“Lisa Howe knows first-hand how it is to come out in the work place and suffer discrimination because of sexual orientation,” said Nashville GLBT Chamber of Commerce President Michael Fluck. “After a national search we are pleased to announce that she is the first ever full time executive director for the Nashville GLBT Chamber of Commerce. She has a passion for workplace equality that can’t be matched and is the perfect fit as our new executive director.”

Since being fired, Howe has not been shy with her efforts to shed light on homophobia in sports and in the work place. This does seem like a potential great fit for both parties. Good luck, Lisa!

Hat tip to Helen Carroll.

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LGBT college coaches are leaders. They are sources of knowledge and empowerment for thousands of students around the country. The athletic community must first acknowledge their presence to understand the contributions they make to their athletes, teams and schools. We must take responsibility for our role in keeping so many closeted and invest in the research necessary to improve their experiences. The policy changes that result will extend the progress seen in 2011 to new levels and break down barriers for which sports should have no tolerance.

We can tell you that stories we write about out coaches get a fraction of the interest and readership that we experience when we write about out athletes: There’s simply less interest in the topic. What’s fascinating about that dynamic is that the openly gay coach has more to lose. A vast majority of out athletes will not pursue a professional sports career; For coaches, it is their career. Witness what happened to Lisa Howe at Belmont University: She came out and was fired for it. Of course, there are other out coaches who have been embraced by their universities, like Sherri Murrell and Kirk Walker.

But we know of wildly successful LGBT college coaches who simply won’t even entertain the notion of coming out. At least one of those coaches faces absolutely no threat whatsoever of being fired; In fact, they would likely be more embraced. For that coach, there doesn’t need to be any studies or work done to open the door for them; Coming out is ultimately still a personal decision that some people simply won’t decide the way we’d like them to.

We’ll continue to lay out the welcome mat for LGBT coaches. Certainly anyone who needs help or advice navigating that process can contact me. I had been talking with Kirk Walker for over five years before he was  ultimately ready to take the leap. While Outsports is a media company, we’re also a resource for the community; Confidentiality is honored and respected above all else.

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The lawsuit claims that the coaches:

1. Called Skye to a fake team meeting
2. Locked Skye in the locker room alone with the coaches
3. Berated Skye about being a lesbian and accused her of spreading gossip about one of the coaches being lesbian
4. Called Skye’s mother to the school and outed Skye to her mother
5. Kicked Skye off the softball team

The School district is mounting a full defense of the coaches’ actions claiming that they followed school policy by outing Skye.

Get the full story from Griffin at her blog.

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Woog offers insights on the impact homophobic slurs have on teens, whether teenage athletes should come out to their teams, and tips on how coaches should handle overt homophobia on their teams and what they can do if they recognize deepening depression in one of their athletes. Woog also talks about the impact on youth soccer of former Major League Soccer player David Testo’s coming out.

Read the whole interview here.

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Hytch Cawke might be the worst porn name in history. Somewhere Anthony Perkins is rolling in his grave.

Not only that, but in one of his videos, Cawke pretends to be straight. “Hi I’m Hytch. I just answered an ad and now I’m here to see what it’s like to be with a guy.” Bwahahahahahahaha!!

I actually appreciated that Fox 25 didn’t make the story about Hogan doing gay porn. They showed a couple PG-rated porn-flick shots and mentioned the titles of two of his movies, but they didn’t use the “gay porn” angle to hype the story, only that it was “porn.” Fox isn’t known for its sensitive handling of gay issues, but somebody there clearly decided the fact that it was gay porn simply wasn’t relevant, and I appreciate that.

Part of me doesn’t see what the big deal is anyway. Porn isn’t illegal, it isn’t bad, and most high school students know what sex is. Hogan is no threat to any of his students. And if my child were one of Hogan’s students, I’d use this as a great opportunity to talk to him or her about sex and pornography. These topics are so under-discussed in American households; What a great chance to change that trend.

Most of me thinks Hogan has to be a complete idiot to have gone down this road. Most of American parents think teenagers need to be protected from sex, not confronted with it in English class and in after-school sports. The parents interviewed by Fox all felt this was totally inappropriate. Whether that’s right or not is kind of irrelevant because that’s reality.

Hogan’s biggest mistake: Not telling the school that just hired him in September. When this is floating around the Internet, and one of your movies is carried in a local video store, you are begging to be fired when somebody finds out. Whether it’s in sports, politics, or education…the cover-up always makes the “crime” worse. And one of the movies was reportedly just released last year!

And let’s be clear about what we’re talking about. His three movie titles are: ‘Just Gone Gay 8,’ ‘Fetish World 1,’ and…brace yourself…’Ass Fucked by a DILF 2′ (in which he is the DILF). When you’re a high school teacher and coach and you’re shooting pornographic movies like this, either you’re begging to be fired…or you’re an idiot.

Let me be super clear about this, for those readers with reading comprehension issues. I am not anti-porn. I am not anti-gay. I think we protect teenagers from conversations about sex way too much. But in today’s society, reality is that of all the professions you can pull off while shooting porn…teaching is second-to-last and coaching is last.

The school has put Hogan on paid leave. That is a stepping stone to his firing, I’m sure. I can’t say he deserves to be fired, but I also can’t say he deserves to keep his job. The guy can’t be the brightest bulb in the lamp given these missteps. I’d love to see Hogan keep his job, but I’m not holding out hope.

Hytch. Cawke. Bwahahahahahaha!

