San Francisco 49ers cornerback Chris Culliver got himself into some water during Super Bowl media day, when he made comments suggesting that he wouldn’t stand for a gay teammate in his lockerroom.
“I don’t do the gay guys man,” Culliver said. “I don’t do that. No, we don’t got no gay people on the team, they gotta get up out of here if they do.
“Can’t be with that sweet stuff. Nah … can’t be … in the locker room man. Nah.”
Culliver apologized, was giving sensitivity training and even said he would work with gay and lesbian groups so he could gain knowledge into their plight.
Culliver made good on that promise recently, as the Sacramento Bee is reporting that Culliver spent time with the Trevor Project, a youth LGBT group located in L.A.
Culliver spent the day at the Los Angeles office of The Trevor Project, which provides crisis and suicide intervention for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youths. Culliver’s public relations representative, Theodore Palmer, said that Culliver, 24, met Sunday with the group’s executive director. He also paid to have the organization’s national education trainer fly in from New York for Monday’s session.
“He wants to use his profile as a professional athlete to help,” Palmer said. “He wants to become a volunteer for the organization and become more active. He really learned a lot today.”
Trevor Project spokeswoman Laura McGinnis said that if Culliver was sincere about becoming a volunteer, he could become a crisis intervention volunteer or work with programs directed at young people, ages 13-24.
McGinnis said there was no reason to suspect that Culliver wasn’t sincere in his desire to understand and help at-risk youth.
“Chris is a young guy himself,” she said. “He reached out to The Trevor Project. And that’s a good thing.”