Brett Davis-US PRESSWIRE
Former North Dakota State College of Sciences football player Jamie Kuntz is openly gay, and has claimed he was dismissed from the school’s team due to a kiss with his boyfriend which was witnessed by a teammate as Kuntz and the man were taping a game over Labor Day weekend.
Kuntz and his 65-year old boyfriend were taping NDSCS’ game against Snow College in Pueblo, Colorado when the a kiss between the two men occurred. One of Kuntz’s teammates saw the kiss, told the coaching staff, and the 18-year old linebacker was approached about it on the team’s bus ride home to North Dakota following the game.
At that time, Kuntz told the coaches initially the man was his grandfather, but later felt upset about lying to his coach and told him the truth that it was, in fact, his boyfriend. After discussion with school officials regarding the incident, NDSCS coach Chuck Parsons dismissed Kuntz from the team for reasons he claimed had to do with his initial lie, and nothing to do with the fact Kuntz was observed kissing another man.
The official dismissal of Kuntz noted he was let go from the team for “conduct detrimental to the team” but he believes it goes further, and he was in fact discriminated against and removed from the team because he is gay. Since the incident, Kuntz has moved back home with his family and plans to possibly walk on to another team outside of the state of North Dakota.
NDSCS faculty and administration members supported the decision of Chuck Parsons to dismiss Kuntz from the team and outlined that due diligence was done in the case which only allowed for that end.
Is it really this simple?
Was it only a lie that Jamie Kuntz told that led to his dismissal? Or, was it something more? Was his sexual orientation enough of a distraction to Coach Parsons and his staff that they were looking for any reason they could find to “eliminate” the issue?
It’s likely we’ll never know, and it’s purely conjecture to assume we can determine exactly what happened, but I do know this: gay people are discriminated against every, single day in our culture.
Given this it’s reasonable to assume the same happened to Jamie Kuntz.
A lie can be forgiven easily enough.
H/T to CBS Eye on College Football.
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Kris Hughes is the College Football Network Manager for Rant Sports and a member of the Football Writers Association of America. You can follow him on Twitter or check out his Facebook page.
Kris is also the host of the Rant Sports College Football Hour on the TSC Radio Network on Sunday evenings at 8 Central Time and Rant Sports Radio on the Blog Talk Radio Network Wednesday evenings at 8 Central Time.
