Poor Jamie Kuntz. Aside from his vaginally-suggestive last name, the former North Dakota State College of Science linebacker was kicked off his team for lying and “causing a distraction” after he was caught kissing his significantly older boyfriend during an away game.
Kuntz contends that there are other players who have lied and done much worse but were still allowed to play and he is backed up by Misty Benjamin, a longtime resident of Wahpeton where NDSC is located. Benjamin’s brother was gay and committed suicide seven years ago, so Jamie’s story has had particular resonance for her.
While the school claims that its decision was not based on the sex of Kunt’z paramour, their age difference might have had some bearing. Even Jamie’s mother, who is otherwise supportive of her son’s sexuality, questions her son dating a 65-year-old. A gay football player is already a hard pill for a small town — or a large country, for that matter — to swallow, but add a Harold and Maude dynamic and we’re entering “The Discomfort Zone.”
Actually, we’re probably bypassing “The Discomfort Zone” and crashing head-on into the “I Don’t Really Want to Talk About This Zone.”
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Kuntz hopes to play for another college and if anything, would like NDSC to admit that it was wrong in kicking him off the team. Check out the video interview above from SBNation for more on the trials and tribulations of Jamie Kuntz.
Cam
“”
Poor Jamie Kuntz. Aside from his vaginally-suggestive last name, ”
____________
Ok, that first line cracked me up.
Gigi Gee
Jamie’s luck to have the family that he does. He’s 18 and has his entire life ahead of him. This can only make him stronger. I think there’s too much focus on the age of his boyfriend being made. Even if he’d been dating someone in his mid-20s I’m pretty confident that his school would have found even that to be enough of a “distraction” to kick him off the team. They can dance around the reasons all they want but Jamie was kicked off of the team because he’s gay, not because he lied. It’s a college football team. All of those boys have lied about something at one time or another. Yet it’s only Jamie who’s been punished.
viveutvivas
The first line was really unnecessary in my opinion. I mean really, are you ten or something?
Really handsome, smart and confident kid, though. A good role model. What a bunch of asshole administrators.
Eric Auerbach
I still can’t believe no one guessed this kid was gay. He’s got gayface for miles.
Alan down in Florida
Jamie – in 10 years football will be just a happy childhood memory. Your best revenge is to have a happy relationship with your boyfriend and build yourself a successful life doing something else you love.
chrisk
Age Discrimination??
Why is everyone judging this guy and his lover due to their age difference? Because it is not “normal.” Seriously, aren’t we all fighting towards redefining what “normal” is?
Their age difference may be huge but who cares? it’s what works for them. It is not normal, maybe, but it is not reason to judge them.
oilburner
An 18 yr old & a 65 yr old ? I wonder what they have in common.
John Doe
@oilburner:
“What does an 18 year old and 65 year old have in common?”
Can’t we get past age discrimination? We accuse people for being judgmental about gay relationships, interracial relationships, trans, etc. I think we could mature ourselves up a bit and stop judging people for being in relationships where there is significant age difference, assuming both are consenting adults.
Some things they might have in common….
1. They love each other….
2. They enjoy walks on the beach or in town together….
3. They enjoy eating out together…. or staying in and cooking meals together…
4. They enjoy shopping together….
5. They enjoy movies together…. either in the house or at the cinema…
6. They enjoy being intimate together….
7. They enjoy traveling together….
8. They enjoy talking together about culture, life, family, music, sports, other mutual interests….
9. They enjoy having friends over….
10. They enjoy golf… fishing… bike rides… being on the water…. pets… whatever.
Get the point? It’s not about what you desire… but letting someone else make their own choices regarding their sexuality and whom they want to have a relationship with.
balehead
Ummmm.. the Ellen show anyone? a masculine gay needs to be heard to stop the suicides of masculine gay men….
Ruhlmann
@oilburner: I never had anything in common with the older men I was involved with when I was young. I was 18 and lived with a man of 48 who took me off the streets and taught me respect, social skills, art and got me to finish high school with a private tutor. He was the president of a Canadian subsidiary of a large American company. He wasn’t faithful so I left after two years. I then met at 20 a man of 46, a Psychiatrist who put me through four years of college, bailed me out of jail when I would get into drunken fights and helped me start a business. Diabetes killed him after ten years together.
