Honorees 21-30: The 2024 Outsports Power 100, powerful LGBTQ people in American sports

Bryan Ruby is one of only about a dozen professional baseball players who have come out publicly. Ruby played college baseball at Rutgers before playing minor league baseball in multiple countries. Now Ruby runs a non-profit organization called Proud To Be In Baseball that advocates for LGBTQ people in the sport he loves, working with various MLB and Minor League Baseball teams. He’s also a successful country-music writer and singer.

– Cyd Zeigler

If Diana Taurasi ends her career in 2024, she leaves the stage as perhaps the greatest ever to grace it. She won her sixth Olympic gold medal at the Paris Olympics this year, to add to three WNBA championships. She’s the WNBA’s all-time leading scorer. During the WNBA’s 25th anniversary season in 2021, fans voted Taurasi as the GOAT. You could fill a lot of space with the awards and accomplishments she earned since she came to the University of Connecticut as a true freshman in 2000. Get her wings in Springfield and Knoxville ready now. She’ll also be remembered for her moxie, her cheeky quotes, and her honesty. Whether it about her process on the court, her view of a hotshot rookie, or coming out in 2017 and being spouse and mother, Taurasi always told it like it is even if it makes teammate-turned-wife Penny Taylor groan a little.

– Karleigh Webb

When then-Las Vegas Raiders defensive lineman Carl Nassib came out in 2021, he cemented his place in sports history by being the first active out gay NFL player. He thrived with the Raiders and then the Tampa Bay Buccaneers before retiring prior to the 2023 season. Since retiring, he has focused on his app for nonprofits but still is making an impact in the NFL. On National Coming Out Day in October, he announced a $100,000 donation from the NFL to the Trevor Project. “When I came out in 2021, it was important to me to let LGBTQ+ young people know that they are not alone,” Nassib said. “It has been an absolute honor to use my platform to shine a light on The Trevor Project’s life-saving services.”

– Jim Buzinski

As the Chief Business Officer for Atlanta United FC, Sarah Kate (Skate) Noftsinger is “responsible for overseeing day-to-day business strategy for the club, including marketing, sales, sponsorship and ticketing,” according to the team. It’s her second stint at Atlanta United FC, having spent a few years as the U.S. soccer marketing head for Adidas. Noftsinger is a former college soccer player herself, also playing a couple seasons for the Washington Freedom, once a women’s pro soccer team in Washington, D.C.

– Cyd Zeigler

Jamila Wideman found some success playing for three teams in the WNBA over two decades ago. Yet since then, she has built a career as an attorney before her hiring in 2018 by the NBA as Vice-President of Player Development. A big part of her role with the NBA is working with rookies as they transition from a life in high school or college to the pros. She now oversees the league’s mental health initiatives with players. In 2023, she was named a “Game Changer” by the Sports Business Journal.

– Cyd Zeigler

When Outsports talks with people in baseball about efforts to build LGBTQ visibility and inclusion, Roscoe Mapps‘ name comes up all the time. From the Giants’ description of Mapps’ role with the franchise: “In his current role, he collaborates with cross-functional teams to implement strategies that enhance representation, foster cultural understanding, and cultivate inclusion and belonging.” Mapps has been instrumental in building a relationship with other teams, including the rival Los Angeles Dodgers, to foster joint inclusion efforts.

– Cyd Zeigler

As a member of the Yale women’s crew team in the late 1970s, Ginny Gilder participated in a protest where she and teammates wrote TITLE IX on their naked bodies and marched into the athletic director’s office to advocate for basic necessities like locker room access. Despite her coach insisting she was too small, Gilder later pushed herself to qualify for two US Olympic Rowing teams, winning a silver medal at the 1984 Games. She founded multiple entrepreneurial firms and became a co-owner of the Seattle Storm in 2008. During her tenure, the Storm have won three WNBA championships.

– Ken Schultz

Kahleah Copper took home her first gold medal this summer as she sparked Team USA with a fourth-quarter performance that garnered praise from her teammates. Copper has also won the WNBA Championship in 2021 with the Phoenix Mercury, when she was the WNBA Finals MVP. She’s also a four-time WNBA All-Star.

– Outsports

Breanna Stewart just completed a special double. In Paris she won her third Olympic gold medal for Team USA. On Sunday, she helped the New York Liberty win its first  WNBA championship. Off the floor, she also making moves as a co-founder of Unrivaled with Minnesota Lynx all-star Naphessa Collier, who Stewart’s Liberty played for the championship this season. The venture is a professional women’s 3-on-3 league scheduled to start in January 2025 to keep more top players  in the U.S. during the WNBA offseason. The undertaking is on brand for a player known to stand up for the greater good. Stewart has been an activist as much as athlete. As one of the players to take the lead in dedicating the 2020 season to Breonna Taylor, Stewart then helped the Seattle Storm to the WNBA championship and was named one of Sports Illustrated’s  Athlete Activist Sportspeople of the Year. Stewart also claimed the league’s MVP award in 2018, in addition to winning a WNBA championship that season.  

– Karleigh Webb

In his first season as a head men’s college basketball coach for the University of South Carolina Salkehatchie by being named coach of the year in his conference. Lynch, the only out gay men’s college basketball coach in the country, took over a program that had been disbanded, built a roster from scratch and ended up winning his conference tournament. As he enters his second season, Lynch is providing a model for how someone can be out as a head coach in a men’s program.

– Jim Buzinski