Sheryl Swoopes' coming-out party was only a couple of hours old Wednesday morning on ESPN.com when a passionately angry e-mail splashed down in my in-box.

It was a friend of mine -- an athletic administrator at a high-level Division I-A school. One of the most competent and respected professionals I know in college athletics. He's also a gay man.

He hasn't come out, not yet. Ask him a direct question about his orientation and he probably wouldn't deny it -- but the risks remain. In the machismo-drenched world of male team sports, admitting you're gay is like skydiving without checking your parachute. You hope for a soft landing, but it's still a leap of faith that could end up going very, very wrong.
And now Sheryl Swoopes is close to pushing him out.

Swoopes' public declaration in ESPN The Magazine that she is a lesbian was not the contentious issue with my friend. The issue was the following quote from Swoopes:

"The talk about the WNBA being full of lesbians is not true. There are as many straight women in the league as there are gay. What really irritates me is when people talk about football, baseball and the NBA, you don't hear all of this talk about the gay guys playing. But when you talk about the WNBA, then it becomes an issue."

continued: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?id=2206636