Public high school teacher starred in porno movies released last year: MyFoxBOSTON.com

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It provided boxes for players to check next to wording such as “I am a cry baby,” “I am a queer,” “I have woman like hormones.”

At the bottom it had lines reading “Name little sissy filing report” and “Girly-man signature.”

Lynch apologized and the school board accepted his resignation as head coach, a job he held for 13 years. He will stay on as the school’s guidance counselor. Said Superintendent Rod Kessler:

“[Lynch] screwed up, he screwed up big time,” Kessler said. “The coaching, we didn’t want that to be the issue anymore. We wanted him to have his priority back where it was as a counselor. None of us are happy that it happened. It’s a black eye to the district. And it’s a black eye to Pat.”

The parent of one player was upset that Lynch apologized to the school board but not the players.  And some are upset that he stays on as guidance counselor, though the last thing I would want from someone with his views is guidance. His actions typify the stereotypes that are still perpetrated about what is means to be an athlete and masculine. They should have fired his ass.

Thanks to K2Radio.com (via a comment by reader Jason), here is the survey:

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Charley Sullivan, right

You should check out this powerful essay we posted by Charley Sullivan, the associate head coach of the University of Michigan’s rowing team. In it he talks about being unapologetically out his entire career and how it has made him a better coach.

While I know it’s fashionable, and even somewhat expected, to say “I’m just a such-and-such who happens to be gay,” I on the other hand see myself as a gay coach – an openly, unapologetically, even obnoxiously queer coach. There’s no “I happen to be and let me understate the gay part” here.

Rather, being openly gay – with all that has taught me about myself and how I want to be in the world, how I have chosen to live what I hope is an authentic life, and how this is such a source of joy to me – has, in my opinion, been one of the major strengths I have brought to my coaching. I hope to bring a message to gay coaches that not only can being out be a key component of our coaching success, but also that there are insights and experiences we can bring to athletics from our experiences as gay people that can make us better coaches if we will let them into our work.

Sullivan writes about how being himself has brought him closer to his athletes since there is no insincerity there; he is authentic and says it translates into being a better coach. I would love to hear what others, especially coaches, think about what Sullivan has written.

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Cross-country, 1996. We hear about the fear of “guilt by association” driving homophobia in locker rooms, but we don’t have many specific examples of it happening. One of the rare cases involves a distance runner on the Huntington Beach (Calif.) High School cross-country team being beaten by a school football player. The runner alleged the attack came because his coach at the time, Eric Anderson, was gay. Anderson was the rarest of rare in the early 1990s: An openly gay high school coach. He later chronicled his coming out in Orange County in the book, Trailblazing: The True Story of America’s First Openly Gay Track Coach.

The attack on his runner shook Anderson, aka “Coach Gumby.” What’s more, the attacker was never charged as police dismissed the case as “boys being boys.” But Anderson knew better: He’d heard the taunts his team endured from the football team, and this player in particular, and saw firsthand the underbelly of homophobia. In the coming months he directed his focus toward deeply understanding the nexus of gays and sports and undermining the power of homophobia in athletics.

Today, Anderson is one of the world’s leading academics in the area of homosexuality and sports. He’s a professor at the Unversity of Winchester in England after a long stint at the University of Bath. He’s written several books on the subject, including In the Game: Gay Athletes and the Cult of Masculinity and Inclusive Masculinity. His academic research has led him to conversations with dozens upon dozens of gay athletes. One of his most recent studies shows how straight young men are now kissing on the lips far more frequently than anyone could imagine, shattering notions about male-male physical contact.

For more information:

• Channel 9 News TV report on the attack
• Eric Anderson’s book, Trailblazing
• Eric Anderson’s Web site

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Few basketball coaches are as decorated as Summit. Eight national championships spanning 22 years. Seven NCAA coach of the year awards. Basketball Hall of Fame inductee. Olympic gold medal coach. She’s the only head basketball coach, men’s or women’s, to reach 1,000 NCAA career coaching wins. She has never had a losing season. And it’s probable that she will go hours or days at some point in her life when she won’t remember any of it.

My great-grandmother had Alzheimer’s. If you haven’t experienced a loved one with the disease, it’s incredibly tough. Most of the time my great-grandmother thought she was a little girl back in France and thought I was someone else. That is what her family and friends are in for.

While some will criticize the decision, I’m glad Summit is opting to remain the head coach of the Lady Vols. She’s earned it.

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An informal networking organization for LGBT coaches — Equality Coaching Alliance — is being formed to bring coaches together to discuss issues that confront them every day in their careers, from hostile or discriminatory job environments to best practices in working with athletes.

The group is the brainchild of San Francisco wrestler and sports journalist Roger Brigham.

In early 2011, the Federation of Gay Games asked Brigham to help coordinate its interactions with LGBT youth sports groups in North America. During his conversations with colleagues from organizations such as the National Center for Lesbian Rights, GLSEN and Athlete Ally, it occurred to him that although several groups had formed to help advocate for athletes, there was no dedicated forum for LGBT coaches to address their concerns. Equality Coaching Alliance was formed to help those coaches network.

“When I came out in Alaska in 1982 as both a sports editor and a wrestling coach, I had no queer colleagues that I knew of and I recall the nervousness and uncertainty I felt in all that I did at that time,” Brigham said. “Three decades later we see many organizations for LGBT youth, athletes and youth athletes, but nothing geared specifically toward coaches. So my immediate goal was to get as many of us interested as possible together in one forum.”

ECA has launched a new blog and a Facebook group page. As of Tuesday, May 31, there were 20 members. Coaches interested in joining can email Brigham for more information.

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