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My great grandfather came to America in 1923.
He traveled on a Dutch ocean liner
called the Nieuw Amsterdam.
Cramped in a steerage with his mother
and younger sister by his side.
I grew up hearing his stories of success in business,
starting a family and most of all,
his stories of speed skating.
I intended this film to focus solely on Jack Brooke's life,
about his struggles in an unknown land.
It's a tale that fits neatly in the story books
and history lessons.
The young immigrant escaping the violence of the old world
for the promises of the new one.
But I've come to realize
that this is a story about many lives.
It's about more than any one man.
This is a story about how we conduct ourselves
and treat each other not only as athletes,
but also as brothers, sisters, neighbors and citizens.
This is a story about what it means to play the game
when the field isn't level.
To find the will to succeed
when the prospects of success remain so persistently grim.
This is a story about the fight for fairness,
for acceptance on the field and off of it.
This isn't the stuff of Hollywood lore,
my great grandfather and the men and women
who come after him, don't die rich.
Sometimes they're not even remembered,
but they lived real lives.
And their lives, their story deserves to be told.
Because in the end,
this is a story about us.
Most of his family was killed in the Holocaust,
but he brought over maybe about a half a dozen people
that were still alive.
He got them jobs, he helped them out financially,
he got them apartments, he always took care of his family.
Speed skating was his passion, his life passion.
Whenever he found a spare moment
whether in the middle of the day
or in the morning or afternoon,
he would just take the skates which he always had with him
and just go skating.
The ice meant everything to him,
meeting his wife, meeting...
His medals, it's everything.
It's his whole life is the ice.
My father really worked hard
to become a world class speed skater.
And it would have been a very special experience for him
to compete at the Olympics.
Unfortunately, even though he went to Lake Placid
on the US skating team,
he wasn't able to skate in the Olympics
because he wasn't a citizen.
Today, I believe he would have been granted citizenship,
would have been able to compete in the Olympics.
Jack Brooks wasn't able to compete in the Olympics
in 1928 or 1932, because he was an immigrant Jew.
He wasn't a citizen,
so they wouldn't make him a citizen
based on his natural gifts as an athlete,
even though he was qualified and made the team
and beat Olympic champions.
He couldn't do that because of who he was
and where he came from.
Now, there was another speed skater at the time,
Irving Jaffee, who was Jewish but he was an American,
he was a citizen.
Very proud that he beat the world champion,
Irving Jaffee, in one of the races,
that was his high point of his life
that he beat an Olympic star.
That moment was very special to him.
He proved to himself, to the Olympic champion
and all of the skaters
that Jack Brooks was a contender.
I'm sure he would have loved to been able to step on the ice
at the Olympics and prove that to the world.
Even though he made the Olympic team,
he worked his whole life, became a world-class speed skater,
beat Olympic champions, it didn't matter.
At the time they didn't give citizenship to athletes
based on their natural gifts as an athlete.
Now, today that happens all the time.
In Sochi, there was over 120 athletes
that competed for nations other than their birth nation,
so it happens today.
That was 4% of the 3000 athletes that competed in Soshi.
And it happened again in Rio
and American athletes competed for other nations as well,
a lot of them.
And it's sad, to think that Jack if he was around today,
he probably would be able
to compete in the Olympics definitely.
So, that's a hard pill to swallow,
knowing what it meant to him to skate on Olympic ice,
to skate against a competitor like Irving Jaffee.
And for Jack Brooks to potentially end up
being the Olympic gold medalist,
the Olympic champion,
it's something that he was never able to accomplish
and,
something that ate him alive for the rest of his life.
The Olympics held a different place
in American society
then in the 1920s and thirties,
as it does today.
It was more captured by a blue blood establishment
that sort of ran how it was
and they wanted the Olympics to run
with a certain sort of class.
Also at this time, there's a tremendous nativism
that's striking up in America.
It had already started in the twenties
with the limitation on immigration in 1924.
Partly because of the fear that many of these Europeans
who were coming over were likely radical.
Well, you don't want a radical in sports either,
you want the right type of person in sports.
You'd have to earn your citizenship in the normal way,
you'd have to prove that you are an American
before you could compete for America.
The first winter Olympics were held in 1924
in Chamonix, France.
And the star of the US team that year
was a skater from New York in Lake Placid
named Charles Jewtraw.
Who was actually the first gold medalist ever
at a winter Olympics.
He won the 500 meter speed skating event for the US.
And, he sort of started the sport to become popular again
in the 1920s in that era.
And he was followed by a guy named Irving Jaffee,
who was a Jewish speed skater.
Jaffee ended up winning two gold medals
at the 1932 Olympics.
And he really popularized the sport
and was the biggest hero of speed skating
around New York city in that era.
He was always proud to be a Jew
as far as I understand.
And he contributed to Jewish causes Lifelong apparently.
What I do know in Lake Placid,
there was overt antisemitism.
Some of the other athletes
were making life miserable for him.
And they were pouring water on his mattress to make it wet
so he couldn't sleep at night.
Apparently, they would shine bright lights in his eyes
when he was trying to sleep.
They were trying to get him out of there
and not let him compete.
And so he went and spent the night before the race
with some friends so that he could get some sleep
and he went back and he won two races in Lake Placid.
Quite an accomplishment for Jews
and for the Olympics and for Irving Jaffee.
And I'm proud of that.
I am proud of that.
The games were organized by a guy named him Godfrey Dewey.
And Dewey ran the Lake Placid Club.
And he was actually a rabid anti-Semite.
Now he did not ha-
Allowed Jews to be members of the Lake Placid Club.
So this was a big thing for a Jaffee
to go there and win gold medals right in front of him.
I'm sure Dewey wasn't happy.
When Jews come to America,
they're often seen by nativists and racists
as being unathletic.
Being Jewish was regarded as a handicap.
And you had to overcome that handicap,
in order to succeed you had to be twice as smart,
twice as tough, twice as good, twice as strong,
twice as committed, twice as determined.
And many young Jews of that generation
who wanted participate in American society
understood that it wasn't an even playing field
and they had to be determined to get ahead.
Jews get involved in basketball, baseball,
of course boxing, and they move up the ladder.
But then there's an issue
of do we want Jews to play for us as Americans?
