Homophobic Coach Would Be Right At Home In Harrisburg

You've got to feel sorry for Rene Portland. The Penn State University women's basketball coach truly missed her calling in life. She would have made one hell of a politician.
Why? Well, after frequent accusations that Portland ran a basketball program that was openly hostile toward lesbian players and those she suspected of being gay, the school launched a six-month investigation that found that, Portland did, indeed, discriminate against some players.
But instead of offering any apologies or explanations for her bigotry and paranoia, Portland held a news conference last week where she refused to answer any questions. In fact, she pretty much denied the whole ugly affair. Fined $10,000 by the school, the foul-line homophobe will get to keep her job, which is the kind of hall pass previously reserved for crooked politicians.
The message this soft-pedalled "resolution" sends is fairly clear: From now on, college coaches can hate and hate openly.
If you hate gay men, but for some calamity of reason decide to lead, say, a men's interpretive ice-dancing troupe, hey, no problem. Have a beef against short people but harbor an unnatural attraction to training thoroughbred jockeys? Penn State might have the right job for you.
Worst of all, the sheer gumption and arrogance that Portland displayed in reaction to the study -- an in-depth internal inquiry that found the coach guilty of encouraging players to change their manner of dress and repeatedly questioning them about their sexual orientations -- was worthy of one of Pennsylvania's famously crooked state legislators.
She would fit in nicely with bums like former Rep. Tom Druce, R-Bucks County, who hit and killed a Harrisburg man with his car in 1999, lied to police about the accident and then tried to avoid jail.
Or maybe she could work alongside former Rep. Jeff Habay, the Shaler Republican who saw only conspiracy where investigators saw open corruption.
If I were a betting man, I'd wager that Portland already knows this. She knows that a winning record makes beloved sports figures almost bullet-proof when it comes to criticism. It also means the rules, whatever they are, don't apply to the powerful and successful.
And by now, I'm sure Portland realizes that Penn State may never place the same importance on its students as it does its athletic programs.
And even if it did, she's a shoo-in for elected office.
from The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review