Out Basketball Star Says Opponent Hurled Anti-Gay Slur During Game
Out basketball star Derrick Gordon took to Twitter on Dec. 10 to allege that a player for the opposing team hurled an anti-LGBTQ slur at him during that afternoon's game.
"Great team win today," Gordon tweeted after his Cypriot League team, Apollon Limassol B.C., prevailed over ETHA Engomis, "but being called Faggot during the game by one of the other players on the team is a disgrace and shouldn't be allowed in pro sports."
Gordon added: "I will always stand up for my community no matter what," and appended a Pride flag emoji to his tweet.
Yahoo! Sports reported that the player who allegedly hurled the slur was Eden Ewing, who played "one year at Purdue before being dismissed from the team for a rules violation.
"He spent his final two college seasons with Texas Southern," Yahoo! Sports added. "Ewing signed with ETHA Engomis in September."
Gordon is one of the rare - but now growing - number of LGBTQ athletes to come out while still active. He disclosed his orientation in 2014 while playing Division 1 college basketball with the University of Massachusetts.
Speaking with LGBTQ athletics site OutSports, Gordon alleged that he "was exchanging verbal barbs" with Ewing when "Ewing called him a 'faggot' multiple times.
"Gordon says a teammate stood up for him immediately," the article went on to add.
"This isn't going to hurt me or bring me down," Gordon declared.
Similar accusations of anti-LGBTQ abuse on the field of play emerged earlier this autumn when soccer player Collin Martin, who plays with the San Diego Royal, reported that a Phoenix Rising team member, Junior Flemmings, had called him a "battyboy" - an anti-gay pejorative in Jamaican slang.
Collins' teammates surrounded him as the Loyal left the field at halftime, and when the second half of the match began, the Loyal players, together with their coach, "took a knee and then walked off, forfeiting the match," CBS News reported at the time.
Flemmings denied having hurled the slur, but was fined, suspended for six games, and put on administrative leave until his contract expired at the end of November, Yahoo! Sports recalled.
"It's unclear whether Ewing will face discipline for his alleged actions," Yahoo! Sports reported.