We've done all America's asked of us,
we've become Americanized, we speak the language,
we played the games.
And yet at that point
there's a great deal of discrimination against Jews
in those arenas, those arenas of sports.
Irving Jaffee, making it in speed skating
was also astounding
because speed skating wasn't supposed
to be an underclass sport.
Speed skating was not supposed to be something done
by people who grew up in less than privileged environments
and it wasn't supposed to be a Jewish sport.
What did happen with Jaffee
was he won his two gold medals in 1932.
And even though he was still skating by 1936,
he refused to go to the Winter Olympics
in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany,
because it was in Germany during Hitler's era
and he knew what Hitler was doing with the Jews,
so he refused to skate.
I'd like to think that winning an Olympic medal
is a pure endeavor and to many athletes it is.
Unfortunately it was impure leading up to the 1936 Olympics,
which were the most polluted politically ever.
Nazi Germany essentially paid
to have the Olympics in Berlin in Garmisch.
And anybody who played a role
in what happened in Nazi Germany,
should have gone away with their head buried in some hole.
And that didn't happen.
A pre-Holocaust moment takes place in 1936,
when two outstanding Jewish runners;
Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller,
are kept off the four by 100 relay team
because that event in the Olympic stadium in Berlin
was one of the signature events in the Olympics.
And it's been said that the leaders
of the American Olympic Committee led by Avery Brundage,
didn't want to embarrass Adolf Hitler
by having Jews stand on the victory platform
as winners in this race.
Now, everyone knows that Jesse Owens wins four gold medals.
So why is an African-American allowed to compete
and a Jew isn't?
Well, it goes to the root of racial ideology.
Jews are seen as corruptors, as outsiders.
Jesse Owens is viewed as an auxiliary,
as a hired hand who's who's running for white Americans.
Jesse Owens to his credit said,
"Let these guys run, I've won enough."
This great African-American athlete Jesse Owens,
won four gold medals, an unprecedented four gold medals.
And Hitler left the stadium
before the golden medal was presented to Jesse Owens,
so he wouldn't have to be seen with blacks,
because blacks were regarded as inferior.
And after he wins four gold medals
and he comes back to New York,
there's a victory celebration at the Waldorf-Astoria
and Owens is allowed to participate, except for one thing,
he has to go up the back service elevator
to get to the ballroom.
Community defined situation through the world of sports.
To me, Jesse Owens, he's someone who was so courageous,
who competed in such a time of adversity.
And for him to go out there and really just be courageous
and stand up for himself and for a whole group of people,
is just amazing and something
that I feel like we should never forget.
He paved the way, not just in sports,
but for life.
So I think that's amazing.
The great athletes who are African-Americans in our past,
like Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali,
who got all the hate being the discriminated against,
so we like myself and other African Americans
don't have to be discriminated against,
don't have to be called the N word
when we're trying to perform.
Or go to the restroom and get jumped by white people.
It's--
I'm getting a little emotional right now
actually just thinking about it.
It means a lot for those who are our founding fathers,
to set those example for us.
For--
Not only for me, but for all African-Americans
like me and after me.
I think sports is an incredible conduit
for change in society.
All the amount of propaganda
that Hitler was putting out there,
was just silenced by this four Olympic victories
in all gold medals.
It's like you can't get more definitive than that.
I think it takes merit to be seen as an equal
on the playing field.
I mean, the numbers don't lie.
I'm not saying it's just that easy,
racism and sexism and prejudice have persisted
even in the face of excellent athletes.
It has to do with the dignity,
with which you carry yourself.
In the state of Georgia when I was a kid,
the white kid got the favor.
If it's the fighting club,
the white kid was gonna get the decision.
The fact of the matter
is things like that happened to me all the time.
I was always getting cheated.
Matter of fact, the kid be crying
and he got the decision, he won.
But for one thing, he own it,
he don't wanna box no more,
because you would turn him up.
It was like that for me all the time.
Yeah, not so much with white people,
it's just discrimination is just...
The person got more money than you,
they family came a lot smarter,
they speak a little different.
Discrimination is in so many different areas.
I was that kid that got a lot of trouble,
but somehow I was a good fighter.
I fight good, why did I fight good?
I trained all the time, I trained hard,
regardless of how bad it hurt, I just kept doing that,
I kept doing it and I kept doing it.
I love the challenge of working hard
and I love to be successful.
And somehow I--
You can put the fires out.
You know when I'm sending peeps out.
You will never do it because you're poor,
you never do it because you black,
you never do it because you ain't got no money,
you never get it in it 'cause you're a father wasn't there.
But life is not by advantage,
it's by, are you gon' do it?
My goal was to make the Olympic team and I made it.
When they called my name everybody cheered,
that has been the thrill of my life.
I'd never ever had everybody on my side,
but when I fought in the Olympics I did.
Do sports perpetuate institutional racism?
Of course they do.
But American business is built in institutional racism.
Our entire nation was built in institutional racism
called slavery, that's an institution, right?
So there is--
And our entire wealth of our nation was built on slavery.
Our success, quote unquote, was built on slavery.
The emergence of a nation,
of an independent nation was built on slavery.
So the institutions of racism are embedded in our system.
For someone like a Evander,
it seems like maybe it gave him more strength.
But if I'm sure, for many kids it deflates the dream
and those kids don't end up
the heavyweight champion of the world.
Those kids might end up in the street corner
or might end up in prison
or might end up--
And sadly some of them are dead.
So the fact that Evander could overcome that
is triumphant, but doesn't necessarily mean
that it's not happening anymore.
The thing I admire about Olympic athletes
is the commitment and training.
You have to have such undying belief in yourself.
An example would be Aimee Mullins.
Here's someone who has such belief in her abilities
and her talents as a runner,
that even without part of her legs,
she persists and does it with force.
And that's the kind of thing
that requires pure belief in oneself.
When I think about sport,
I think about in a way how it's the lost art.
If we look at dance and cinema and music,
as these kinds of outlets of creative expression
that impact our society, and I think sport also does that.
These kinds of facing your fears and self doubt
or insecurity, testing your will, testing your endurance,
are things that are intensely private
and athletes do them in a very public way.
I think that's why it's so infectious.
My days of running in the NCAA and running for Georgetown
were really special for me.
