ESPN is excited over its Sunday airing telling the story of Andrew Goldstein, the openly gay Dartmouth lacrosse goalie. I have spoken with the reporter several times and he's jazzed. Set your VCRs for 10:30 a.m. EDT.

Ed is a class act and deserves our supprot for his courage.

Way to go Ed!

Who's Ed? It's Andrew. wink

I'm sure Ed's nice too.

I'm going to guess that they'll air the piece on Sunday night's Sportscenter after the baseball game as well.

hey everyone,
I have been reading this board for a while, but never replied. I think its great to see that ESPN is doing a piece on Andrew. I went to high school with Andrew and I actually found this board because of his original article. I was also in a similar situation in college, being a closeted athlete and I am just about to begin my coming out process after graduating. In fact, I am in all reality just beginning to be gay. Andrew's article was a great psychological help to me, even though I haven't been in contact with him since high school and I had no idea that he was gay then (though I wish I had). Anyway, everyone should check out this piece.

Is this just a short segment? Wouldn't it be great if a full-length feature story on Andrew's experiences could be done on one of the networks.

One about an hour-long at least detailing his struggle and triumph in the coming out process.

It would also save him having to repeat himself, and from e-mail inbox overload.

bluedog probably isn't the only one to be affected that way by Andrew's story.

His story's on the front of espn.com right now. It's a great article. Way to go, Andrew.

Since it's part of Sportscenter it's just going to be one of those 5 to 7 minute segments.

The segment first airs Sunday at 10:30 EDT, then repeats at night. ESPN.com has a large feature on Andrew and a sidebar where Outsports is mentioned prominently (he even talks about Jeremy Bloom winning King of the Hardwood).

Very good story. Intriguing that he actually found it easier to come out on a team rather than in an individual sport like tennis. Of course the kind of supportive reception he got may not be repeated everywhere.

His teammates response when he came out to him was about the coolest one you could imagine - smart guy.

My biggest thrill of the article, and this will probably hold true for the piece when I see it, is the video of the single-handed goalie goal, especially appreciated since he didn't score it against Maryland.

That roar of the crowd gives me chills, and nearly brought tears to my eyes, even though he had not yet come out when it happened.

Feels a bit weird and liberating to finally uninhibitedly support an "All-American" accomplishment like that.

[ June 03, 2005, 03:10 PM: Message edited by: sportinlife ]

I was reading this story at work, and even though I had read Andrew's story here, my eyes still began to well up with tears of pride and joy. There was hardly anyone at work today, but I still had to stop half way through and clear my head. I was very emotionally into his story throught the wonderful writing.

He is a strong and courageous man and deserves all the credit he can have heaped upon him. His teamates are also fantastic and set a great example for all of the sports world to follow.

May we hear more stories like Goldie's in the near future!

Interesting discussion going on at the main discussion board for lacrosse, including this gem from a Maryland lacross player:

Gays are portrayed today as clean, courageous people who are normal just trying to fit into a society that doesn't want them there. All over the media an abnormal amount of gays are shown on tv relative to how many people are in the U.S. population. I totally agree with Sore&old that this piece was brought on by a reporter with an agenda, its obvious that they wanted to show a gay person succeeding in something other than fashion. I'm not saying gays aren't people too, because they are, but they should not recieve special recognition becuase of their beliefs. Why patronize for homosexuals for all their "hardships" for growing up "different" when there are problems with race and those who are given an real disadvantage because of their ethnicty, not sexuality. There are other issues way more important to show on the news that someone who potentially could be discriminated against because of his own life style and choices in life. How about a story where someone WAS actually discriminated against because of there background, so as to help it from happening again, so that the world may become in harmony with all races.

The board link.

[ June 02, 2005, 04:29 PM: Message edited by: Jim at Outsports ]

My favorite quote: "People are not born 100% gay, they develop over time to believe that, because they are different, they are gay."

I don't even know how to respond. lol I didn't in any way feel "different" from any other human being until puberty. But once puberty hit and I was attracted to males rather than females (100 percent, by the way), that's pretty much when I realized one thing about me was out of step with the norm.

He wasn't here long enough to leave his name.

I just watched the segment on DVR. The announcer said words like "come out of the closet" and "homosexual" with the same kind of tone that you hear describing strange sex rituals on Animal Planet, but overall the story was well done. Cheesy as hell, but there really wasn't any other way to do it. This is a big deal and I'm proud of Bill Tierney for making a public show of support. My teammates knew about me when I played golf but I still declined an interview with my school paper, let alone ESPN...it takes a rare breed to break ground like this so publicly. Good for Andrew Goldstein.

To reporter Greg Garber's credit, he phoned and e-mailed me several times in the course of producing this to make sure he was using proper language. He acted like a total professional and the result was the terrific piece.

I didn't mean to imply that Garber did anything wrong...that's just how unknowledgeable straight people talk. The segment was everything we could have hoped for.

The folks at the lacrosse forum are asking for people's positons on homosexuality.

And after reading some of the posts there I've opted out of responding.

Some of these people are so benighted that I'm reminded of my father's admonishment to me when I got frustrated with people who objected to me being the product of interracial marriage: "Don't try to teach a pig how to sing. It wastes your time, and annoys the pig."