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The 1,121 Words You Can’t Say On An NFL Jersey

The National Football League just got a little more gay, as the league confirmed earlier this week that it has removed the word “gay” from its list of phrases that are banned from personalized jerseys. The reason? There’s a player, Randall Gay, who was the starting cornerback on the Patriots team that won the Super Bowl.

Yes, that’s right: the Super Bowl is Gay.

Bill Simmons has joked more than once that Randall Gay has "the worst-selling jersey in the history of the league,” which I suppose is technically true since it hasn’t been available until now. But there is demand: a professor of Gay’s from LSU attempted to buy the jersey and was rebuffed, as was “a gay man named Barry Gay.”

Randall is not the first Gay in the NFL; a running back named Ben Gay played in several games with the Browns and Colts in the early part of this decade. But apparently he wasn’t good enough that anyone ever tried to order a Ben Gay jersey.

While “Gay” has been taken off the list of banned jersey words, more than 1,000 words remain on it, and the list contains pretty much every vulgar expression you could possibly imagine (I’d like to meet the NFL official who came up with it). It makes for fascinating reading, and I’m sorry to those of you who’ve always wanted to hit the Meadowlands on a Fall Sunday with “Cameltoe” on the back of your Jets jersey.

But thankfully the NBA has no such prohibition, making possible all sorts of fun:

And finally, I believe Eminem has some insights on this situation that should not go unheeded:

Dr. Dre (what up?)
I got a question if i may (yea)
is it gay to play putt putt golf with a friend (yea)
and watch his butt butt when he tees off (yea)
but but i aint done yet
in football a quarterback yells out hut hut
while he reaches in another grown man's ass
grabs on his nuts, but just what if
it was never meant, it was just an accident
but he tripped, fell, slipped and his penis went in
his teeny, tiny, little, round hiney
and he didn't mean it but his little weenie flinched just a little bit
and I don't need to go into any more details
but what if he pictured it as a female's butt
is that gay? I just need to clear things up
til then I'll just walk around with a manly strut because…

.(Hat tip to blogger Dawn Eden, who made me aware of this story and if she read the above, probably now wishes she hadn’t).

Posted by Stephen Silver at March 3, 2005 05:49 PM