ESPN 1050 host Jared Max says he feels liberated after coming out, was a "schmuck" for not doing it sooner

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Max in his new ESPN studio

Max at the 2010 AFC Championship in Pittsburgh

In conservative, small-town Wisconsin, yet another openly gay athlete finds unconditional acceptance in sports

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Photo credit Tyler Berry

Carroll University tennis captain Seth Pamperin is the latest in a growing list of college athletes to come out of the closet publicly. He has played the last two seasons openly gay, but this is the first time he has come out in a national publication. Under his leadership the team posted an impressive 16-6 season in 2011. Just this weekend Pamperin won the NCAA Div. III Midwest Conference No. 2 singles consolation title. Pamperin talked with us about his four years in conservative Wisconsin, keeping a rainbow ribbon attached to his tennis bag, fighting homophobia in college residences and the power of stereotypes. And, like virtually every athlete we have talked to in the last 10 years, he has experienced no negative repercussions whatsoever coming out in sports.

Outsports: When did you realize you were gay?
Pamperin: I had always known since I was young that I was different. In middle school I had thought about it and in high school I knew. About my sophomore/junior year I had a firm understanding I was. That’s when I came out to my parents and a couple of close friends.

Can you recall the first time you told a teammate or coach you're gay?
I first came out to a teammate, my captain specifically. He thought it was great! He told me he had never had a gay friend and had a couple of generic questions. I was so happy I had been able to confide in my captain my freshman year. His positive reaction helped me have a positive outlook on being gay on the team.

Have you had any negative reactions from being openly gay in sports?
I haven’t had any external negative reactions. Internal reactions have been tough. My junior year I had to fight for LGBTQ equality on my campus which trickled over to my season which did not help because I was still focused on what I had done to help my university change for the better.

What have been some of the most positive reactions you've had?
My coach and boss at one of the camps I worked gave me a great reaction. He immediately started talking about Billie Jean King, which I kind of thought was funny. He said she overcame so much in her career and that I can do the same. My coach in college also has helped me develop not only as a tennis player but as a man. He has seen me at my worst on the court and he has seen me at my best. When I came out to him I was having a hard time connecting to my team and he helped me turn that around. I probably was the first person that had come out to him and I could tell he was a little nervous, but since then our relationship has steadily improved.

My team is supportive in my accomplishments and knows I’m gay. I’m thankful I can confide in my teammates some of the things in my personal life. I am continually growing and maturing. I know my teammates will stick up for me if they hear someone say “that’s so gay” or any other negative comment. I think that I am a strong captain on my team and it definitely changes some views about gay men. Knowing that I am a strong, talented and positive leader in my team’s eyes helps break some stereotypes they otherwise would have kept on believing.

You're competing this year openly gay. Do you fear any kind of retaliation from other teams? Have any of your competitors commented, positively or negatively, about your sexuality?
I competed last year out and proud. I had a rainbow ribbon attached to my tennis bag that I carried on court. I have never feared any retaliation from other teams. Frankly I use the fact that I am gay to help drive me to my success. Knowing that people have stereotypes about gay men and not being in sports and being sissy’s makes me want to work harder and boost my confidence. I can’t say a competitor has commented on my sexuality because they might not know. It’s not like my coach introduces the line-up along with our sexual orientations.  I am not your typical gay man, I’m not (too) flamboyant while on the court, though I definitely have some quirks.

Have athletes from other teams or schools reached out to you because you're gay?
I wish I could connect with other gay athletes in my conference. I’m sure there are some but my gaydar just hasn’t registered a reading in a very long time while playing tennis.

How "rural" is the area around your school?
My school is located in one of the most conservative counties in Wisconsin. We are in a suburb of Milwaukee with a population of about 60,000. We are surrounded by a neighborhood. This campus is fairly small and you could walk the entire campus in about 15 minutes. Milwaukee is just a 15-minute drive.

Have you met other gay men at your school or nearby?
I have met a few gay men at my school, but we are very few and far between. There are about three besides myself that are out, and we have an out lesbian professor as well as a librarian who have proven to be excellent resources for myself and others.  As far as athletics I am the only known out gay man on this campus. Since we live in close proximity to Milwaukee my friends and I have made it a point to get out there. This past summer I was involved with the Milwaukee Metro Tennis Club, which is a primarily gay tennis league. I wasn't looking for competition but more of a community. This club consists of guys a couple years older than me but helped me feel like I had a community. I made friends with a few of them and we still get together once in a while to hit.

