There is a nice feature in the Seattle Times about Portland State women’s basketball coach Sherri Murrell, who has taken her team to its first appearance in the NCAA tournament. They are seeded 15th and are a tourney longshot.
She had been the coach at Washington State before resigning. When she took the Portland State job, [...]
Posts under ‘Coming out’
Out lesbian has her team in the NCAA’s
Positive reaction to gay lacrosse player
Andrew McIntosh, captain of the Oneonta University lacrosse team in New York state, wrote about his coming out process in a moving piece for Outsports. His story touched a lot people and McIntosh has been deluged with e-mail from athletes, coaches and fans. His local paper, the Oneata Daily Star, has published a story and [...]
Athletes’ anonymous coming-out stories
We’ve gotten a couple of e-mails recently from openly gay college athletes wanting to tell their story on Outsports. Over the years, we’ve told the stories of dozens of out college and high school athletes. What makes these young men different from the other stories we’ve read is that they don’t want to use their [...]
Will sports follow military’s end of DADT?
Tim Joyce writes about ending sports’ Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy for Real Clear Sports. While people talk about sports leading to cultural change in racial equality in the ’40s and ’50s, Joyce points out that it was the military, not sports, that lead the way; And hopefully sports will follow the military’s (hopefully) impending [...]
A blog from a closeted pro basketball player
Baller is the pseudonym of a professional basketball player in an overseas league, who joins the ranks of closeted jocks blogging about their lives with his worthwhile and interesting Playing Basketball From the Closet. We have written about four other such blogs, but Baller’s has a bit of a back story.
Baller contacted Outsports in late [...]
Dan Lebatard: TMZ Sports will out athletes
The Miami Herald’s Dan Lebatard is cringing at the thought of TMZ’s sports wing, scheduled to open up shop this year, in part because he thinks a closeted gay athlete will be their No. 1 target.
One of the first orders of business at TMZ Sports, rest assured, will be to out a gay male athlete. [...]
Closeted high school runner’s blog
It seems like there’s a new closeted athlete blogging every month, and March is no different. Meet Jon, a high school freshman in the Pacific Northwest, who calls himself the Rainbow Runner. He started posting February 20 and has already logged about a dozen posts. Only one person knows he’s gay, his best friend Kevin.
Ok [...]
Deadspin tackles the gay-athlete question
Deadspin’s Thursday mailbag yesterday had a question from a gay sports fan wondering when an active athlete in one of the big four sports would come out of the closet. Drew Magary took on the question with the same answer we keep hearing: I’m OK with it, but that guy isn’t.
It’ll be forever. Whoever does [...]
Amaechi doesn’t recommend staying closeted
A few days after telling a reporter that he doesn’t recommend gay athletes come out, openly gay former NBA player John Amaechi says he does not necessarily recommend staying in the closet either. First is an interview with Queerty:
Under what circumstances would you recommend gay athletes stay in the closet?
I’m not recommending it. … I [...]
John Amaechi tells athletes to stay in the closet
Openly gay former NBA player John Amaechi has dropped a bit of a bomb, telling the Daily Telegraph he would recommend that active professional soccer players stay in the closet.
I personally have spoken to 10, 12 current professional footballers who are gay, they exist, I promise you. As it happens none of them have asked [...]
College lacrosse captain comes out as gay
When Oneonta State University lacrosse player Andrew McIntosh contacted Outsports a couple weeks ago, it was to thank us for all of the coming-out stories we had featured on the site. Today, his story joins the list.
It continues to surprise me how welcoming so many college sports programs are for gay athletes, and McIntosh’s story [...]
Gareth Thomas holds coming out party
Gay Welsh rugger Gareth Thomas held a coming-out party last Thursday at London’s club Movida. He was joined at the party by teammates and some gay celebrities.
“Everybody here tonight is celebrating that the world is changing,” he said. “We are here to send the message that it’s OK to be a sportsman and it is [...]
U.S. women’s soccer coach comes out
Pia Sundage, the first non-American to coach the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team, is now also the first openly gay coach of the team. Sundage, who is Swedish, came out during an interview with TV host Lasse Bengtsson on Swedish TV:
There has been no problem for me to be openly gay as head coach in the [...]
Outsports nominated for GLAAD award
We were thrilled to find out we’ve been nominated for GLAAD’s Outstanding Digital Journalism Article award for our ground-breaking article, “Former college football captain was openly gay.” The article chronicles the story of Brian Sims, the defensive tackle who came out to his Bloomsburg University football team in 2000. Since the release of the article [...]
Latest ‘when will NFL get gay player’ column
Every six months or so, someone in the mainstream media decides to write the latest “When will we see an active out player in the [insert pro sports league here]” column. This month it’s Dan Solomon on AOL’s Asylum. It contains pretty much everything you’ve read here a dozen times: It’ll be someone who’s outed [...]
