Sports
Long road back
Autobiography tells of journey back from throes of addiction
Joe Putignano found redemption in writing and performing. (Photo by Thomas Synnamon)
There are movements, sounds and smells in sports that become an important part of the ritual of each particular sport and they often become a comforting factor for the athlete.
It could be the lacing of your cleats on the soccer field, the pop of the tennis ball coming off your racquet or the smell of chlorine when you walk into a pool.
For gymnast Joe Putignano, it was the feel of the mats hitting his feet during tumbling passes, the squeaking of his hands as he did giant swings on the high bar and the smell of chalk when he prepped for a routine.
Eventually his rituals changed and he found his comfort from the look of a tarnished spoon, the sound of rubber tubing and the smell of rubbing alcohol. Putignano was no longer a gymnast, he was a heroin addict.
The rituals of his once athletic lifestyle were replaced by a much darker way of living.
“You know those days when you don’t want to go to the gym, but you still go?” Putignano says. “There were days when I didn’t want to shoot up, but I did anyway.”
Putignano grew up in the Boston area and showed promise as a gymnast early on in his career. He was twice invited to the Olympic training facility in Colorado Springs and won several state and regional competitions while competing on the six apparatus in men’s gymnastics.
With the pressure mounting in his late teens from his sport and his sexual identity, Putignano fell into the rave culture of the 1990s and all the drugs that came with it.
“In gymnastics, everyone sees your imperfections,” Putignano says. “I didn’t want to be judged anymore.”
Over the course of the next 10 years he bounced between his heroin addiction, rehab attempts, employment, homelessness and more rehab attempts. He was twice declared clinically dead from overdoses.
While he was working at the New York Times he was going home at lunch, shooting up and coming back to work. They sent him to what he calls his final rehab where he met a counselor who urged him to get back to gymnastics.
“I kept trying to get clean because I didn’t want to give up on myself. I think that was ingrained in me because of sports,” Putignano says. “I started doing handstands and pushups and completely changed what I was doing. Within 90 days, the determination came back.”
Putignano Googled contortionists and found a group of acrobats in New York and discovered that he could use his talents to earn a living. He was still rediscovering his skills when he performed in Broadway Bares and ended up relapsing a few more times.
“Getting back into shape was harder than I expected,” he says. “I had to relearn everything.”
He eventually landed a spot dancing, riding unicycle and dancing on stilts in Twyla Tharp’s “The Times They Are a Changin” which ran on Broadway for two years. The show was cancelled and he relapsed during the last week but realized he didn’t like being high anymore.
He jumped right back into performing at the Metropolitan Opera House and met the creative director of Cirque Du Soleil’s “KA” and “Totem,” Robert Lepage, who asked him to embody the character of Crystal Man which Putignano portrayed for three years starting in 2009 on the “Totem” tour.
Crystal Man represented spiritual evolution and change and Putignano refers to those three years with Cirque as “my beautiful hell.”
“There I was, surrounded by the best athletes in the world and I didn’t even audition for the job,” he says. “I worked harder at my craft and got stronger because I felt I had to prove that I belonged in an athletic acrobatic career.”
During his time on Broadway in the Tharp show, Putignano began putting his journey down on paper and during the “Totem” tour with Cirque, he wrote the entire time.
“We did 10 shows a week and I could be found on the days off writing in a coffee shop, while the other athletes were off sightseeing,” he says.
The resulting book, “Acrobaddict,” offers a look at the similar qualities that are possessed by athletes and addicts. Putignano hopes his journey can offer hope to others with an addiction.
According to the 2012 D.C. Youth Risk Behavior Study, LGBT youth in D.C. are more likely than their heterosexual peers to report illegal drug use including meth (23.7 vs. 2.6 percent) and heroin (18.1 vs. 2.7 percent).
In the D.C. metro area, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring recently pointed to studies that indicate fatal heroin overdoses in the general population of Northern Virginia increased 164 percent from 2011 to 2013.
Putignano is currently in another type of recovery. He’s recovering from surgeries to repair a torn rotator cuff in both shoulders and looming on the horizon are surgeries to repair a torn stomach muscle and damage to his ankle.
Because of his addiction issues, the rehabbing process is being done without painkillers. Along with his physical therapy and weightlifting, he is using nerve blockers, Tylenol, acupuncture and Neurontin to keep the pain under control.
The story of Putignano’s surgeries without painkillers will be told in an upcoming video by Dr. Sanjay Gupta on CNN. At this time it’s unclear whether Putignano’s career as an acrobat and contortionist is over.
For now, he’s writing a nonfiction book about the devil, taking classes toward becoming a physician’s assistant and doing some modeling work.
At 37, he has been clean for seven years.
“Athletics make me happy and movement gives me joy,” Putignano says. “I can’t wait to ride a bike again.”
Sports
Bisexual former umpire sues Major League Baseball for sexual harassment
Brandon Cooper claims female colleague sexually harassed him
A fired former umpire is suing Major League Baseball, claiming he was sexually harassed by a female umpire and discriminated against because of his gender and his sexual orientation.