Tell me about what you're doing on campus to fight for gay visibility and equality.
I have taken a back seat fighting for equality and visibility on my campus. Last fall I had to work with Student Affairs at my school in order to make sure LGBTQA Safe Space training is mandatory. Numerous negative events have happened to myself and other LGBTQA people have occurred on this campus and we are in the process of building a safer community. I strongly believe that I have helped bring a sense of awareness on this issue to the administrations attention. They have shown me that they are now more than ever dedicated to bringing equality to this campus.

You said numerous negative events have happened at your school. Can you describe them?
Some of the negative events that have happened towards the LGBTQ community on this campus were insensitivity in resident life. Resident life had sporadically done Safe Space training for its new Resident Assistants but last fall did not. The previous year I had overheard a conversation involving my RA and a fellow resident and they were discussing homosexuality. My RA asked the resident what he thought about homosexuality and he replied with "Well I think we should just kill them all." I thought to myself "ok, fine people are entitled to their own opinion, but really?" At a time my RA could have responded with some knowledge of the LGBTQ community he decided not to.

At the time I was on the Student Conduct Board which is a part of Resident Life and I asked my advisor what I could do in order to report this discussion. I had a couple of talks with my Area Director of the building as well as the Director of Resident Life. The conversations always led to "what are we supposed to do about this?" They didn't know how to handle the situation and I didn't either because I was mere sophomore and had never had to deal something like this. It was a first for both of us. However, that RA was never given any extra training on LGBTQ sensitivity and that was that. After returning in the fall of 2009 and hearing that Resident Life did not provide Safe Space training I was disheartened and decided to take things into my own hands.

I met with the Director of Resident Life numerous times and he pointed me in the direction of one of the Area Directors who was coordinating RA training. Along with the Area Director of the building I was living in, I also enlisted the help of my great friend who had also been out at Carroll and seen the negativity towards the LGBTQ community at Carroll. Together we created the Safe Space training that we would present at the annual Wisconsin Association of Independent College's and Universities (WAICU) Conference. Carroll was the host that year.

At the end of the conference we were awarded the "Best Program" that year. It was a great boost of confidence and the Director of Resident Life decided that Safe Space training would be permanently implemented into the Resident Assistant orientation. It is safe to say that I have left some sort of legacy at Carroll because every time an RA puts up their Safe Space sign on their door, it is because of the work my friend and I did. Carroll has improved quite a bit since I've been here, but there is still room for improvement.

Since last year I have taken a back seat to Q&A due to my other activities, being an Assistant Women's Tennis College Coach, Athletic Event Fellow, finding internships, playing in my final season and of course focusing on my education.

Do you think gay men make better athletes? Worse athletes? Does it matter?
I think gay men can use the stereotypes of being “effeminate, having a gay lisp” to their favor. I’m not your typical gay man. I play sports, I wear sweatpants regularly (but not too often), I am aggressive (on the court). I don’t let my sexuality define who I am, I let what I have accomplished and what I strive for define who I am. I think young gay teens often are ostracized for liking “feminine” sports such as tennis, swimming, volleyball, dance, etc…. They need to see that it’s perfectly fine to enjoy that sport.

I try and break those stereotypes by working to be the best in my sport and I have done so. My sophomore year I was named “Midwest Conference Player of the Week.” It was an honor and validated all my hard work. I thought to myself when I read the article “This isn’t for me, it’s for my team, all my coaches, my supportive parents, and all the gay athletes that go unrecognized.”

I don’t think gay men make worse athletes. I think that you can be great in any sport and be gay, straight, bi, or whatever. It just so happens that I play tennis and that I’m gay. I think I connect more with tennis than I do with my sexuality. Tennis is a huge part of my life. My roommate, best friends, team and anyone that has seen me with my tennis bag on campus can attest to that. People say that men think about sex every five seconds, well I like to think that I think about tennis every five seconds.

Why do you think no pro male tennis players have come out?
Bill Tilden supposedly was a gay player, but it was back in the 1920s. Since then no professional male has come out of the closet. There has been speculation about some players but nothing ever concrete. I think one hasn’t come out because in pro tennis players are, like other athletes, under a magnifying glass. When Amelie Mauresmo was pulled out of the closet some people thought she was going to lose her endorsements, but on the contrary they celebrated her as an athlete. I really look up to her and she is still one of my favorite players. I could see myself in her during her matches.

I wish a male pro tennis player would come out, but then it would be blown out of proportion. Since tennis is such an individual sport it might be hard for a player to deal with it alone on the court in front of thousands of people. It would be on everyone’s mind at that match. It could consume and destroy that player if it got to him. I think it would take a very mentally strong guy in order to do it. Ever since coming out, it gets easier every time I come out to someone.

