Apr 20, 2016 4 min read

The rather insular nature of the wide world of professional sports can make its participants late to the party when it comes to accepting and embracing societal changes.

It wasn’t that many years ago that female sportswriters and broadcasters were battling to be accepted as equals and to be able to work in locker rooms without having some athletes sexually harassing them.

Pro sports can still, in the 21st century, be somewhat of a “boys will be boys” world in which some of those who play or have played don’t seem to understand that they can’t get away with what is now widely recognized as hate speech.

There’s no shortage of examples, but this has been an especially disconcerting week.

On Monday, in the wake of North Carolina and other states passing or taking up anti-transgender legislation to regulate who uses what bathroom, former star pitcher and current ESPN baseball analyst Curt Schilling shared a Facebook meme that showed a burly man in a wig and a grotesque, barely-there outfit with the caption, “Let him in! … to the restroom with your daughter or else you’re a narrow minded, judgmental, unloving, racist bigot who needs to die!!!”

Schilling added this comment: “A man is a man no matter what they call themselves. I don’t care what they are, who they sleep with, men’s room was designed for the penis, women’s not so much. Now you need laws telling us differently? Pathetic.”

One might argue (as we would) Schilling is truly the pathetic figure here, and that he really, really does care “what they are” and “who they sleep with.” Otherwise, he wouldn’t be this worked up about the transgender restroom issue. And Schilling, of course, is blaming the media and others for the latest problem he’s caused for himself with his statements.

It was just last September Schilling was booted from ESPN’s baseball coverage for the remainder of the 2015 season after he shared another meme featuring a photo of Adolph Hitler and the text, “It’s said only 5 to 10 percent of Muslims are extremists. In 1940, only 7 percent of Germans were Nazis. How’d that go?”

Schilling wasn’t the only person in the sports world with a case of foot-in-mouth disease in recent days. Tuesday night, after taking an ill-timed penalty in his team’s eventual loss in a Stanley Cup playoff game, the Chicago Blackhawks’ Andrew Shaw first gave a double single-finger salute to the game officials, then, once in the penalty box, appeared to shout, “Blank you, you blanking faggot.” One assumes an official or opposing player was the target of the anti-gay slur, which attracted near-immediate condemnation from gay-equality advocates and others.

Shaw seemed to have a sudden case of amnesia when asked after the game about his ugly choice of words, saying, “Emotions were high. I don’t know what I said. I wasn’t happy with the (penalty) call.”

Oh, emotions were high. Based on that excuse, we assume if Shaw has a run-in with the Philadelphia Flyers’ Wayne Simmonds, who is black, he’ll feel it’s well within his rights to holler the N-word at him. Interestingly, just a few years ago, Simmonds was accused of using the same word that Shaw appeared to have used Tuesday night. Emotions were high then, too.

Schilling was fired from ESPN Wednesday and Shaw may soon be hearing from the higher-ups at the NHL’s main office.

Both of these sports figures, or at least some of their supporters, will no doubt cry about how their “freedom of speech” is being abridged. But what Schilling, Shaw and many others must come to realize is they do, indeed, have the right to say whatever is on their mind and to use whatever verbiage they like. But they also must remember if their speech offends others and ultimately turns up the heat on the employers, those powers that be also are well within their rights to take whatever corrective action they deem necessary.