To be the first person in the world on these Cheetah legs
and to be a teenage girl and to walk out
and do a track meet on Saturday morning
with everybody staring at you and kind of just inviting it.
There's nowhere to hide when you're wearing those.
And I hadn't realized that I had ever wanted to hide,
but I think I certainly didn't wanna be known
as the girl with the legs.
To be a teenager and really kind of face that head-on,
required a lot of kind of emotional stamina on my part.
For me, I was born that way.
It just, it came with the package.
I was such a natural athlete,
I was always very comfortable in my body,
but the randomness of being born without fibula bones
was such that...
Yeah, there was a period in my life
where I really questioned why it had happened.
You kind of come up with different things
to comfort yourself.
If you think it's some kind of divine will,
you're being tested.
My grandmother used to say
that God doesn't give you anything you can't handle.
The fact that we just don't know why certain things happen
and
we have to deal with it.
My only real annoyance was people who would,
whether it was doctors or even some teachers,
that would sort of set the bar really low.
It wasn't like I innately had something to prove
because I knew I was capable, really capable.
And it just sort of annoyed me
when people presumed I wasn't.
When I look back at those days
I'm thinking about lining up in the blocks and doing it
because I wanted to be the fastest woman on prosthetics
in the world.
I still use it as a touchstone,
I need to remember that I was able to do that.
Thank you.
10 years after me there were hundreds and hundreds
of top tier athletes running with prosthetic legs.
But my experience of competing when I did,
it felt a lot of times very lonely.
The best thing I took out of it was knowing
I had done something that no one could ever take from me.
And it was a transformation within myself
that doesn't leave you and it affects everything you do
for the rest of your life.
Sometimes I still can't believe that I did it.
It's an extraordinary feeling to remember
that you were able to have this crazy dream
ask for help, have the discipline to follow through
and get there.
And whatever part my story has played
in the larger narrative of track
and the even larger narrative of the Olympics
and ,then sport,
I'm proud to have a little line next to my name
that says, world record setting.
To be a woman's speed skater
in kind of the era that I grew up in,
unfortunately, I didn't have a lot of other females
that were kind of right at the same level that I was.
I trained with the boys
and even started racing against some of the boys.
And that kind of gave me
that fuel for my fire, so that when I got
to those bigger international competitions
and would have to go against those other women
who were top notch within our sport,
I was ready for those competitions, physically, mentally,
emotionally, everything that went with it.
I had some pretty good friendly rivalries
with two of the guys that I skated with in my era.
And it really gave me that great nervous energy
that I really wanted to have
and be ready for it when it came to those big competitions.
One of the things that I think
it's really important to also address in this,
is the ways in which the institution of sports
seeks to masculinize male athletes
and feminize female athletes.
So we see this in very random ways.
For instance, when women's boxing
was being introduced in the Olympics,
they were required to or it was proposed
that they were gonna wear skirts,
something that served zero utility to the sport.
Both men and women compete in gymnastics at the floor,
women compete to music, the men do not.
When you look at figure skating,
the men disproportionately get judged on athleticism,
the women disproportionately get judged on artistic merit.
So again, there are these weird ways
in which this structure of sport
tries to put men in a masculine bucket
and women in a feminine bucket.
What its all connected to is this idea
that somehow athleticism,
which for men it's always been argued,
it gives men a sense of leadership, of strength, of control,
that women who possess those same attributes
would challenge men for power,
and you still have that to this day.
All the boys races, they're always on on prime time,
the ladies, they have to go a little bit--
They get showed a little later at night.
Which I heard from anybody that watched my races
would email me like, "We watched the boys,
they're on on prime time,
but we had to stay up till midnight to watch your race."
The boys do attract a bit bigger of a crowd.
But I do think that any woman with a strong personality,
which I would say most women in sports
have a strong personality,
And that's something that I have to kind of struggle with
in my work life to make sure that...
To get work done, you do, you have to be assertive,
see what you want and go after what you need to get
to make your job successful.
But women aren't always considered assertive,
sometimes we go straight to the B word.
When sports became professionalized and organized
in the late 19th century,
it was something that young girls were just largely denied.
The main reason why we have any progress
or could even speak about progress in women's sports
in any serious way,
is because of the federal legislation of Title IX.
Like it's not something that happened
organically from below,
it was something that is part of the women's movement,
that profoundly changed the percentages of women
who had access to sports.
So what Title IX did,
is it basically rebaked part of the cake
or baked a new cake that's now on the table
with the old sexist cake,
but the old sexist cake still exists
and they're still handing out pieces.
Okay.
So I'm gonna to just give you some actions to do.
And just do the first thing that comes to mind.
Show me what it looks like to run like a girl.
Oh, my hair, oh my God.
Show me what it looks like to fight like a girl.
Stop, stop.
Now throw like a girl.
Aah.
My name is Dakota and I'm 10 years old.
Show me what it looks like to run like a girl.
Throw like a girl.
Fight like a girl.
What does it mean to you when I say run like a girl?
It means run fast as you can.
Over the last 100 years
we've made remarkable progress in closing the gender gap.
Women have been able to gain the right to vote,
women have been able to gain the right to an education,
women have entered the workforce.
Still where we stand today is not enough.
What we're seeing today is a renewed momentum.
There's such a clear understanding that the world's economy
cannot do without the talents of women,
that the world society cannot do without the voices
and opinions of women.
There's plenty of research now
that shows that you cannot underutilize 50% of your talent.
All American, Jeneva McCall,
makes that throw.
And McCall will take the gold medal.
You have a combination of the efficiency argument,
which is, your economies will be more efficient.
And then you've got the equity argument,
which is, "Hey, it's just fair."
Change is a funny thing,
it goes from the unthinkable,
to the impossible, to the inevitable,
but you just gotta make your way through that.
It's great to have your accomplishments recognized.
And to me, it's a proud moment.
And also really, just--
I hope that it's an example for younger people
coming up as well, that you can accomplish these things
and you should strive for them.
Being a minority on any team,
whether it be an Olympics or world championships,
it really can set you apart.
When I was diving, it was, it's an individual sport
and everybody's kind of out for themselves.
I definitely had more supporters from the women's team
than I had the men's team.
