brittney griner returns to waco
It’s a huge deal Baylor University is honoring a player who has been so openly and unabashedly gay.
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Brittney Griner’s jersey number was retired by Baylor University this Sunday. Griner is the Big 12’s career scoring leader, the NCAA career blocks leader, a two-time national player of the year, and won a national championship with Baylor under head coach Kim Mulkey. She also recorded the school’s first ever triple-double. Griner was the number one pick in the 2013 WNBA draft and is a two-time Olympic gold medalist.
Her jersey retirement is well-deserved and she described herself as “full of emotion” seeing her jersey being lifted to the rafters.
Baylor’s current head coach, Nikki Collen, said she knew when she was hired three years ago that she wanted to retire Griner’s No. 42 but the retirement and ceremony were delayed due to Griner’s detainment as a political prisoner in Russia for nearly 10 months.
Seeing Griner honored in this way is long-overdue, and it’s beautiful to watch not just because of what Griner has been through over the last few years. This recognition is also significant because of what Griner personally went through while she was at Baylor.
Brittney Griner did not have a good time playing at Baylor under Mulkey. College basketball is still not the friendliest place for athletes to be openly queer, but over a decade ago when Griner played, it was even less so.
According to Griner, Mulkey told lesbian players to remain closeted because she said it would hurt the program’s ability to recruit talent. Griner’s sexuality was an open secret in college, and the 6’9” center says she was honest with Mulkey when she was being recruited that she was gay.
“It was more of a unwritten law [to not discuss your sexuality] ... it was just kind of, like, one of those things, you know, just don't do it,” Griner told ESPN in 2013. “I mean, my teammates knew, obviously they all knew. Everybody knew about it.”
As I wrote for Global Sport Matters in 2021:
Research shows that over a quarter of LGBTQ+ student-athletes have reported being harassed or bullied because of their sexual orientation, and queer collegiate athletes are more likely to report harassment than their straight counterparts. Some NCAA schools have student handbooks that actually prohibit homosexuality; those schools include Baylor, Oral Roberts University, and Harding University.
Baylor, a private Baptist school in Waco, Texas (yes, home to Chip and Joanna Gaines, who have quietly used their home design empire to platform their (anti-gay) Evangelical beliefs), for years had a policy that classified “homosexual acts” as sexual misconduct and as “misuses of God's gifts.”
It wasn’t until 2019 that the school issued new, clarifying language which skirted the issue of banning explicitly queer sex by lumping all sex together under their “Sexual Conduct Policy,” which says that “Baylor will be guided by the biblical understanding that human sexuality is a gift from God and that physical sexual intimacy is to be expressed in the context of marital fidelity. Thus, it is expected that Baylor students, faculty and staff will engage in behaviors consistent with this understanding of human sexuality.”
In 2021, the Board finally approved “guiding principles caring for all students, including LGBTQ students,” which “acknowledges the University’s responsibility for serving the needs of all students based on three guiding principles,” one of which is “the dignity and worth of all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.”
According to ESPN, when Griner was a student, the school had “a ‘Statement on Human Sexuality’ in its student handbook.”
Located under the label “Sexual Misconduct,” it says that “Christian churches across the ages and around the world have affirmed purity in singleness and fidelity in marriage between a man and a woman as the biblical norm. Temptations to deviate from this norm include both heterosexual sex outside of marriage and homosexual behavior. It is thus expected that Baylor students will not participate in advocacy groups which promote understandings of sexuality that are contrary to biblical teaching.
That schools with these discriminatory policies are allowed to be in the NCAA and participate in March Madness is another issue altogether (The NCAA is not liable to Title IX and argued in 2020 that it has “no legal duty to protect” athletes against sexual abuse and harassment).
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it took Mulkey leaving for Griner to be honored by the Lady Bears’ basketball program (it is also worth mentioning that Collen previously coached in the WNBA, giving her a familiarity with Griner and a respect for her game). Mulkey left Baylor for Louisiana State University in 2021 after 21 seasons at the helm in Waco and led LSU to their first NCAA national championship in 2023. When she first left, the Louisiana-native said she was ready to “go home” but hinted last fall that there were bigger reasons that she was not yet ready to share.
That Mulkey is still a respected coach in college basketball is, in my opinion, a disgrace. All the talk and jokes about her flamboyant clothing is a distraction from the fact that she is an incredibly problematic figure1. Playing for her cannot be good for the mental health of marginalized players, most of whom are Black and/or queer. As
laid out at earlier this NCAA WBB season:This is a woman who has a history of homophobia, who has mocked sexual assault survivors, who defiantly took her predominantly-Black Baylor national championship team to celebrate at Donald Trump’s White House. This is a coach who was happy to have Brittney Griner lead her team to a national championship, but couldn’t even be bothered to speak up for Griner when she was wrongly imprisoned in Russia.
When asked about Griner having her number retired by Baylor, Mulkey responded simply, “I think it’s awesome.” That being all she can muster seems par for the course for Mulkey but it doesn’t matter what she thinks. Collen—and Baylor, and the rest of the women’s basketball world—recognize what Griner means to the sport and they’re finally giving her her flowers. It’s a huge deal that a Baptist school like Baylor is honoring a player who has been so openly and unabashedly gay.
I definitely have my own feelings about whether schools like Baylor should be allowed to be in the NCAA, about athletes who choose to play there despite the school’s discriminatory and restrictive policies2, about coaches who choose to helm that program, about athletes who continue to sign on to play for Mulkey, and about the fact that Mulkey is still allowed to coach young players and be heralded the way she is in the sport. These are all things that college WBB will likely need to figure out in the future.
But for now, I am just happy to see Griner being given the recognition she deserves.
For nearly five months now, I have been asking where the athlete response to the ongoing genocide in Gaza has been, especially in women’s sports who tend to be politically engaged on issues like this. I covered the Ultimate community’s organized response last week, and
has been highlighting the few athlete responses at his Substack, .Late last week, we finally saw a more coordinated statement from Athletes for Ceasefire. Led by the legendary John Carlos, it was released with about a dozen athletes from across sports and has continued to gather signatories on its open letter.
“As professional athletes, we underscore our shared humanity, and advocate for
a path that respects all human life, regardless of religion or ethnic background,” the statement reads. “In signing this letter, we continue a long legacy of athletes speaking up for the human rights of all people, such as Olympians John Carlos and Tommie Smith who raised their fists at the 1968 games in part to demand that apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia be held to account. We stand in the proud tradition of ‘The Greatest’ Muhammad Ali who stood for Palestinian freedom throughout his life both in word and deed.”
It’s likely not a coincidence that most of the male athletes from the major men’s U.S. sports who have signed are retired. There are several WNBA players on the list, including Layshia Clarendon, Natasha Cloud, Amanda Zahui B., and Kierstan Bell. Nikki Hiltz, fresh off repeating their USA Track and Field Indoor Championship this past weekend, has signed, as has their partner, fellow track and field athlete, Emma Gee. Trans champion boxer Patricio Manuel is also a signatory.
I’ve been pretty shocked at the lack of mainstream press coverage of this open letter but perhaps I should not be. Mainstream sports journalism doesn’t like to touch issues they consider politically controversial. Either way, I’m glad to see professional and elite athletes finally speaking up in a more coordinated way.
She would hate this TikTok wondering if she was a lesbian because she coaches WBB and for that reason, I love it.
Former Baylor teammates NaLyssa Smith and DiJonai Carrington are now dating each other.
Whee! Worth the wait. 🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾 Brittney's autobiography In My Skin is a good read.
I’m sure you hear this all the time, Frankie, but you’re literally the only person who can make me care about sports. Thank you 🫶🏼