'You Can Play' to stoke discussion at Final Four

With the Final Four ready to descend on Indianapolis next week, Indiana's new law protecting businesses that turn away gay and lesbian customers on religious grounds is going to be a major topic of conversation.

Wade Davis, a former NFL player and executive director of the You Can Play Project, expects to add to that conversation when his organization hosts a panel on the prior to the national semifinals for the National Association of Basketball Coaches.

"It gives us an opportunity shed some light on the importance of diversity and inclusion and do it one of the biggest weekends in sports in front of coaches who have an opportunity to share that message with their players and take it back to their respective schools," Davis said.

"I think the panelists will mention (the Indiana law) and talk about it in such a way that if you are a coach in the state of Indiana that you definitely need to be mindful of the fact that you could potentially lose out on getting an athlete at your school."

You Can Play's mission statement is threefold: To ensure equal treatment for all athletes, regardless of sexual orientation; to ensure that athletes get a fair chance to compete based only on their ability to contribute to a team; and to challenge locker room culture to focus only on an athlete's ability and skills.

Former NBA player Jason Collins, who came out in 2013, is scheduled to be on the panel along with Derrick Gordon, who played at UMass this past season after announcing he was gay. Derek Schell, a former player at Hillsdale College, is also on the panel as well as Anthony Nicodemo, the head coach at Saunders High School in Yonkers, N.Y.

"I think the forum will give coaches an opportunity to hear some of the difficulties LGBT basketball players and coaches face," Nicodemo said in an e-mail. "The hope is to educate attendees that they'll get more out of their players if they can be themselves. Of course with the signing of the bill yesterday, the panel takes on a special meaning. LGBT people in Indiana face the possibility of discrimination as we preach inclusion."​

The NCAA has already come out with a statement saying it will re-evaluate holding future events in Indiana in light of the new law, and the Big Ten said Friday it will discuss the matter at its next meeting of presidents and athletics directors. NCAA president Mark Emmert will certainly be asked to comment further about it at his annual Final Four news conference.