First gay captain a big milestone for Kiwi sport
New Zealand might have made history this week — and perhaps the best part was hardly anyone noticed.
After Suzie Bates stepped down as White Ferns skipper and Amy Satterthwaite was appointed her successor, the national team now boasts what could be a first in world sport: an openly gay captain.
Yet Satterthwaite’s sexuality went unmentioned in stories about her assuming the captaincy, as it should, given its lack of relevance to her new role. But despite irrelevance, there’s no doubting Satterthwaite’s elevation is a significant milestone.
Even if the idea of an openly gay active athlete has gone from hypothetical to accepted, LGBT people are still underrepresented in sport, and that’s before adding an armband into the mix.
That’s as true here as anywhere. While New Zealand awaits its first openly gay All Black, Satterthwaite — along with Olympians Robbie Manson and Linda Villumsen — is an invaluable public face for young people battling doubts about their sexuality being accepted.
The idea of sportspeople being role models is overrated but there’s no denying that trio, among others, offers a positive example for boys and girls who don the whites every Saturday in summer.
Who better for precocious cricketers to look up to than one of the world’s best, an all-rounder who in 2017 was named one day international player of the year?
If her abilities already made Satterthwaite a fine example of acceptance and, more importantly, inclusion, becoming captain of her nation only enhanced that status.
By all accounts, that’s just the way Satterthwaite would have liked it.
The 31-year-old last March married team-mate Lea Tahuhu and earlier in the year the couple spoke publicly for the first time about their relationship, describing themselves as “pretty private people” but acknowledging the importance of their mere presence.
Simple solution to Serenagate
Forgive me for opting against becoming the 217th white man to offer a take on whether Serena Williams was wrong for feeling she was being treated unequally in the US Open final. Allow me, instead, to propose a simple solution to avoid such brouhahas in the future. And by future, I don’t mean next year’s Australian Open. But hopefully one day soon. Robot umpires are the answer to many sports’ problems, especially tennis. And I for one welcome our new technological overlords.
No more disputed line calls, no need for replay reviews that may heighten drama but also disrupt flow, no more temper tantrums.
Actually, scratch that last one, athletes will rage no matter what, only in this near-future, it will be even more amusing because they will be raging at robots.
For sports like tennis and baseball, the technology should be fully embraced as soon as it becomes available. If for no other reason than preventing us all from a week full of white dudes mansplaining racism.
LGBT people are still underrepresented in sport, and that’s before adding an armband.