What is your major? When will you graduate? What do you want to do next?
I will be graduating in December of 2011 with a degree in Recreational Management. This summer I will be the Competition intern with the United States Tennis Association Southern Section in Columbia, South Carolina. I hope to continue coaching collegiate athletes and one day be the head pro at a tennis facility. I will continue to be an advocate for LGBTQ athletes and I think what Hudson Taylor and his Athlete Ally program is exactly what the sporting world needs.

You can reach Seth This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or follow him on Twitter.

Bar Harbor-area sports reporter raises local eyebrows and finds welcoming arms

By Emerson Whitney

My gender identity demands a space where the flamboyant and the athletic meet—I am an androgynous trans/genderqueer sports reporter for the Mt. Desert Islander in Bar Harbor, Maine, with a sports beat that sends me onto high school sidelines, into national marathons, and inside the coverage of international championships. I am the only ‘out’ transgender sports reporter at a weekly newspaper in the United States that I know of.

My interview for this sports-writing job came the morning after I served as emcee for a transgender celebration in Portland, Maine. For the event, I covered myself in glitter…and chose not to fully remove it for the interview. My partner nodded at my decision saying, “If a couple flakes of glitter are an issue, honey, you don’t want this job.”

Honestly, part of me thought sabotage. Nobody up here is going to hire me for anything, I thought. And part of me didn’t care. While I wholeheartedly wanted—needed—a job, I wasn’t sure about this one. Some of my reticence was the idea of living rurally. I was withdrawing from a whirlwind departure from New York City, where layoffs swept the two offices I inhabited: the New York Observer and Radar Magazine. I lost both my writing jobs and went traveling. My partner and I landed in Maine after some back-to-the-land soul searching and were starting to run out of money. So I sent my resume to several publications on a whim, not expecting to hear back. But I got a call from a newspaper needing to quickly fill the position of ‘sports and maritime’ writer for their nationally recognized publication (“New England’s best weekly newspaper”).

At the interview, the editor pointed to my glittery face and asked who I had been dressed as the night before. I smiled, “Puck.” He nodded, likely thinking I was talking hockey and not the fairy from Shakespeare’s 'A Midsummer Nights Dream'.

Despite any prejudice on my part towards a small town paper, I got the job. My boss hired me with the knowledge that I am a transgender person and that my preferred pronoun is “he.”

Because of my boss’ steadfast heralding of my correct pronoun, I have found safety and comfort in the office. On my behalf, he has had to explain to confused parents, coaches, and coworkers what exactly I am.

Out of the office, I have met raised eyebrows and confused faces. On any given day, I am read as both ‘she’ and ‘he.’

Bathrooms are a constant challenge, and I find tremendous difficulty in locker rooms.

I was recently stymied at a swim meet by the configuration of their pool room. People on their way to the poolside were forced to enter through either the men’s or women’s locker room.

I held tightly to my press credentials and stood in the hallway for so long that an attendant tapped me to ask if I needed help. I shook my head and hurried into the men’s room, assuming if people thought I was a girl in the men’s locker room it would be less of an issue than if I was thought to be a man in the women’s room.

I passed in and out unnoticed.

On the sidelines, I feel an immense amount of pressure to prove that despite my ‘fay’ presentation, I am not to be shoved in a trashcan— I am writing. I wield my notebook as if a shield. I laugh to myself when I notice that my interview subject is checking obtrusively for a bulge in my crotch. But mostly, I am consistently impressed with the fact that I have not been driven out of town.

Recently, I unearthed a journal of mine from elementary school and found a passage of musings regarding the idea of sports reporting. At the Observer I lamented writing about politics or real estate when I thought I could do much better covering the Jets or the Knicks. In high school, I read and re-read work by Gay Talese. And every day, the scores and scores of sports antidotes I grew up with sift through my mind, potential is what gets you fired…

As a trans/genderqueer person, no part of me thought sports journalism was a career option. As a recent New York Times article about Outsports.com highlights, gay people and their participation in sports are an ‘enduring taboo.’

I am grateful for this opportunity and for the people here who are able to hold the seeming paradox of gender bending and organized sport in the same hand.

Day to day, I choose not to tone down my personality as exuded through my gender presentation—recently a friend of mine dubbed me the Johnny Weir of sports writing. While I often feel pressured to only dress in ball cap and jock strap, I am still glittery—wearing my gender as my own.

You can reach Emerson via email, Twitter or at his Web site.