And got a lot of snide comments
of when I was at my first Olympic games and I was 16.
And all my other teammates were college graduates
and they were older, I was still in high school.
So I hung out with the Soviet divers
'cause they were closer to my age.
And so then I became the commie fag.
A lot of the people in USA diving
knew about my sexual identity.
And then it was always an issue,
we're a small team, so it was like,
"Okay, who's going in the room with the fag?"
And, I wasn't a part of those conversations,
but I learned about it later.
The amount of things
that you hear in a locker room
that are extremely homophobic, they just scar you
and they slowly chip away at you and chip away at your soul.
The guys will be sitting next to you in a full on discussion
on like, "How could someone even be gay?
Like how disgusting is that?
How can someone love another man?"
So it just makes you believe,
like there's no way that I'd be accepted in this atmosphere.
So that's why you're so afraid
and you think that if you do come out,
then you're gonna have to get away from that.
And that you just--
I mean going back into locker room,
you think that they'll just be like walking on eggshells,
everyone would be silent,
that people would be whispering behind your back.
I mean, those are the fears that go through your mind
because you hear that kind of stuff.
And then you do come out
and those are same guys that support you
and you realize, that they're not necessarily homophobic,
but it's more of that pack mentality
where they kind of feed off each other
and say things that they think the other wants to hear
and it's a banter going back and forth.
So, it's really weird, it was so strange to me
that those people were saying is that they'll support me
and still a lot of my best friends.
And they would send me texts like,
"Oh, you know when I said certain things,
please forgive me.
I didn't mean to hurt anyone's feelings."
And just to go back to those times in my mind,
I'm like, it's crazy that you would say something like that.
But I understand, it's again, that athlete stereotype
that guys wanna live up to.
Growing up in Texas as a gay football player, it was...
It had its challenges.
Because football Thursday, football Friday,
football Saturday, church on Sunday,
then after church we'd watch some more football.
It is, that is our life during the fall.
And it was rough because if you did not play football
or any type of sport, people would bully you
or make fun of you.
"Oh, you're not playing sports,
you must be a sissy or whatever."
And, I had to--
Knowing that I was different,
I had to try to make myself in a manly position,
I had to play all sports and do anything that's possible,
people didn't think that or assumed
that I was a sissy or a gay.
I don't know many people if they'd know this
about me or not, but sports pretty much saved my life.
And the reason why is,
I was being bullied to a level,
maybe it wasn't even bullying, maybe it was just--
I don't know, it was--
I was not--
I did not grow up in a safe environment
and I was always been tortured and tormented
by my older brothers.
And they made my life a living hell growing up.
And sports, pretty much and especially football,
saved my life.
And without it, I wouldn't be here today.
I don't know how much of it was true homophobia
or how much of it was jealousy.
Because I've been in touch with a lot of the divers
that I used to dive against
and they have no issue with my sexual identity,
but it was a way to beat me off the board.
If they can't beat you on the board,
then they'll try and take jabs at you off the board.
I was homophobic myself and repressed that stuff.
And dated girls, had girlfriends or joining in the banter.
I think as I got older, I became more and more silent
because I realized that this is depressing
and that this isn't for me.
But definitely in my teenage years,
I was part of all that
and tried to live up to the stereotype.
And I think a lot of gay men do
and that's where a lot of the shame comes in
for a lot of gay men that you hear they deal with.
And I think a lot of gay men deal with that
for the rest of their lives actually.
Everything you think that you are is bad,
you're taught that that's like evil.
So, then when you're also part of that banter
and
making jokes about someone being gay or whatever,
and you're part of that and you hear that,
it's like, it's the worst thing in the world.
You can imagine what that does to your whole body.
So as you get older and you realize that,
you get, you become more mature
and you realize this isn't the life for me,
then you have to deal with all those emotions.
And, you remember all those experiences.
So again, like when people say like,
"Why was it so hard for you to come out?"
and is it--
Why do people have to even talk about it?
It's like, Oh my gosh, please.
It's the stupidest question in the world.
We talk about it because there are no gay athletes.
And there are no gay athletes
because of the amount of things that are being said
in the locker room
and the atmosphere that athletes of the world has created.
So it's just really damaging.
I went to college at University of Missouri,
I played there from 2009 to 2013.
In 2013, I came out to my teammates
and we had a successful year.
We had ended up having a 12 in two record.
Our second year in the SEC,
I was voted a unanimous All-American
and also SEC defensive player of the year.
I was--
And during that time, I was picked
to go in the top three rounds in the draft.
I came out to the world in February nine, 2014.
A standout college football player
may become the first openly gay player
in the National Football League.
Michael Sam told interviewer Sunday,
that he is a proud gay man.
Sam is an All-American defensive lineman
for the University of Missouri
and 2013's SEC defensive player of the year.
The NFL draft takes place in may as for Sam's prospects,
every previous SEC defensive player of the year
has been prominently drafted.
And the day of my announcement,
I instantly dropped down in the draft.
I wouldn't know how far I dropped down until draft day.
On draft day I found out
that I dropped down to the seventh round,
pick 263, I believe.
St. Louis Rams select Michael Sam.
No SEC defensive player
ever went that low but me.
I got drafted to the St. Louis Rams.
I ended up having--
Leading that team with Sachs,
one of the top guys and tackles that year.
I was released at the end of the camp.
Michael Sam's NFL dream is over for now.
The first openly gay player drafted by an NFL team
was cut earlier this afternoon.
And I then went to Dallas Cowboys
and for the remainder of that year,
I was with the Dallas Cowboys.
But they too unfortunately released me
at the end of the year.
When you have a vision and you have it
and you want something to get done,
you have to realize there are gonna be some sacrifices.
I was drafted
as the first openly gay football player in NFL.
Right now, I'm currently a free agent.
And it shows that progress takes time.
The fact that he was drafted so low,
I do think had to do with him being gay,
I think a lot of experts say that.
We've had coaches info--
Seventh round.
Yes, seventh round.
- But see I-- - Hold on, hold on.
We've had coaches on the record
and former coaches say, "I would not draft him,
I would not have him."
Because he would be a quote, distraction.
Competing at such a high level
and I had a very long career and I won a lot,
it's human nature to root for the underdog
and I was not the underdog.
