Women’s Hoops Fan Fuels Controversy Comments About Lesbian Players Spur Response By Area Coaches

Bob Cullenbine’s remark was an eye-opener.

The founder of the Stanford Fast Break Club voiced some of his opinions at a panel discussion on homophobia in college sports. The seminar was held last Saturday as part of the women’s Final Four weekend in Cincinnati.

Afterward, engaged in a more intimate Q&A with San Francisco Examiner columnist Gwen Knapp, Cullenbine added this opinion: “If you don’t have any lesbians on your team, you’ll never win a national championship.”

Knapp’s column sizing up the seminar, along with Cullenbine’s later remark, appeared in Tuesday’s sports section of The Spokesman-Review.

His sweeping statement prompted a telephone call Wednesday to his Palo Alto, Calif., home. The passionate women’s basketball booster willingly expanded on his opinion.

“If I were recruiting and if a parent asked me if there were any lesbians associated with my team or a team of a worthy school, I would say, ‘I certainly hope so.’ Because without their presence, it would be unlikely to win a national championship.

“If you discriminate, you’re not going to have the best team. And people that discriminate are losers. They’re loser schools.”

Cullenbine’s remark to Knapp, when repeated to area women’s basketball coaches, sparked a variety of responses.

“Is the best player getting a scholarship?” asked University of Idaho coach Julie Holt. “Well, quite honestly, I think coaches aren’t out going, ‘Hey, let’s see. Let’s recruit a lesbian or let’s not recruit a lesbian.’ I’ve never said, ‘I’m not recruiting a lesbian,’ And I’ve never said ‘I’m not recruiting a straight person.’

“You go out and recruit the best person, the best student-athlete, the best basketball player. You get the best that fits what your needs are in your program, not if they’re a lesbian or not a lesbian.”

Helen Higgs, Whitworth College women’s basketball coach said the remark prompted other questions.

“It seems like it’s an ignorant statement,” Higgs said. “Ignorant in that is there proof there’s been a lesbian on every national team? Whenever I hear statements like that I think the statement is offensive in itself.”

“When I was at the Division I level (at Utah and Gonzaga), the parents would ask, ‘Do you have a lesbian problem on the team? What’s the morality of the team.’ Some people were more direct about the whole thing.

“The parents are just trying to take care of their kids, and I was never offended by it.”

Kellee Barney, women’s coach at Gonzaga University, said she’s angry. Not so much by Cullenbine’s statement, but with the topic.

“I’m tired of it. They try to make it a platform every year,” said Barney, who has never attended a Final Four. “It’s just like, who cares? We’re here to celebrate women’s basketball, the top teams in the nation.

“To me, it puts a damper on the whole event. It becomes a big political issue.”

A political issue that’s pushed aside, according to Cullenbine.

“Nobody talks about it in the game itself,” he said. “There is no coach that says she’s a lesbian. In a way I understand it because people would recruit against her. But I think anyone that would do that is a fool.”

Heidi VanDerveer, women’s basketball coach at Eastern Washington, added: “I think it has to do with basketball. It has nothing to do with anything else but basketball. If you’re a good engineer, you’re a good engineer. If you’re a good basketball player, you’re a good basketball player.”

VanDerveer attended the Final Four as a fan of Stanford. The Cardinal fell short of its third national title under the coaching of VanDerveer’s older sister, Tara.

“Anybody that’s won a national championship. … if you get good basketball players you win, if you don’t, you don’t,” VanDerveer said.

Or like Stanford, you always come close.

, DataTimes