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of women in sports, "Men have a bigger stake in controlling athletics than any of us realizes. They consider sports their private domain. Their attitudes toward women athletes are complex, because a lot of women in sports are gay. But the lesbian label is used consistently to scare women into submission."

As women have gained power and prominence in college sports, a result of Title IX (the 1972 law that prohibits gender discrimination in federally funded educational institutions), homophobia has flourished. In March 1991, Rene Portland, coach of the top-ranked Penn State women's basketball team, the Lady Lions, made it known that lesbians had no place on her team. One lesbian player was reportedly so frightened of losing her athletic scholarship that she started dating a man. Only after gay rights activists picketed the administration building and tied up telephone lines did the university reaffirm its antidiscrimination policies.

Few coaches have openly criticized the homophobia in their midst. One of them has been Tara VanDerveer, coach of the 1992 national championship-winning Stanford women's basketball team. She told the Los Angeles Times, "College should be a learning experience, to be accepted for what you are, not that you should be forced to conform. I want my players to be themselves."

Another defender of diversity is Jody Conradt, coach of the University of Texas Lady Longhorns. As punishment for her outspokenness and her program's success-Conradt's team, former national champions, has increasingly been "tagged with 'the lesbian label." Last summer the Austin American-Statesman published a three-part series on homosexuality in sports, quoting allegations that the Texas team and coach Conradt were lesbians. The paper quoted an administrator in the University's men's athletic department as saying, "It's about time you nailed them."

To Donna Lopiano, director of the Women's Sports Foundation and former women's athletic director at the University of Texas, the articles were a blatant, politically motivated attack. "As men are being forced to share the wealth in college athletics," she says, "things are getting very tense. People are using homophobia to scare women

LPGA LIFT: Patty Sheehan is a pro golf tourney favorite.

away from sports and to silence them against taking strong positions on Title IX and equal opportunity. Jody [Conradt] is a very powerful woman. The attacks on her and her team were exceedingly personal. I find it interesting that there were never any articles about homosexuals in the male locker room at U.T., despite the fact that reporters knew full well there were gay male coaches who tolerated gay male athletes on their teams."

Ironically, the psychic, physical, and emotional strength women athletes develop through sports may ultimately be the undoing of homophobia. Coach Lucille Kyvallos says that as she watched her female athletes run wind sprints, lift weights, and perfect jump shots, she saw them develop new assertiveness as well. "When women, gay or straight, control their bodies, they begin to control their environments," she says. "I had kids come back and tell me that the things they learned on the basketball court-aggressiveness, perseverance, competitiveness, teamworkhad helped them succeed in life after basketball."

Navratilova has expressed hope that those very qualities will begin to appeal to innovative corporate sponsors such as Ikea, Miller Beer, The Gap, and Banana Republic. Writer Candace Hogan agrees: "Gay athletes would make great role models, great celebrities. To survive the crap, they've had to be people of great substance, complexity, and courage. Instead of hiding them under a rock, sponsors should be putting them forth as our best, our finest."

I offer up Liz, my new gay golfer telephone friend. At the end of our conversation she asked, rhetorically, "Do you think it's a male thing, that when we're better athletes they have to try to find a way to belittle us, to hurt us?" I asked her how she copes on a daily basis. "Guys invariably think they're pretty hot shit," she laughs. "When I see some really obnoxious, really homophobic asshole on the golf course, I try to tee up next to him. He always assumes he's going to out-hit me. So I belt my ball down the fairway. As my ball passes his, I can just see his dick shriveling up." She laughs again. "I do it about once a week. I figure I'm doing society a favor."♥

CHARLES THATCHER/TSI

SCORE

Card #1

At the Games, there's strength in numbers.

Sporting events: 31

Athletic venues: 30 Countries represented: 40

Continents: 6 Languages: 20

Dance parties: 20

¡AY GAMES

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Zical 7. 12 ONE DOLLAR OSASIA

Funds committed by the Netherlands for i Gay Games Vin 1998: $27 million Funds committed by the United States government for Gay Games IV: $0

Cultural Festival exhibits/performances: 130

Volunteers: 7,000 Announcers: 52

Drinking cups: 5,200

Tennis balls: 6,000 Shower towels: 75,000

St. Vincent's Hospital physicians on call for people with HIV/AIDS: 7

Hosts for housing: 250 Requests for hosted housing: 1,000 World records set at Gay Games: 1 (in 100-meter butterfly, for age group 50-54, by Michael Mealiffe in 1990)

Condoms from Mayer Labs for distribution on site: 250,000

Bottles of pain-killers

for distribution: 3,000

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