So there was this whole beat the fag campaign
at one of the competitions.
And that was really a motivating factor for me
to prove myself that I deserve to be there,
that I deserved to do well.
And for me doing well was usually winning.
I remember that one competition,
I looked down into the crowd
and there was this whole--
I knew so many of the individuals
who were part of that beat the fag campaign.
And I looked down into the audience and another diver
who has always been quietly supportive of me,
she smiled up at me and she gave me a thumbs up.
And that was just enough to say,
"Oh my God, I've got somebody in my corner."
And that is something that is so valuable.
I'm grateful that I've been able to share
that story with her, how important that was to me
at that moment in time.
And I ended up winning that competition.
When I realized I was gay
and I was playing sports,
I knew I had to either stop playing the sport
or I need to not be gay.
So I decided to play the sport
and just to completely hide the other side of me and to--
And even to myself, I really kept that inside
and didn't talk to anyone about it.
So, it's a scary place to be and I think a lot of people
will come to a place in their life where they decide
one way or the other and I think that's not right.
When I was 24 years old and I moved to England,
I was like, "I just--
I can't do this anymore, I'm depressed."
Even winning championships or going to Olympics
or playing for the national team,
things that I all--
And playing in Europe, all things I dreamed of doing,
I wasn't quite happy.
And I couldn't quite be myself around my friends, my family.
And so I just couldn't imagine my life being like this
for the rest of my life.
I mean, it just felt miserable.
So, I got to a point where I just decided
that I need to come out and tell my family at least,
my friends.
And if that meant that I needed to stop playing soccer,
then I need to stop playing soccer
and discover myself away from that.
So,
it just showed how fearful I was.
'Cause I thought really that my career was over.
And the public found out about it,
then I realized that now it is a possibility.
Because I heard then from so many people around the world,
like, "Please continue to play."
Like, "I love you as a soccer player
and I'll continue to support you."
And then it was also my teammates and coaches
that reached out to me that supported me.
And it made be like,
"Okay, well, if these guys are gonna support me
and if they come on and continue to play with me,
then I can at least try to do it."
Even though it was scary.
A few months after I came out
I went back to playing for the Galaxy,
it was really scary for me.
And I felt like I didn't wanna let myself down,
my family, my team,
but also I felt a little bit of
I didn't want to let the LGBT community down.
I was a little nervous about that,
it was because there was no other,
there were no other gay men in sports and especially soccer.
So it was like, I don't know,
if I mess up, am I letting you this community down?
And finally,
I wanna recognize what Robbie Rogers of the Galaxy has done
for a lot of people by blazing a trail
as one of professional sports first openly gay players.
My guess is that as an athlete,
that Robbie wants to win first and foremost,
that's what competition's all about.
But Robbie, you've also inspired a whole lot of folks
here and around the world and we are very proud of you.
So, where is Robbie?
When I realized the impact that it had
on so many people around the world,
that's when I realized that,
oh my, I can go back and kick a soccer ball around
and help people.
That--
I'll get messages from people still once a day
or one every other day, where someone's like,
"You really like saved my life."
Now, never did I ever think when I came out
that I would be doing that.
Hopefully there's more gay athletes that come out
and then younger men and women see
that they can just be themselves
and they can be out and doing their thing
and still have success.
Here's Robbie Keane now.
Oh, its lovely.
Robbie Rogers!
Oh, yes!
It's a special night for him,
it's a special night for LA.
And he's waited a long, long time, Robbie Rogers.
Going back to this trophy, Cotton Bowl's trophy ceremony
back in February of 2014,
was something really special to me.
Seeing over 4,000 students
and faculty and just people in the community
blockade these certain people who are just full of hate.
Westboro Baptist Church members
are known for their protests at funerals of fallen soldiers
because they believe God is punishing the United States
for tolerating homosexuality.
This time the group targeted openly gay football player,
Michael Sam.
Mizzou sophomores, Kelaney Lakers and Alix Carruth,
used Facebook to organize a counter protest.
Hundreds showed up and created a silent human wall
in solidarity to Sam and their Mizzou family.
And just seeing that and showing that so much love for me
and for my community, it was heartwarming.
And I know no one saw this, but I was in the booth
and I was just by myself and I was just--
I knew there was something special about this school.
And it was--
And I had a little moment to myself and I had--
I cried a little bit, but I was just--
I felt loved, I felt loved.
The reason why athletes have had a hard time
standing up for their beliefs in professional sports
is twofold.
A, they won't become accepted
and they'll be shunned by either their peers
and/or their coaches or whatever.
And then in sponsorship, corporate America, right?
A lot of times, unfortunately, an athlete's well-being
is being taken care of by those types of corporate sponsors.
And sometimes in those corporate environments
they're specific, very conservative viewpoints
on how they should or they should not be
expressing themselves or conducting themselves
in the professional spotlight.
So, there is a little bit of game
I think the athlete has to play.
The sports world, particularly athletes,
are heavily policed and heavily censored
by the people who run sports.
Because most of them are actually very right wing.
Most of them are billionaires
who are connected to hedge funds
that are incredibly hostile unions,
incredibly hostile to any sort of worker self-organization.
And they do not like the idea of their workers speaking out
whether it's in an electric factory in upstate New York,
or whether it's in a sweat shop in Southeast Asia
or whether it's the athletes on their basketball team.
And when you couple that with the ways
in which the media, sports media
traditionally has been very older, very white,
largely somewhat conservative,
it creates a kind of three-headed monster of people
telling the young, disproportionately poor
at least from birth
or disproportionately people of color,
athletes that they need to just shut up and play
and be grateful for the opportunities that they have.
It just shows to this day like how difficult it is,
especially when anything you do
could get you labeled a distraction.
And if you're labeled a distraction,
then your earning potential and your time in the pros
becomes limited dramatically.
Unfortunately, one of the things
that comes along with a very corporate environment
aside from big profits,
is that they want it to be very neutral,
they don't want to offend anyone.
You don't wanna drive away any consumers
who might purchase your product.
And so in the case of sports,
it's unfortunate because a lot of these teams,
a lot of these entities have this view
that a gay player is going to bring negative attention
and it will drive people away.
But that's not the case.
People watch your sport
because they wanna watch someone do something very well.
