Jeff Garcia not thrilled about being player’s association gay rep

NEW YORK, NY — When the NFL Players’ Association decided that it needed to represent its minority player groups a bit better, most of the players in the league agreed that this was a tremendous step in the right direction.

So, the league decided that they’d choose one player to represent each minority group and have them stand up in all the meetings.

“It was pretty easy at first,” said Richard Berthelsen, the NFLPA’s interim executive director. “A lot of the minority groups don’t have a ton of people in them.

Timmy Chang, a backup quarterback for the Eagles, became the Asian representative, since Dat Nguyen has retired. Jason Campbell will represents black players. Chiefs TE Tony Gonzalez will continue to represent Latino players, for the 10th year in a row.

“The problem was when we got to gay players,” Berthelsen said. “Since there are no players in the NFL who are officially ‘out of the closet,’ we had to just randomly choose a player. So I opened up the list of all the players in the NFL, and randomly my finger just ended up on the name ‘Jeff Garcia.’ So Jeff will be the representative for the league’s gay players.”

Garcia is expected to show up at all official NFLPA forums, in which Berthelsen will go rep-by-rep and ask them for reports. When Berthelsen says, “Gays,” Garcia will be expected to stand up and give a report on the issues that are facing gay players in the NFL.

Garcia is not pleased.

“I honestly don’t understand why, of all the players in the NFL, I’m the one who is chosen to represent gay players,” Garcia said. “Didn’t you hear that I got married very quickly to a woman that I’d just started dating at a relatively late age? I’m clearly not gay, nor do I have any reason to know anything about gay people, or what they do when nobody is looking, while they are in their own house in Tampa, with the guy who cleans their pool.”

Berthelsen said the selection process was totally random and that neither Garcia nor any fans should read anything into it.

“I selected it totally randomly,” Berthelsen said. “I just put my finger on the page, and I let it go to wherever it went, almost like a Ouija board, and lo and behold, it ends up on Garcia’s name, it was like my finger was drawn to it by an outside force. I’ve never felt anything like it.”

Garcia said he’ll dutifully carry out the responsibilities of the position. He already presented his first report to the committee, last week.

“I am here today representing the interests of homosexual NFL players,” Garcia said. “Gay NFL players are facing one major challenge: many of them do not want to reveal themselves publicly for fear of embarrassment or retribution. Some have gone so far as to even get married to disguise their homosexuality. I will advocate for the interests of all gay NFL players, whether they are out or not.

“I encourage any gay NFL player who has an issue to contact me at my house,” Garcia said. “Any gay NFL player is welcome to come to my residence where we can speak privately about his sexuality, and he can explain to me in detail what his desires and needs are. I will, as homosexual rep for the players association, do whatever I can to represent these needs and desires. I need to hear from you as soon as possible. Come to my house, and we’ll take a dip in the pool, make some dinner, sit back, flip on the TV, and just hang out all night and talk on the couch. Just really open up to each other, you know?”