You don’t need commonality in a relationship, sometimes complimentary needs are enough. Commonality comes later when you “fit” into each other not noticable to others who only see the disparity in age. I had a rude upbringing and was attracted to cultured and accomplished men who taught me things and had the patience to let me come into myself, leave the streets and accept myself. I never would have been able to do these things with a man as young and as inexperienced as I was. Things are not always as they appear.
macmantoo
I’m 25 years older than my lover and we love to do a lot of the same things. I’m 65 and he’s is 39 (will be 40 in a month). We’ve been together for over 8 years. He is as financially stable as I am so money is not an issue for us. The interesting thing is I’m just younger than his dad by 10 years but older than him mom by 2 and all of us gets along great.
horace
Queerty, must you use the geriatric label here? How pathetic.
I noticed you were looking for some people perhaps this time you could
hire a writer (?) with a little compassion. Too often I am disappointed in
your writing. There are a lot of people reading this so get ur act together.
Eric Auerbach
@Ruhlmann: So you were a kept boy. *Good* for you.
hf2hvit
@oilburner: Is that any more your business than the nosy, homophobic neighbor trying to look through somebody’s blinds?
hf2hvit
@Eric Auerbach: Guess there’s the in-house boy and the outhouse boy. He was the inhouse boy…You must be the outhouse boy
Eric Auerbach
@hf2hvit: ???? Try again, dude. I’m sure there’s a better putdown in you.
Ruhlmann
@Eric Auerbach: Life must be uncomplicated when you are so simple. If I was a kept boy I would have stayed when he was dicking around. I was seriously hurt in that relationship, don’t sully that with typical gay snide. Life isn’t typical or simple for most of us. I couldn’t contribute to the economy as an eighteen and twenty year old certainly but that’s just detail.
By the time I was twenty-four in my second relationship I had secured loans and small business grants to start a business and bought the house we lived in. You know nothing about life old son.
Ruhlmann
@Eric Auerbach: He might be saving it for someone worthy.
CreoClay
When his coach confronted him about it, at first he LIED and said the man was his grandfather, only to later text the coach and say that he is gay and the man was his boyfriend. His coach said that he didn’t care what he did in his personal life but it was a mistake to do that on a football trip.
Fooling around during a game and lieing to the coach, are two reason I can agree with for kicking someone off a team. In the end it comes down to whether or not the claims that if this was with an older woman it wouldn’t have been a big deal and that other players have done worse things in the same position and were not punished are true. Then I would say homophobia was probably the reason, but those claims need to be backed up first.
We can’t just yell homophobia everytime something bad happens to a gay person. Remember that woman who cut homophobic slurs into her own arm then claimed it was a hate crime, or the gay man who did a faceplant into the sidewalk trying to show off and claimed it was a hate filled attack that caused those lacerations on his face? Some people play the victim card too easily and end up raising doubt on real discrimination.
Eric Auerbach
@Ruhlmann: Oooh, burn!
PS: Dude, it doesn’t matter that you got your $hit together later on. YOU WERE A KEPT BOY.
tylerfranks
@horace: Thank you for writing that so I didn’t have to. Tyler
PTBoat
Women are consistently lauded for marrying older men. Why is it such a problem that this kid likes one? I dated a sixty five year old when I was 22, even though it didn’t work out, the age just didn’t bother me. He was a nice, handsome guy to me.
Eric Auerbach
@PTBoat: No, women are consistently called gold-diggers. Try getting your head out of your ass every once in a while.
Mjl-428
@CreoClay: you are right, because if we all look at the story and think about it, it seems as though everything was open shut, but the only thing that is not defined is whether this was because he was gay and the only one kicked off of the team for violating the rules. regardless that is what it’s going to come down to because the accused is not speaking. which means the only other way his story can be backed up is by going to police and getting reports on the other players
the other Greg
@CreoClay: “When his coach confronted him about it, at first he LIED and said the man was his grandfather, only to later text the coach and say that he is gay and the man was his boyfriend.”
