering one of the two questions for our final written assignment, I realized that I wanted to share a little bit more about how I feel about a certain situation. I wrote about how the Women's Basketball Coach for Penn State, Rene Portland, kicked off her star player Jennifer Harris for being a lesbian. According to sources Rene Portland had an anti-gay recruiting method and a "no lesbian" policy. Portland stated that she would not allow lesbians to play for her and that she wold not tolerate it. According to lesbianlife.about.com, "Coach Portland repeatedly questioned Harris about her sexual orientation, repeatedly threatened to kick Harris off the team if she found out that Harris was a lesbian, and eventually told other players not to associate with Harris because she believed that Harris was gay. In 2005 Coach Portland abruptly told Harris to find somewhere else to play". I couldn't believe a coach would actually kick off her star athlete just because of her sexual orientation. I watched her game video highlights and she was an amazing player that had a huge possibility to play in the NBA. She was really talented and I think her Coach Rene Portland completely ruined her chances in making it to playing professional basketball. That is probably one of the worst horror sport stories I have ever heard in my life and it upsets me that an athlete so talented didn't reach her dream. I feel so bad for Jennifer Harris because she was an amazing basketball player that had her career dreams thrown away because of her sexual orientation. It shouldn't matter if a athlete is gay or lesbian, they should be treated equally no matter what.

Damian Perez

Kin 338 T-Th 2pm-3:15pm