The New York Times this weekend ran a profile of Kirk Walker, the openly gay head softball coach at Oregon State. It’s a solid update of the original story we ran on Walker in 2007.
As Walker stood before his team then, fumbling for words, he was surprised that none of his players had any questions about his being gay. All they wanted to know about was the baby.
As Walker stood before his team then, fumbling for words, he was surprised that none of his players had any questions about his being gay. All they wanted to know about was the baby.
That has not changed much. Players still fawn over [his daughter] Ava, who turns 4 in July, and their parents will occasionally ask about [his partner] Baltimore, who works for an insurance company in Portland. Walker said that his being gay had never been brought up during recruiting and that he did not think it had ever caused him to lose a recruit.
“I can’t say it has, I can’t say it hasn’t,” Walker said of the effect it has had on recruiting. “But it’s never blatantly been an issue.”
Yet still another story about how being openly gay in sports hasn’t affected someone negatively. Hopefully at some point people will see this trend for what it is: The state of being gay in sports.
It’s nice to know the Times is reading Outsports: This is the second story in the last three weeks they’ve gotten from this site. Hopefully they’ll continue to highlight the many athletes, coaches and administrators on this site: The more people who read these stories, the better.