Colin Joyner and Ben Chadwick are tearing down walls of homophobia at rural liberal arts school in Maine

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Bowdoin head men's tennis coach Colin Joyner

Bowdoin out lacrosse captain Ben Chadwick

Bowdoin College head men’s tennis coach Colin Joyner knows all too well the pain and solitude of the sports closet. When he graduated from Bowdoin in 2003, he was a superstar. He played the school’s No. 1 singles all four years of his career. He was a three-time All-American. He was named the school’s Male Athlete of the Year his senior season.

When he graduated, many people on campus knew he was gay; He had been coming out gradually during his four years at Bowdoin. But when he graduated he moved to Palm Springs, hit the semi-pro circuit, served as a hitting partner for such stars as Justin Henin, Chanda Rubin and the indomitable Martina Navratilova…and he went right back in the closet.

“The semi-pro circuit was cut-throat,” Joyner said. “I had no friends and I wasn’t about to make enemies of guys I was seeing weekly at tournaments by being out. I wanted to be great at tennis and I wanted to win. That year was not productive to me developing as a person.”

The following year he returned to Bowdoin, in rural Brunswick, Maine, as the head tennis coach; At the school where he had come out at as a player he was now closeted as a coach. In his first year, 2006-07, he coached both the men’s and women’s teams. The men had a strong season while the women posted their best season in school history. He was winning, but it wasn’t enough. He struggled with whether to come out to his team. He didn’t want to make anyone feel uncomfortable, he didn’t want to disrupt the team’s mojo, and he wondered whether it was even appropriate to tell them.

As the successful coach at a small Division 3 school, Joyner was spending a lot of time in close quarters with his team. Traveling to matches in small vans, he spent hours with them on the road. During an annual two-week team trip to California, with the entire team packed into a two-bedroom house, the setting is intimate. Joyner didn’t feel comfortable keeping the secret from these men he was so close to.

“And I ultimately got really dissatisfied,” Joyner said. “My team was good and that was great, but I basically had to lie by omission. My friends in Portland knew I’m gay, but I was closeted again. I had to have a second coming out professionally.”

During the team meeting in which Joyner came out, like virtually every other coming-out story we have heard in the last decade, his fears were immediately put to rest. It’s never been an issue with his team, and he’s never had a single negative incident with his team because he’s openly gay.

“The team’s never going to be its best unless it’s an enviroment where people can be honest about who they are and trust each other that way,” Joyner said. “I feel like players are more comfortable around the issue now. We can talk honestly. I think they trust me more, they know I’m being real with them. I think I’m a much better coach for it.”

We have heard of out coaches before. Eric Anderson coached at the community college level: He was the head cross-country coach Saddleback College in the 1990s. Sean Burns coached men’s tennis at Santa Clara University from 1993-2002, but he did not do so publicy. With this article, as far as we at Outsports are aware, Joyner becomes the first NCAA varsity men’s head coach to come out of the closet publicly in the media while still coaching.

Lacrosse player comes out at Bowdoin

Bowdoin lacrosse player Ben Chadwick started his coming-out process in high school in Needham, Mass. Like Joyner, he took a step back in the closet when he accepted an invitation to come to Bowdoin. But New England lacrosse is a small, tight-knit community; It didn’t take long for his freshman roommate to hear from friends at other schools, “You know Ben Chadwick’s gay?”

For those who didn’t find out through the rumor mill, Chadwick called a team meeting after an autumn practice his sophomore year.

“While I was pretty nervous about their reaction at first, it was immediately clear they were very supportive,” Chadwick said. “There’s been absolutely no issue. They’re very open about talking about it with me, joking about it with me. They’ve been great.”

They’ve been so great that his team elected him captain before this season, Chadwick’s last at Bowdoin.

“Not only do they not care that I’m gay, they still look up to me as a leader on the team. It’s great,” Chadwick said.

Chadwick assumes everyone in the New England Small College Athletic Conference knows he’s gay. Still, he’s only had one negative experience in over two years of being an openly gay college athlete. That came in a conference game when a player on the other team said, “Don’t let us bring up what we know about you, 24.”

Chadwick’s team won that game.

Anything But Straight in Athletics takes shape

When Joyner heard about Chadwick, he harkened back to his time as the only openly gay male athlete on campus. It was a lonely time for Joyner in many respects, and he didn’t want Chadwick to be the only one anymore.

In December 2009, just a month after the State of Maine eradicated same-sex marriage, Joyner created Anything But Straight in Athletics with Kate Stern, Director of the school’s Resource Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity. The group’s aim is to help closeted athletes come out by dismantling homophobia in Bowdoin athletics.

The group, consisting mostly of out and closeted athletes, meets monthly to talk about issues they face on their teams.