And yeah, you might lose some people
who don't agree with LBGTQ individuals,
who have whatever their objections are,
but at the same time that will be offset by other people
who say, "Hey, that's fantastic, you let anyone play."
It truly is about being good at the sport.
It is a meritocracy.
And so, if any corporations are listening,
I would encourage you.
Because--
And this is actually true, they found on Wall Street
and in the banking industry
that there's this huge push for diversity,
because it makes their businesses better.
They can appeal to more customers,
they can make more profits,
they can provide a better service
because they have these different viewpoints.
And so the fact, you know that from a business standpoint,
the facts are diversity is better for your business.
And so, I would hope that sports teams
would take a look at that and follow that lead
and say, "You know,
if we want to have better athletes out there,
if we want to have a better product,
then we need to encourage every athlete to be who they are,
no matter what that is."
♪ Yo, yo, yo
When people say sports and politics don't mix,
what they're usually saying,
is that sports and a certain kind of politics don't mix.
Because they usually have no problem
with things like hypernationalism, sexism,
a football team in a certain city named after a racial slur,
they're fine with all of that stuff.
What they're not fine with
is athletes using their hyper-exalted platform
to actually speak about the world,
that's when you usually hear people
come down with the, "Keep your politics out of my sports."
Sports and politics have always mixed.
The desegregation of major league baseball
when Jackie Robinson became the first black player
in major league baseball was politics.
Even before that, the Negro leagues
and segregating black athletes was politics.
Not allowing black players to play in the NBA was politics.
Not letting black players play In the NFL was politics.
Jesse Owens and Hitler refusing to shake his hand
was politics.
Muhammad Ali throwing his gold medal
from 1960 Olympics in Rome was politics.
Tommie Smith and John Carlos
raising their black fist in the air
1968 Olympics in Mexico city was politics.
I've always felt right that this the sporting arena
is such a powerful place to make a statement
about politics, about social justice.
It's a level playing field if you will,
in terms of the fans who watch these sports.
The Republicans and the Democrats, the independents,
people who hate politics, who watch basketball and football
and baseball and tennis
and everyone comes together in one space.
And,
when Eric Garner was killed
and there's a non-indictment that came out,
we took to the streets in protests.
And we were trying to figure out
what was the best way for us to get the message out.
And the royal couple of the United Kingdom
was on a trip here visiting our country.
And they were going to...
It was actually a Nets, Cavaliers game.
And we had LeBron James,
perhaps the biggest star on the planet playing in Brooklyn.
And we had some connections.
My dear friend, Dream Hampton who's a phenomenal writer
and activist and thought leader and a friend of Jay Z,
who has a part--
At that time part ownership of the team,
we reached out to them and Dream and then to Jay Z,
and then, "Could we get t-shirts into the arena
to get to the Nets?
And then could we get one to LeBron
because Jay and LeBron are good friends?"
And all of a sudden we were printing t-shirts
at two o'clock in the afternoon.
And by five o'clock, three hours later,
we were getting t-shirts across the bridge
as fast as we can.
And ultimately they got into the arena
and to the players' locker rooms.
And we had no idea.
We had no idea what would happen.
I happened to be on TV that night on CNN.
And I was in the green room with Russell Simmons
who I was working for at the time,
who was also going on television and Eric Garner Jr,
Eric Garner's son was there.
And we had to drive the t-shirts off
and then all of a sudden on the news,
there was the pregame of LeBron James
wearing the, I can't breathe t-shirt warming up,
making news.
And a remarkable scene just unfolded moments ago
here in New York, at tonight's MBA matchup
between the Brooklyn Nets and the Cleveland Cavaliers,
with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in attendance,
alongside Beyonce and Jay Z.
Calves' star, LeBron James took the court for the warmups
in this t-shirt bearing the words, "I can't breathe."
The ast words uttered by Eric Garner and repeated 11 times
as he was subjected to the police chokehold and restraint
that caused his death.
So myself and Eric Garner Jr got into the car
and we went over to Barclays arena where the Nets play
and stayed outside the arena and in protest, right?
Of what was happening in this city.
So, in the past few years whether it was Trayvon Martin,
whether it was Eric Garner
or whether it was Tamir Rice, folks are speaking out.
When I spoke out for LBGTQ rights
and ended up losing my job for it,
it wasn't so much courage really,
as more recognizing the fact
that the society I wanna live in
is one where I'm free to do what I want
and be who I wanna be.
And so in order for that society to flourish,
when I'm in a position of power,
when I'm in a position to say something,
then I need to speak up for those who aren't,
because I'd want them to do the same for me,
if the positions were ever reversed.
And so it's almost more of a kind of a self-serving position
in that you recognize,
if you want the freedom to live your own life,
you have to make sure everyone else has that freedom.
Otherwise, if it gets taken away from one group,
it can just as easily be taken away from another group.
And so the only way it works
is if everyone has that same freedom.
Discriminating against people based on skin color
or based on their gender
or based on their sexuality is so silly.
Because at the end of the day it boils down to,
can you help your team win?
Or can you put forward the performance
that allows you to win?
If you're playing a solo sport.
And I think that people need to understand that
and that really, from the athlete perspective.
From those of us that are playing the game,
we don't care what you look like.
We don't care what your sexuality is,
what we care about is can you score a touchdown for us?
Can you catch that pass?
Can you save a goal?
Can you serve the ball over the net?
And that's what matters out on the sporting field.
And so, it's a very--
It's supposed to be a meritocracy.
It's supposed to be the ultimate meritocracy
that if you're good enough to play,
if you're good enough to reach that level,
that's the only thing that matters
and it's the only thing that should matter.
I really hadn't gotten involved
in a lot of stuff before in the NFL,
because I didn't know that I could get involved.
It never occurred to me that this was something
or that there were issues that I could speak out on,
that I could make my voice heard.
And really, I didn't think it was going to become
such a big deal as it became.
It was more, "Okay, I'm going to help defeat
"this amendment in Minnesota."
An amendment that would have banned same-sex marriage
enshrined it in the United States constitution.
'Cause I was like, "That's not a great idea."
I think discrimination in the state constitution is bad.
And so a group approached me
and asked me if I was willing to help defeat it.
I was like, "Sure."
