By Nicole Greenstein C’14
On the afternoon of October 14, Penn Law students gathered in Gittis Hall to hear a talk from Patrick Burke, the Co-Founder of the You Can Play Project. Burke’s organization combats homophobia in sports to create a more inclusive environment for all athletes, regardless of their sexual orientation. At Monday’s event, which was sponsored by the Penn Law Entertainment & Sports Law Society, Lambda, and Journal of Law & Social Change, Burke discussed the inspiration behind You Can Play, as well as the importance of changing today’s sports culture.
“Our motto is simple: if you can play, you can play,” Burke said. “If you can contribute to a winning team, it doesn’t matter who you love off the field.”
Burke founded You Can Play in honor of his late brother Brendan, a devoted hockey player who was the first person associated with the National Hockey League to come out as openly gay. Only a year after the project’s founding, You Can Play has had over a hundred professional hockey players and colleges sign on with videos expressing their support, along with popular musicians such as Macklemore & Ryan Lewis.
Burke’s organization has also worked to remove homophobic slurs and stigmas from professional sports through legally binding documents with the National Hockley League and Major League Soccer. These unprecedented agreements ensure that if an athlete comes out, the league will stand behind them. Yet Burke stressed that because “a locker room is not a court room,” his main focus is not to make equality legal, but rather to make equality popular — both among the athletes themselves and in the sports community at large.
“We thought the event was phenomenal, Patrick is an incredible speaker,” said one of the organizers, Grant Darwin L’14. “His organization is really making some important headways in an area that I think has been most resistant to change, so we were very excited to have him.”
Settling in at Penn Law for a speech about @YouCanPlayTeam.
— Patrick Burke (@BurkieYCP) October 14, 2013
Excited to hear @BurkieYCP speak about @YouCanPlayTeam here at @PennLaw! #youcanplay #equality
— Anna Aagenes (@AnnaLinaAagenes) October 14, 2013
Listening to @BurkieYCP from the You Can Play Project at #PennLaw today! https://t.co/zisI569U7D
— Nicole Greenstein (@n_greenstein) October 14, 2013
“If you can eliminate 5 or 10 words from your vocabulary…it’s such a huge step. The homophobic slurs have to go.” —@BurkieYCP #pennlaw
— Nicole Greenstein (@n_greenstein) October 14, 2013
“If you can play, you can play…If you can contribute to a winning team, it doesn’t matter who you love off the field” -@BurkieYCP #pennlaw
— Nicole Greenstein (@n_greenstein) October 14, 2013
“When we remove that stigma…we get better athletes, we get better teams, we get better sports.” —@BurkieYCP #pennlaw #youcanplay
— Nicole Greenstein (@n_greenstein) October 14, 2013
70% of homophobic bullying incidents at school occur in a playing field, a locker room or a weight room. -@BurkieYCP #pennlaw #youcanplay
— Nicole Greenstein (@n_greenstein) October 14, 2013
“We’re not worried about making equality legal, we’re worried about making equality cool.” -@BurkieYCP #youcanplay #pennlaw
— Nicole Greenstein (@n_greenstein) October 14, 2013
“If you’re good enough at what you do, your sexual orientation shouldn’t matter.” -@BurkieYCP #youcanplay #pennlaw
— Nicole Greenstein (@n_greenstein) October 14, 2013
Students at @PennLaw enjoying pizza, soda and an inspiring talk by the You Can Play Project’s Patrick Burke pic.twitter.com/dDn4MvGgHz
— Nicole Greenstein (@n_greenstein) October 14, 2013
Want to read about something that will make you think check out @YouCanPlayTeam. @BurkieYCP spoke at @PennLaw today, great issue to advocate
— David Nows (@davidnows) October 14, 2013
Thanks again to #PennLawLambda and the #JournalofLawandSocialChange for cosponsoring today’s event! #PennLaw
— Penn Law ESLS (@pennlawesls) October 15, 2013