Fmr.Minn.Vikings Chris Kluwe is Confident He was Fired for Being Outspoken on Gays
On Thursday, Deadspin published an essay by the former Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe, in which he writes that he is “pretty confident” that he was released by the team before this season because of his outspoken support for same-sex marriage and gay rights.
Kluwe accuses Vikings special-teams coordinator Mike Priefer—who was, essentially, his immediate boss in Minnesota—of directing “homophobic language” toward him after he became a high-profile public advocate for marriage equality. And he alleges that former Vikings head coach Leslie Frazier (who was fired this week following a losing season) and current general manager Rick Spielman both attempted to curtail his statements on various political issues, ranging from gay rights to opinions about the Catholic Church. He calls Priefer a “bigot,” and Frazier and Spielman “cowards.” (In a statement, Priefer denied Kluwe’s allegations, writing, “I want to be clear that I do not tolerate discrimination of any type and am respectful of all individuals. I personally have gay family members who I love and support just as I do any family member.” Neither Frazier nor Spielman has responded. In a separate statement, the Vikings promised to “thoroughly review the matter,” but said that Kluwe was “released strictly based on his football performance.”)
Kluwe was cut by the Vikings in May, after eight seasons, and is just now giving his version of the events that led to his departure, having demurred about the specifics for several months. He did not play in the N.F.L. this season, despite trying out for several teams.
In September of 2012, Kluwe became considerably more famous than is normal for an N.F.L. punter when he wrote an open letter to Emmett C. Burns, Jr., a delegate in the Maryland state legislature, which was published by Deadspin, to wide notice. Burns had previously criticized the Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo for making public statements in support of marriage equality. Kluwe came to Ayanbadejo’s defense, arguing in passionate and colorful language for his peer’s right to speak his mind, and for the right of gays and lesbians to marry. Kluwe’s prose turned him into a hero of the gay-rights movement. The best example of the dramatic and persuasive appeal of his style is worth quoting here:
I can assure you that gay people getting married will have zero effect on your life. They won’t come into your house and steal your children. They won’t magically turn you into a lustful cockmonster.
The letter was both crude and charismatic, and appealed to a progressive kind of N.F.L. fan—one who believes that professional sports can be at the forefront of social change, rather than pulled along against its will. After it was published, Kluwe was suddenly two things: a high-profile activist in the midst of the most dynamic year for gay rights in the nation’s history, and a professional punter in the midst of the N.F.L. season. It was not unreasonable to think that this might make for a complicated situation. Yet, from the outside, at least, not much happened: Kluwe punted that season for the Vikings and, indeed, as he predicted, no one magically turned into any kind of lustful monster. It seemed like a marker of progress.
Now, if Kluwe’s account is correct, that good news no longer holds. Assuming that Kluwe is telling the truth about specific facts of his 2012 season, we are confronted with further evidence that an N.F.L. locker room is a toxic place, intolerant not only of differences in sexual orientation, but, as we’ve seen from the bullying allegations against Richie Incognito in Miami last year, hostile toward any kind of difference at all. Kluwe alleges that Priefer said, “We should round up all the gays, send them to an island, and then nuke it until it glows,” in front of a roomful of players. If this is true, and went unremarked upon by the people present for over a year, it is mark of shame not only for the Vikings, but for the league as a whole. Meanwhile, if Kluwe’s larger argument is correct, and he was indeed released by the Vikings because of an ideological conflict with his coach, the league should consider instituting systemic reforms to help insure that players are able to take public positions on issues like politics and religion without the threat of possible retribution. Of course, such a thing would not be simple—some views, after all, are more tolerable than others. What if one of Kluwe’s teammates, rather than speaking out in favor of same-sex marriage, instead mounted a public campaign to oppose it, citing his deeply held views as a Christian? Going further, what if that player had been as gleefully incendiary and obscene in his opposition to gay marriage as Kluwe was in his support of it? If the Vikings stood by that player’s right to speak out, would they be accused of protecting a homophobe?
Meanwhile, if Kluwe is wrong, and he was cut, as the Vikings claim, solely because of his diminished performance on the field—or in part because of his expense as a veteran with a high minimum salary—this is simply a football story. Kluwe admits that he made mistakes on the field in 2012, and concedes that, by some statistical measures, like total and net punting yards, he performed slightly below his career averages. Yet Kluwe maintains that this was due in part to instructions from Priefer, who asked him to dial back the distance on his punts and increase their hang time, in order to give his teammates a better chance at getting down the field to cover the return. This tactical change, Kluwe argues, diminished his stats, the very numbers that the Vikings cited when they cut him.
There is, of course, another version of this story, one in which the Vikings decided to cut Kluwe for a combination of factors, which included salary considerations, on-field performance, and his outspoken stance on political issues that, in their content and tenor, may have alienated some portion of the team’s paying customers. This story is, not incidentally, also about the ways in which modern athletes have, in effect, cut the middlemen out of the storytelling process—using friendly Web sites and social media to speak directly to the public. This is in many ways an overdue liberation, especially for athletes who are inclined to engage with contentious social issues.
Yet it is easy to see how Kluwe’s impassioned (and profane) stance on a contentious public issue may have made some of the business people in the Vikings organization uneasy. Today, Kluwe told ESPN, “In the ideal N.F.L. world, you show up to play on Sundays, and that’s it—they take you out of your box and put you back in. Until we get past the idea that money is the overwhelming influence and you can’t live your life at the same time, people will view activism as a distraction.” Had Kluwe been a star quarterback, running back, or linebacker (really almost anyone but a punter, who, along with place kickers, are viewed, rightly or wrongly, as more replaceable than other players), perhaps his off-the-field activism might have been tolerated. In a better world, of course, his proud stand for gay rights would not have been considered a “distraction,” but instead an extra mark in his favor. Maybe that wasn’t the case. But even as late as June, after Kluwe had been released, the members of the Vikings organization were saying the right things. It was, of all people in this story, Priefer who said to a columnist for the local Minneapolis affiliate of ESPN Radio:
I have a lot of respect for Chris Kluwe. I think, based on what he’s done in his career, as a man and as an athlete, and for anybody that stands up for what he believes in like Chris did, I have a lot of respect for guys like that.
This was part of the version of the Chris Kluwe story that served as such a hopeful possibility last season—the idea that there was space in professional sports for a player to be an activist for gay rights, and, at the same time, just another guy in the locker room and on the field. Now, that balance seems less tenable. As Kluwe himself pointed out on Thursday, based on what he’s just written, he’ll probably never be welcome in the N.F.L. again.
POSTED BY IAN CROUCH
Photograph by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images.
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