Yeah, that struck me as the oddest thing in this. He is observed french-kissing (!) the 65 year old and when queried about who that was, his IMMEDIATE response is to say “Oh, that’s my grandpa!” Like that’s normal. (Please, tell me that’s not normal in North Dakota.) And apparently the coach took this news in stride (?) but later is upset when it turns out the kid lied – GASP. You’d think most people (even in N. Dakota) would be merely relieved to find out it wasn’t grandpa.
tdx3fan
@Ruhlmann: I totally understand where you are coming from, but age =/= maturity. You do not know if you could have accomplished these things or not with someone your own age because that is not the path that you took.
That being said, real love knows no age boundaries. However, an 18 year old kid dating someone more than three times their age is borderline unhealthy. The amount of power difference should just about kill the relationship. At 18, you are hardly able to make decisions for yourself, so having a 65 year old boyfriend is just a great way to avoid having to do that.
tdx3fan
@macmantoo: Absolutely not the same thing what-so-ever. What you describe is a situation where you are dating a mature adult that is already established. You are on an equal power setting. At 18, you are not even able to make fully rational decisions in many cases (the part of your brain that makes decisions is not fully developed until 22-23 in males).
So, this kid is giving over any decision making skills he does have to his “daddy” figure. I’m not surprised that this kid did what he did. He made a horribly stupid mistake. I don’t expect him to know better. However, his “daddy” should have known better.
tdx3fan
@Eric Auerbach: Nice of you to be so judgmental. I’m not going to try to defend him for being a “kept boy;” however, there are PLENTY of women that do not work and stay at home and do not have children at that age. Are they all kept women?
Freddie27
Umm, the last time I checked 18 meant you were a legal adult in the US and can choose whoever the fuck your want as a boyfriend. And if a coach fires someone based on age of their partner, I’d be worried about how involved a coach is in his/her players’ private lives.
Cam
@CreoClay: said…
”
When his coach confronted him about it, at first he LIED and said the man was his grandfather, only to later text the coach and say that he is gay and the man was his boyfriend. His coach said that he didn’t care what he did in his personal life but it was a mistake to do that on a football trip. ”
________________
The very fact that his coach “Confronted” him about it shows that there was hostility there. Courts have found over and over that lying about something that if exposed could be harmful to you is acceptable.
The school is going to have to find other players who were “Confronted” after kissing a girl during a game or the lying excuse will be tossed out. If kissing somebody is grounds for a confrontation then I’m guessing all those players who kiss the cheerleaders who run up to them after a game are also “Confronted”?
Niall
As much as the AGE of whoever he was with isn’t the main issue here, call me closed minded or ageist or whatever, but there’s still something odd to me in an 18yr old dating a 65yr old, this applies to both gay and straight relationships.
Superman
Holy crap! This young stud is poppin’ in all the right places. Nice ass, sweet face, gorgeous body, confident walk, well-spoken. Hell, I’d fall in love with him too! I’d say this exposure just might be the best thing that has happened to him…and he totally deserves every great opportunity opening up for him.
Rockery
LOL good for him for coming forward, BUT there is clearly a “daddy” thing going on here. Its NOT A COINCEDENCE that his dad committed suicide when he was 6 and he is dating his grandpappy. I mean come on if he was dating a hot professional 40 year old I could see it but 65 ewwwww. He needs a mental assessment ASAP
kayakriver
at the end of my teenage years I started dating someone double my age, and it has lasted for many years, but to date a 65 yo? omg! and that guy is so fine!
streeteditions
Okay, I’ll say the word: “pederastikoi”, by definition the relationship between a younger and and older male; not necessarily sexual, but in many cultures, historically(classical Graeco-Roman) and at present(Afghanistan!) acceptable and encouraged to educate the younger. Not pedophilia! Personally,I’m jealous, but I’m not moving to South Dakota. Mr. Kuntz has balls for both his personal stance and his lover.
sixtyfour
Sixty is the new forty and get used to it. Young men are attracted to competence and attention. They enjoy making a kind of adolescent love that can be exciting to both. Why should two males of different ages not enjoy the pleasures of happy ending massages with each other?