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It’s a sign of the progress that professional sports — and society — have made that the Chicago Cubs can make an emphatic statement in support of gay youth, and it doesn’t feel like that big a deal.
Cubs manager Mike Quade is the lead voice in the team’s “It Gets Better” video, and what he says is valuable, but it’s also something we’re not all that surprised to hear.
“We all know how hard it is to grow up dealing with constant peer pressure and the desire to be expected,” Quade says. “The Chicago Cubs organization accepts you for exactly who you are, gay or straight.”
The It Gets Better Project is aimed at gay teenagers, and seeing this video had me thinking of my own teenage years, in the 1990s — when I never heard a single professional athlete or coach make a statement like that.
Now Quade can say the Cubs accept everyone, gay or straight, and it feels wholly unremarkable. That’s progress.
Yes, the sports world still has bigoted fools like ex-NFL receiver David Tyree, but those bigoted fools are increasingly outnumbered by people like Quade.
The Cubs’ It Gets Better video is below.
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Edited by Ricky O'Donnell
Ricky O'Donnell is the editor of SB Nation Chicago. Many moons ago, he founded the Chicago sports blog Tremendous Upside Potential, which updated from 2007-2011. He has worked and written for the Chicago Sun-Times. O'Donnell lives in Bucktown and is a journalism graduate of Columbia College... See my profile