That, I would love to.
This is an unnecessary and restrictive amendment
that does not belong in the state's constitution.
I'm Chris Kluwe, and I'm urging you to vote no
on the voter restriction amendment.
Let's punt this thing back to the legislature.
As athletes, you were focused on the game so much sometimes
that we forget that we do have that platform,
that we can make that change.
And, it also comes down to as athletes
are we willing to make that change?
Because it's very easy to just keep your mouth shut
and play the game and say,
"I just wanna be known for what I do on the field."
And for a lot of guys, there's nothing wrong with that,
like that's fine.
You just wanna be an athlete, that's fine,
you just wanna be an athlete,
that's cool, that's your life to live.
But, if you want to do something more then you can.
And yeah, it might come with some risks.
You might face some things
that you otherwise wouldn't have faced,
but at the same time, if at the end of the day
you've done something to help out other people,
then I consider that a win.
Because there are many things more important
than playing a children's game for money.
And
the stable functioning of society,
it ranks kind of above that in my opinion.
My name is Hudson Taylor,
I'm the founder and executive director of Athlete Ally.
And we work to end homophobia and transphobia in sports
and to educate and activate athletic communities
to really exercise their leadership
to champion LGBT equality.
So I was a three time All-American wrestler
at the University of Maryland and a theater major.
So I was sort of this unique breed of athlete
who was in a locker room every day,
hearing my teammates say homophobic and sexist things.
And in the theater department where I had LGBT friends
who were being valued and respected
and appreciated for who they were.
And I think that context made me realize
that that was not what I wanted with my sport,
of my team or the legacy that I wanted to leave behind.
So in my senior year in college,
I was ranked number one in the country in my weight class,
training to win that national title.
And I realized that my sort of cultural capital,
my voice as an athlete is tied to my time as an athlete.
And so I wanted to use that opportunity to speak out.
And so I started my senior season
wearing that LGBT equality sticker on my head gear
to use my platform, to use my privilege,
to hopefully make a positive difference.
They want freedom, they wanna be free.
Whether you're black,
whether you're part of the LGBTQ community,
whether you're a young woman,
whether you're a young immigrant
or the descendants of immigrants
or the parents of immigrants,
these young people they wanna be free.
And they're willing to risk their lives,
they're willing to risk their bodies,
they're willing to risk their reputations,
risk their careers to get that freedom.
And it's hard for us white people to understand that
because we're already free.
And so we don't get it.
So we don't say, "Why are they so angry?"
or "Why they lie in the middle of the road?"
Or "Why do they shut down my highways?
I can't get home."
'Cause they don't wanna live in fear from the police.
And they didn't want to live in fear of going to school
and being bullied because they think or they're not sure yet
whether it was the right time to come out.
They don't want to live in fear
that they might have a undocumented parent at home,
that parent's gonna be deported
because of bad immigration law.
They wanna live in freedom.
And we don't tell 'em to shut up, we speak louder.
We raise our voices even louder.
If that means we gotta go to jail for them,
that means we gotta go to jail for them,
If that means we gonna lie in the middle of the street,
means we just lie in middle of the street.
If that means that you loose some fans on Twitter,
we lose some fans on Twitter.
We know we on the right side of history, we know it.
And they know it too.
They just have some anger in their heart,
they have some pain somewhere in their life
that prohibits them from seeing the world
in a compassionate way.
So we don't judge them, we're not.
We don't wanna fight against them,
we're fighting for us.
I do feel a responsibility
to promote a message of inclusiveness and equality,
especially because of my background.
My family brought me to the US when I was four,
it was a huge sacrifice for my parents
to leave Mexico and come to the US
in search for a better opportunity for themselves
and also for us.
Sports for me was in a sense, it was a way out for me.
As a child, you don't know any better.
You think, you live in the moment
and you make do with what you have.
And sometimes as a child, you don't really think
that you have it bad.
You--
I mean, I was always a very happy child
and I was--
I think it wasn't until later that I realized
that maybe that I didn't have
what all the other children had.
So I became a citizen right after my 18th birthday.
So I hope that it is a very--
That it is a positive message.
And to kind of show showing inaction
that there are many immigrants
or people from immigrant backgrounds
that are here to contribute, that they're not here to take,
that they're here to give, to help
and they're here to work.
Fear is usually just--
You fear usually the unknown or what's not common.
But we are all equal.
And the only thing that does separate us
on that particular day on race day,
is making sure and have you done everything
that you were supposed to do leading up to the race.
And that's it.
The one thing that I'm really impressed with
is the Canadian Olympic team.
They started this whole one team program
and that we're all one team.
It doesn't matter race, religion, sexual orientation,
any of that.
And we also have it in the IOC Charter in charter six
that Olympism does not discriminate.
And it does state about religion, race, sexual identity.
So I think that we've come a long way,
I think that the athletes have come a lot further
than the powers that be.
But I feel that they're beginning to catch up
and be much more open and much more accepting.
So I think we're in a really positive path.
As athletes, from everywhere in the world,
you wanna go at the Olympics and perform.
For us, the COC, the Canadian Olympic Committee,
was able to take all those little things around
that are not performance stuff away from us,
so we can think only about going in the Olympics, skate
and get focused to win medals.
Anyone can come, can go to the Olympics
and they will not have--
They will not be discriminated.
So I think it's a good thing to--
When the Olympics is there, you put all those things away
and let the athletes play and do their best.
This specific culture is evolving in the United States,
I'm not always accepted internationally.
It's definitely a sensitive topic.
I'd love for there to be one kind of global acceptance.
Unfortunately, that's just not how the world works.
And I think we're moving in the right direction though.
And I think we've seen, especially lately,
larger countries who've had previous political
and specific cultural beliefs,
are starting to really make the progressive change
towards something that is positive
and more liberal and more accepting,
which I think is a good thing overall.
We're given these moments and these challenges
as really kind of a test to our character.
And I think that if you can go out and draw strength
and be able to overcome those obstacles,
then you're gonna be stronger as a person inside and out.
You don't necessarily really know somebody
until you've walked in their shoes.
And once you have, I think you as a person or whoever
would probably understand why they're there.
Many people don't choose to be in a certain position,
sometimes things happen.
Whether we like them or not certain situations just happen.
