The week that was Jordan Lucas
Jordan Lucas was the focus of awful comments by a broadcaster. Now the gay volleyball player is a star. This was the week of Jordan Lucas. The post The week that was Jordan Lucas appeared first on Outsports.
Mark
Jordan Lucas was, until about five days ago, a volleyball player most people had never heard of, on his second university team nearing the end of his college career.
Little did UC-Irvine men’s volleyball broadcaster Charlie Brande know when he decided to mouth off about the eccentric on-court celebrations of Lucas that he would be igniting a firestorm within the sport, ending his volunteer broadcast career and elevating the CSUN player to stardom.
In case you missed it, a week ago Brande suggested Lucas be “popped” by somebody on the court — or, translation, punched in the face.
A longtime fixture in Anteaters volleyball and a volunteer commentator for them, Brande’s legacy in the general public will now be this terribly misguided comment and the fall-out that has followed, instead of the career that landed him in the UC-Irvine Athletics Hall of Fame.
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A written public apology by Brande last weekend, released by the UC-Irvine men’s volleyball team, was supposed to sweep his comment’s under the rug. And it had seemed to work.
By the end of last weekend, the story was going nowhere. Media hadn’t picked it up, and while there had been some commentary on social media, it was pretty much dying there too.
Jordan Lucas criticism needed wider discussion
Yet there were bigger issues to discuss more openly surrounding Brande’s comments, and Lucas’ sassy demeanor on the court that brought them.
No, as the Big West conference confirmed, nothing Lucas was doing came anywhere near unsportsmanlike conduct.
Everything Lucas was doing was legal, and the gay athlete was being supported by his conference.
As Jordan Lucas told me earlier this week, and has been pointed out by many, no one seems to complain when a straight guy celebrates in a traditionally masculine way.
Jordan Lucas is a great player, and gay gay gay after a play
Lucas’ celebrations aren’t necessarily “gay” — But at the same time they are Gay with a capital “G.”
What makes his celebrations particularly impactful is how he told me that he started them even before he came out to many friends and family. As he was a teenager grappling with his orientation, he was blowing kisses and sashaying around the court.
These conversations, about the sportsmanship of a gay athlete being “gay gay gay” on the court, and the suggestion that he be punched for it, are important to have.
When Outsports shared the story — making sure the folks at Awful Announcing had seen it — those conversations took place widespread. It went from a couple Instagram posts of support for the young gay volleyball player to wider conversations in the LGBTQ community and the entire volleyball world.
Most important? Jordan Lucas felt the support and the love. The focus of the comments by Charlie Brande (whom Brande never contacted to apologize) went from seeing a broadcaster harshly criticize his flashy on-court persona to being celebrated in the media and social media with millions of views, comments, likes and columns of support.
Brande thought he was going to rally support against the “gay gay gay” self-expression of a college volleyball player he wanted to see roundly criticized.
Instead, a week after the comments, Hall of Famer Charlie Brande’s voice is gone from volleyball broadcasts and Jordan Lucas is a beloved star with 150,000 new Instagram followers and people clamoring for more of him.
It speaks volumes about the direction men’s sports are headed.
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The post The week that was Jordan Lucas appeared first on Outsports.
