49ers participate in “It Gets Better” anti-bullying project

Posted by Michael David Smith on August 24, 2012, 5:05 PM EDT
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The San Francisco 49ers have become the first NFL team to join the It Gets Better project, a series of web videos designed to tell gay youths that their lives will get better after they make it out of their teens.

It Gets Better was started by syndicated columnist and author Dan Savage in response to a spate of suicides by gay teenagers who had been bullied at their schools. Four 49ers players — Donte Whitner, Ahmad Brooks, Isaac Sopoaga and Ricky Jean-Francois — appear in the team’s video, which was posted online today.

“The San Francisco 49ers are proud to join ItGetsBetter.org, to let all LGBT teens know that it gets better,” Whitner says in the video.

Here’s the video:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4glWjcbAbY&w=560&h=315%5D

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32 responses to “49ers participate in “It Gets Better” anti-bullying project”

  4. Awesome, that’s a bold move for a multimillion dollar business. It’s nice to see an organization take a stance on something important for once.

  5. This is great. The NFL and the players could do so much to reverse the bullying that so many LBGT kids and players live with. Hopefully other teams will follow

  6. Send this to Prince Amukamara and maybe the JPP will stop messing with him.

    Seriously though, more NFL teams should get involved with this.

  10. Nice to see an NFL team involved. Good job SF! It’s about time we start coming together as a society and accepting each other for who we are.

  11. goldenperspective says:
    Aug 24, 2012 5:10 PM
    Pierre Thomas just woke from his Whitner induced coma.
    ________
    …and when he woke up he realized that he has a Superbowl ring and Donte Whitner never will 🙂

    —
    Funny to see this story come out the same day that 49er fans were in the news because of being too violent.

    Regardless, this is a good cause and bullying in any form should be expunged from schools of all levels.

  16. Please think about this and don’t think it’s a piece of hate mail. If the 49ers are serious about anti-bullying, why are they letting Harbaugh pull his garbage with the replacement refs? That is BULLYING and nothing but. They are doing their best, the regular refs won’t train them, they can’t really do anything in response. Harbaugh is a bully of the worst sort.

  19. Props to SF.

    Safe to say the one team that won’t be participating in this campaign will the Giants.

    And if the Giants defy expectations and actually do one, it won’t be credible unless JPP cries on camera about being bullied by the nerds in math class.

  20. I love that the Niners organization endorsed this campaign and this video.

    Based on who is in the video – I would say the Niners Defense were the ones who made a statement.

    I would have liked to have seen the head coach and the starting QB in the video – but there’s no reason they still can’t choose to speak out.

    The general message – life gets better after high school, is one that a lot of kids need to hear.

  21. Funny to see this story come out the same day that 49er fans were in the news because of being too violent.

    It was a 49ers-Raiders (preseason) game — the Bay Area version of a nasty crosstown rivalry – and it was apparently 49ers fans who filed the lawsuit against the home team after they were attacked (presumably by rival Raiders fans — not really a lot of 49er fan-on-49er fan crime out there).

  23. its not gonna get better in college. I have no problem with gays but I’m tired of the liberal media pushing this gay agenda on everyone else. they are basically saying if u aren’t cool with gays then yourea biggot. Gays have to understand that their sexual orientation is gonna make their lives harder.

  24. This is great that a team like the 49ers are taking a stand on this. Not only is it a good cause for thousands of people out there, but also shows a lot of support for a large majority of their fan base and some of their players (past and present, example being Young). Awesome idea that helps people, and also will probably help to sell more tickets in the San Francisco area.

  27. This campaign is a shame. It is led by a guy named Dan Savage who is a vile bully, google santorum and see what he did to politician Rick Santorum, a Catholic who supports traditional marriage or go to YouTube and find a video of him ridiculing High School students who walk out on his speech as he goes into a vile tirade about the Bible. He calla the HS kids profane names because they walked out, HS STUDENTS. Some “anti bullying” campaign.

    Dan Savage and this “campaign” are a farce.

  29. @zzr600guy … you are correct sir. If you base your opinion of someone on that person’s sexuality, skin color, religion, nationality … you are a bigot.

    And you don’t have to know how to spell the word to be one!

  30. @dennisatunity

    Are you seriously comparing Harbaugh complaining about calls in an NFL game to bullying a young kid because he’s gay? The word “moron” gets thrown around a lot these days….

  31. This> zzr600guy says:
    Aug 24, 2012 8:07 PM
    its not gonna get better in college. I have no problem with gays but I’m tired of the liberal media pushing this gay agenda on everyone else. they are basically saying if u aren’t cool with gays then you’re a bigot. Gays have to understand that their sexual orientation is gonna make their lives harder.

    I totally agree with you, I love all people rather Gay or Straight… but what I don’t like is that the liberal media/Democrats and GLAAD try to make/force Straight people to support their cause,like their entitled to something over everybody else.

    It’s not surprising that the 49ers are supporting the LGBT community since it’s in one of the gayest capitols of the world. I’m a Packers fan and I pray my team never partner or support any type of LGBT causes,only because GLADD and other LGBT organizations act evil towards Straight people!

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