Brandon Cooper worked in the minor league Arizona Complex League last year, and according to the lawsuit he filed Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan, he identifies as bisexual.
“I wanted my umpiring and ability to speak for itself and not to be labeled as ‘Brandon Cooper the bisexual umpire,’” he told Outsports. “I didn’t want to be labeled as something. It has been a passion of mine to simply make it to the Major Leagues.”
But that didn’t happen. Instead of being promoted, he was fired. His suit names MLB and an affiliated entity, PDL Blue, Inc., and alleges he had endured a hostile work environment and wrongful termination and/or retaliation because of gender and sexual orientation under New York State and New York City law.
“Historically the MLB has had a homogenous roster of umpires working in both the minor and major leagues,” Cooper claims in his suit. “Specifically, to date there has never been a woman who has worked in a (regular) season game played in the majors, and most umpires are still Caucasian men. To try to fix its gender and racial diversity issue, defendants have implemented an illegal diversity quota requiring that women be promoted regardless of merit.”
Cooper claims former umpire Ed Rapuano, now an umpire evaluator, and Darren Spagnardi, an umpire development supervisor, told him in January 2023 that MLB had a hiring quota, requiring that at least two women be among 10 new hires.
According to the suit, Cooper was assigned to spring training last year and was notified by the senior manager of umpire administration, Dusty Dellinger, that even though he received a high rating in June from former big league umpire Jim Reynolds, now an umpire supervisor, that women and minority candidates had to be hired first.
Cooper claims that upon learning Cooper was bisexual, fellow umpire Gina Quartararo insulted him and fellow umpire Kevin Bruno by using homophobic slurs and crude remarks. At that time, Quartararo and Cooper worked on the same umpiring crew and being evaluated for possible promotion to the big leagues.
This season, Quartararo is working as an umpire in the Florida State League, one of nine women who are working as minor league umpires.
Cooper said he notified Dellinger, but instead of taking action against Quartararo, he said MLB ordered Cooper to undergo sensitivity training. According to his lawsuit, he was also accused of violating the minor league anti-discrimination and harassment policy.
Cooper’s suit says he met with MLB Senior Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Billy Bean — who the Los Angeles Blade reported in December is battling cancer.
The lawsuit says at that meeting, Bean told the umpire that Quartararo claimed she was the victim, as the only female umpire in the ACL. Cooper said he told Bean Quartararo regularly used homophobic slurs and at one point physically shoved him. He also claims that he has video evidence, texts and emails to prove his claim.
But he said his complaints to Major League Baseball officials were ignored. His lawsuit said MLB passed him over for the playoffs and fired him in October. He said of the 26 umpires hired with Cooper, he was the only one let go.
Through a spokesperson, MLB declined to comment on pending litigation. Quartararo has also not publicly commented on the lawsuit.
Sports
Brittney Griner, wife expecting first child
WNBA star released from Russian gulag in December 2022
One year after returning to the WNBA after her release from a Russian gulag and declaring, “I’m never playing overseas again,” Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner and her wife announced they have something even bigger coming up this summer.
Cherelle, 31, and Brittney, 33, are expecting their first child in July. The couple shared the news with their 715,000 followers on Instagram.
“Can’t believe we’re less than three months away from meeting our favorite human being,” the caption read, with the hashtag, #BabyGrinerComingSoon and #July2024.
Griner returned to the U.S. in December 2022 in a prisoner swap, more than nine months after being arrested in Moscow for possession of vape cartridges containing prescription cannabis.
In April 2023, at her first news conference following her release, the two-time Olympic gold medalist made only one exception to her vow to never play overseas again: To return to the Summer Olympic Games, which will be played in Paris starting in July, the same month “Baby Griner” is due. “The only time I would want to would be to represent the USA,” she said last year.
Given that the unrestricted free agent is on the roster of both Team USA and her WNBA team, it’s not immediately clear where Griner will be when their first child arrives.
The Griners purchased their “forever home” in Phoenix just last year.
“Phoenix is home,” Griner said at the Mercury’s end-of-season media day, according to ESPN. “Me and my wife literally just got a place. This is it.”
As the Los Angeles Blade reported last December, Griner is working with Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts — like Griner, a married lesbian — on an ESPN television documentary as well as a television series for ABC about her life story. Cherelle is executive producer of these projects.
Next month, Griner’s tell-all memoir of her Russian incarceration will be published by Penguin Random House. It’s titled “Coming Home” and the hardcover hits bookstores on May 7.
Sports
Applause and criticism for Staley’s trans-inclusive stance
South Carolina Gamecocks women’s coach made comments on Sunday
If not for a conservative transphobic blogger, this moment should be a celebration of NCAA women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley and the women of the South Carolina Gamecocks.
On Sunday, they concluded their undefeated season with a decisive win and a championship title. But when Staley faced reporters before that big game, Outkick’s Dan Zakheske asked her an irrelevant, clickbait question about transgender women in sports, referring to them as “biological males.”
Staley could have ignored the question, or stated she had no opinion, but instead the legendary coach offered a crystal clear endorsement of trans women competing in women’s sports, something outlawed in her home state of South Carolina for girls in kindergarten through college.
