Brittney Griner , the lesbian basketball star who has been praised for being "out and proud," recently revealed that her Baylor University basketball coach Kim Mulkey wanted gay players to keep quiet about their sexuality.
During an interview with Maggie Gray of Sports Illustrated, the new Phoenix Mercury player spoke at length about her sexuality, although she stated that she was out since the 9th grade.
Griner said that not discussing her sexuality was like an "unwritten law" in an interview with ESPN The Magazine and espnW. The basketball player, who recently scored an endorsement deal with Nike, said the "law" was disguised as concern about putting her private life out in the street.
"It was more of an unwritten law, but come to find out it was a written law. It was just kind of one of those things like just don't do it," she explained. "They kind of tried to make it, like, 'Why put your business out on the street like that?'"
Griner, who became the eighth player in Division I history to reach 3,000 points during her basketball career at Baylor University, said she was asked by Baylor administration to remove a tweet that referred to her sexuality, as the Advocate notes.
Griner explained that Mulkey wanted lesbian players' sexuality to be inconspicuous because "it was a recruiting thing." She then added, "The coaches thought that if it seemed like they condoned it, people wouldn't let their kids come play for Baylor."
Still, she stressed that it wasn't a personal problem for the coach.
"I told Coach [Mulkey] when she was recruiting me. I was like, 'I'm gay. I hope that's not a problem,' and she told me that it wasn't," Griner said. "I mean, my teammates knew, obviously they all knew. Everybody knew about it."
In more recent news, Griner was nominated for a 2013 BET Award for "Subway Sportswoman of the Year." She makes her debut on the court as a professional athlete on May 27, in a game against the WNBA's Chicago Sky.
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