Bob

Dolgan

A whole new game

o Dave Kopay looks like the stere otyped jock, 6-feet-1, 205 pounds, lots of muscles. From 1964 to 1973 he played on six National Football League teams, mostly on specialty units. John Brodie, his teammate on the San Francisco 49ers, nicknamed him "Psyche" in honor of his aggressive play.

But Kopay is different in one respect from most athletes. He is a homosexual.

Kopay, who kept his sexual preferences hidden during most of his time in the NFL, recently wrote a book about his homosexuality. Called "The David Kopay Story," it has created some excitement.

In it, Kopay tells of a homosexual experience he had with an all-pro player on the Washington Redskins. He adds that other NFL players have. told him they also are homosexuals. Kopay does not name any of them.

"I can't name names," said Kopay in a telephone conversation from his Chome in Washington, D.C. "I fear libel Suits. If you speak the truth you're liable to go to jail for it."

Kopay has been criticized on the grounds that, by failing to name names, he is putting a stigma on all NFL players. He disagrees. He feels there should be no stigma attached to homosexuality, and that homosexuals should not be made to feel guilty, as they have in the past.

Kopay points out that more and more homosexuals are coming into the open in hopes of ending the old taboos and fears. One of those admitted homosexuals is Merle Miller, a best-selling author who revealed the fact in a New York Tinies story..

"Five years from now when a person admits he's homosexual, people will say, 'So what." Kopay predicted. "My book is just helping to speed that day."

He admits, however, that he wrote the book to make money and that he is cognizant the time was ripe for profit.

"I realized what I was doing when I spoke out," he said. "People have to make a living. I happen to be a very fortunate young man. A few years from now I would not be able to sell the book." The implication was it would be old.hat.

Kopay said the book has sold 38,000 copies since it came out in late. February. He gets 50% of the profits.

Kopay wasn't making much of a living after his retirement from football and had been rejected in six tries to get coaching jobs. So how can we be sure he didn't falsify the story just to make money?

"If people want to believe me that's their choice," he said. "I'm into people making their own choices."

He refused to answer when asked How many homosexual players there

are in the NFL. "I'm not getting into numbers because I don't know them all," he said. He also refused to tell how many he knew.

He would only say that Freud estimated that 10% of the human population is homosexual and that it is reasonable to assume that football players are proportionately homosexual.

Kopay became angry when I pressed him for information on how he came to know there were other homosexuals in the NFL. After he cooled off, he said it was a known fact. among some players.

He flew into another rage when I said that some parents are apprehensive about homosexuals because they have sometimes been arrested for child molesting.

"If you were here right now I'd punch you in the nose for saying that," he shouted. "It's been shown that child molesting is more prevalent among heterosexuals than it is. among homosexuals. Either way, it's a tragic thing and has nothing to do with the subject."

Kopay should learn to control himself. If he is going to be a spokesman for the gay.community he will have to answer tough, even unfair, questions. By threatening violence, he is only practicing the same kind of discrimination that homosexuals complain about.

ו .

In the book Kopay tells of his. education at a Catholic seminary, his co-captaincy of the 1964 University of Washington Rose Bowl team, and the torture he went through in telling his parents of his homosexuality.

He said he has received hundreds of letters of thanks from straight and gay people for bringing the subject of homosexuality into the open. He said he has received only a bit of hate mail.

He said he has not heard from anyone at the NFL. "They preach macho and dominance," he said. "I'm against all that. Anyway, I think my book will create more interest in the NFL."

$