“I’m of the opinion,” said Staley, “If you’re a woman, you should play. If you consider yourself a woman and you want to play sports or vice versa, you should be able to play. That’s my opinion.”
Zakheske clearly wasn’t satisfied with that declaration of allyship and Staley swiftly cut him off.
“You want me to go deeper?” she asked.
“Do you think transgender women should be able to participate,” he started to say, when the coach stole the ball and took it downtown on a fastbreak. “That’s the question you want to ask? I’ll give you that. Yes. Yes. So, now the barnstormer people are going to flood my timeline and be a distraction to me on one of the biggest days of our game, and I’m okay with that. I really am.”
Staley is herself a Hall of Fame player a leading voice for diversity.
Reaction to her comments were swift, from LGBTQ rights organizations, athletes and inclusion opponents.
“Coach Staley simply spoke the truth that trans women are women and should play if they want,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD, in a post on Instagram. “All of us can take a page from Coach Staley’s playbook as a sports leader and as a person of high integrity guided by faith, compassion and common sense.”
A White House pool reporter revealed President Joe Biden called Staley Sunday evening to congratulate her and the Gamecocks on their championship win. But it’s not clear if she and the president, an outspoken supporter of trans rights, discussed her remarks on trans athletes.
A number of Black leaders in the LGBTQ movement applauded Staley for taking a stand.
“Coach Staley has always been a trailblazer, but she’s also shown that true leadership is about advancing justice and equality for everyone,” said Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson. “By expressing her full-throated support for transgender athletes’ inclusion in sports, she’s sending an important message — our shared humanity matters.
“Coach Staley showed courage and vulnerability, in choosing to answer the question and make a powerful statement of support for trans people on one of the biggest days and biggest stages in sports history,” said Kierra Johnson, executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, in a statement. “Not only does that make her a leader we can all aspire to like, it makes her a class act. She has etched her legacy in the history books with her play, her coaching, her heart and her smarts.”
In congratulating Staley on her championship title victory, Dr. David J. Johns, the CEO and executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, also commended her for “her unwavering advocacy and support for transgender people in sports.”
“In a time when transgender athetes face unjust scrutiny, discrimination and exclusion from the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, her courage to speak truth to power and in support of inclusion and fairness sets a powerful example for us all, and is a testament to her integrity and compassion.”
The NBJC leader was referring to Monday’s announcement by the NAIA, the governing body of athletic programs at small colleges nationwide, voting 20-0 to essentially ban trans women from competing with other women beginning Aug. 1, as ESPN reported.
“It is a shocking and devastating development that the NAIA, an organization that has done so much to open doors, is now slamming those doors shut on transgender athletes,” said Sasha Buchert, Lambda Legal’s senior attorney and director of the organization’s nonbinary and trans rights project.
“Instead of standing up in support of transgender young people, the NAIA has simply turned its back on them — permanently depriving them of the benefits of competition. Would that they had the courage of victorious University of South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley, who didn’t miss a beat in clarifying that transgender women should be able to play.”
However, praise for Staley’s stance was not universal.
Riley Gaines, failed former college swimmer and paid shill for the anti-inclusion organization, Independent Women’s Forum, called Staley “entirely incompetent or a sell-out” on Fox News. “Personally, I don’t think she believes what she said.”
Gaines has turned her fifth-place tie with out trans NCAA champion Lia Thomas into a career as a crusader against inclusion and a former advisor to the presidential campaign of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Val Whiting, a former Stanford University and professional women’s basketball player, tweeted her strong disagreement with Staley. “A lot of my basketball sisters feel differently but trans women do not belong in women’s sports. It’s not fair nor safe for biological women. There has to be another solution for trans women to be able to compete athletically besides having them compete against biological women.”
A lot of my basketball sisters feel differently but trans women do not belong in women’s sports. It’s not fair nor safe for biological women. There has to be another solution for trans women to be able to compete athletically besides having them compete against biological women.
— Val Whiting (@iamcoachval) April 7, 2024
Zaksheske’s Outkick colleague, anti-trans pundit David Hookstead, also went all-in with a transphobic post.
“Dawn Staley says she supports men who identify as women competing against real women in sports. Her view could literally destroy women’s basketball forever. Why won’t more people stand up for women?”
Dawn Staley says she supports men who identify as women competing against real women in sports.
— David Hookstead (@dhookstead) April 6, 2024
Her view could literally destroy women’s basketball forever.
Why won’t more people stand up for women? pic.twitter.com/2A59KTqvHb
Hookstead then boasted that Staley blocked his account.
Republican South Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace retweeted Zaksheske’s account of his interaction with Staley, calling her support of trans athletes “absolute lunacy.” That in turn won praise from Caitlyn Jenner, who retweeted Whiting and posted her thanks to Mace, along with this comment: “There is nothing complicated about this issue!”
What is complicated is that Jenner has never explained why she has competed with cisgender women in golf ever since her transition almost a decade ago.
You’re a hypocrite. pic.twitter.com/42DKwA9jmF
— Art Candee 🍿🥤 (@ArtCandee) April 7, 2024
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