For the most part,
I think that the Latino community in the US,
there has been a lot of progress done
and they're still working on doing more things.
And I think that the goal here
is to become better, not only great people,
but great community leaders
or great teachers, whatever it may be.
And I think that that's the goal,
that's the goal for all of us
to continue bettering ourselves in every way.
When I think about
the most memorable sporting moments,
they are not world series or Super Bowl games,
they're the moments where social justice
intersected with sports.
There are those moments when athletes went above and beyond
all the obstacles standing in their way
and broke down barriers,
that's when we moved societies forward.
There is tremendous, tremendous, progress made
because of the Olympics
in terms of relationships around the world and sport.
Ping-pong diplomacy, Richard Nixon going to China.
And my first movie I ever made
was on Cuban baseball in 1999.
And seeing the president just there last month,
attending a baseball game with Tampa Bay Rays,
coming together with him sitting next to Raul Castro
at the front seats of the front row
of the Havana baseball stadium, Estadio de Havana.
When you see athletes can't compete
because of their religion, whether it's Judaism,
the antisemitism that was rampant
in the twenties and thirties and forties
and certainly the Holocaust,
which was a result of that hatred,
And they continue antisemitism around the world today.
But you see it around the world
where there's Muslim countries
not allowing their athletes to play in Olympic games.
Or whether it's corrupt Olympic committees,
not allowing the best to compete.
And so some never get that potential
to be at the best sporting event in the world.
It's sad.
It's sad and it's a disservice
to the journey we all are on as human beings.
But when you do see a Iranian soccer team
playing a US soccer team
and they can shake hands at the end,
you know we're not enemies,
you know we just have politicians who wanna position us.
Or you see, as I saw when I was in Cuba,
Cuban baseball players and at that time,
the Baltimore Orioles, American baseball players
playing catch on the field together, laughing and joking
and slap each other high five, we're not enemies.
And so sports has been an incredible place for us
to realize that.
I hope these barriers of entry
on race or class or creed or color or religion
are consistently knocked down
and continuously knocked down
no matter who you are in this world
and everywhere you live in this world.
Because there's great joy and excitement for me at least
when I see our country compete
against someone who we're told we don't like.
Or when you see young Iraqis or young Afghanis
begin to compete in the Olympics
and begin to see a country that they can be proud of
and wave the flag of which maybe before they couldn't.
it's a beautiful, beautiful thing.
Most athletes would tell you,
it doesn't matter where you come from,
what color your skin is, what you believe,
who your God is, you become friends.
And I think it's going through those sort of experiences
of being an athlete and knowing
that he's training just as hard as you are,
and you're going through those same ups and downs,
it makes them pretty strong bonds.
When I was a skater, there's was this big thing,
you had the iron curtain, there's the East Germans
or the Russians.
And I'm gonna tell you, some of the Russians at that time
were some of my best friends.
I got some of my best friends who were East Germans.
Those are guys that I'll still talk to
and I can count on.
I think that's one of the cool things about sports,
it sort of transcends all that stuff.
At some point in time in life,
you gonna be them or not.
So you--
The way you treat somebody, it gon' come back on you.
So either way it go,
it's that vicious circle that go around.
There's still room to grow in reaching equality in sports.
I think it's an ongoing struggle,
but I would definitely say that there's been progress.
And there's been people
who have been leading the way in that.
And I hope that a lot of the athletes now
are just adding to that and that we can make change.
We live in a day and age
where antisemitism is not as prevalent as it was
in the early stages of sport, Jack Brooks, Irving Jaffee.
Individuals who have had to truly understand
what passion for something they believe in and want,
overcome and could overcome anything,
any challenges from an outside perspective.
I think to go forward,
it's often important for us to look back
and understand where the sport has come from,
who were some of the key players,
who was performing and what they had to do
to go through those elements, right?
There's been no triumph without immense struggle.
There's been no victory without incredible obstacle.
And stories like that, I think resonate within myself,
but also for our younger generation, the next millennials
who are looking to achieve their own dreams,
hopes and aspirations.
Well, I think what happened to Jack Brooks was a travesty
to be denied your rightful spot.
It had to be devastating.
And there's no--
I have no way of--
There's nothing in my life I couldn't even compare
to that type of feeling that he must have experienced.
That kind of let down, frustration, anger,
it's just something that I hope never happens again.
And also something that we have to give
a certain amount of respect and acknowledgement,
that we should give more
to the guys who had to experience this
in order for us to not have to.
Knowing what they went through
is kind of inspiring to me,
'cause I hope that today we can make a difference
in the sport and hopefully in culture,
and realizing that if you have struggles now,
it could make a difference for generations to come.
Everybody should have equal access
and opportunity to sports
and really, anything that they're interested in life.
And whenever that opportunity is being denied,
whenever an equally positive experience is being denied,
that is probably one of the saddest things in the world.
Jack Brooks wasn't able to compete in the Olympics
because of who he was.
And I can have a little parallel with him
not competing in the NFL because of who I am.
And hopefully we can all be like Jack Brooks
who just stand up for what they believe in.
I really can't imagine what Jack Brooks went through,
being denied his rightful spot to compete.
I feel so blessed not to have to face anything like that.
And really just grateful for people like him
who have paved the way,
so that I can be afforded the privilege to compete.
I can't even pretend to know what that would be like
to have to go out there under those conditions.
If people are against you simply for being who you are.
And I'm a little actually disappointed sometimes
because I don't think all our athletes
know the history of our sport.
And it's--
I think it's so important for any athlete in any sport
to know the history, to know who--
The ones who were, that came before.
And why are they there now?
They're there maybe a little bit because I was there,
but I'm there very much so
because of those that came before me.
Sports' come a long way,
but we have a lot of people think for it.
In my great grandfather's hundred years
on this earth, our world changed for the better.
Our society became more equal,
our politics more humane,
our sport more inclusive.
But for many that progress has come slowly,
sometimes not at all.
Athletes still hide in closets.
Others hide from deportation, discrimination
or marginalization.
Some who are different, who love differently
or worship differently,
are still sometimes relegated to the sidelines.
Still cast off as second stringers.
That's the unfinished work of this generation,
to build a more just and more equal world,
one sport and one athlete at a time.