“As soon as we got that group going the conversation very quickly became about team culture and how big of an influence it is on whether people will come out,” Joyner said. “Why won’t more people come out? Either people have left the sport because they feel the culture won’t be accepting, or they’re going to stay closeted until they leave college and then they’ll come out. I know many people from Bowdoin who did just that.”

Hoping to open the closet door for athletes, the group’s main event is an outreach initiative aimed at starting a dialog with athletes and coaches of all the school’s athletic teams.

Athletes attend a dinner hosted by ABSA. At this year’s dinner, held in early April, athletes heard the true anonymous story of an athlete at Bowdoin who quit his team because he didn’t feel he could be gay there. They also heard an anonymous letter from a female athlete who is not out on her team and doesn’t feel coming out is worth the potential trouble from the team.

“Teams function as if they’re straight,” Joyner said. “There is homophobic behavior happening that prevents people from coming out. But once someone comes out, the team decides it can’t do those things anymore. The fundamental disconnect is the idea that because no one is out, they don’t have a gay perosn on the team, so they can make homophobic jokes.

“Most of the athletes think, ‘I can understand having to talk about this if we had a gay athlete on our team, but we don’t.’ That’s what we challenge them when we say, ‘You probably do. You probably have a closeted athlete on your team. And I know some of you do.’”

This year the athletes also heard a talk by Toronto Maple Leafs general Manager Brian Burke. Chadwick, who this year serves with Joyner as co-chair of ABSA, contacted Bowdoin student and Brian’s daughter, Molly Burke. Molly connected Chadwick with her father and Brian was happy to lend his voice.

“The most successful part of it is seeing so many straight athletes talk about it for the first time in their lives,” Chadwick said. “I don’t think any of them are truly homophobic, they’re just uneducated about the issue. After going to Mr. Burke’s speech or attending the Anything But Straight in Athletics dinner, and having just thought about it for an hour, I think it makes them rethink what they say and they’re more conscientious about homphobia in athletics.”

Molly said it was the first time her father spoke publicly about the death of his son, Brendan, without breaking down.

Molly said the atmosphere for gay people at Bowdoin is improving, largely because of the efforts of ABSA. She added that since her father spoke on campus two weeks ago she has had many-student athletes tell her how cool it was to hear him speak and that it made them rethink the issue.

“It’s become way more talked about, accepting and recognizing that there are gay people here,” Molly said. “Having someone like Ben Chadwick, who’s so prominent on campus, I’m really impressed with how Bowdoin and the student body have handled it. I just don’t think people realize how many people on campus are gay.”

After the first ABSA event in 2010, many athletes had a positive response but wondered if their coaches were hearing the message. This year ABSA also reached out to coaches at Bowdoin with a coach’s lunch. Joyner said that, with the strong encouragement of Bowdoin’s athletic director, almost every head coach at Bowdoin attended this year’s event.

At one point during the coach’s lunch, the true story of a gay athlete and the showers came up. This out Bowdoin athlete routinely showers before his team does so he doesn’t make any of them feel uncomfortable. This isn’t at the prodding of anyone on his team: It’s simply something he’s decided to do.

At first the general sentiment voiced was that it’s a good thing the gay athlete showers by himself: That is being a good team player. But soon another perspective dominated the room. Joyner said coaches realized that not only was it bad for the athlete to ostracism himself from team activities, but that also ultimately undermined the entire team. Joyner said it was a powerful change of tune:

“They started asking other questions. ‘Are they really participating in the team fully? What can we do as coaches? We’re not in the locker rooms, we’re not at the dinner table. We’ve got to think about other issues.’ But I thought it was great that discussion started, and it showed as coaches we need to think about these issues more.”

While much of Joyner’s focus is men’s teams, he said the women’s teams have problems as well. He said some women’s teams want to be known as straight teams, acting hyper-heterosexual. According to Joyner there are some women’s teams with several out players, and there are other teams with no out players. He said that dynamic points to a disparity in team cultures.

Building a legacy

As Chadwick approaches graduation, he is looking for opportunities to continue the work he’s done in athletics at Bowdoin. While he won’t play competitive lacrosse after the graduates, he wants to continue the work he started at Bowdoin toppling the barriers between gay and straight athletes.

“People would have said coming out on a lacrosse team would be a big problem,” Chadwick said. “As soon as someone comes out, and as soon as a team steps back and realizes a teammate is gay, they see they’re still friends with him and he’s still the same person. If there’s some way I could keep the ball rolling with that and encourage other schools around the country, that would be really rewarding.”

While Joyner remains focused on his work at Bowdoin, he also expressed a great hope that more schools will build programs like his ABSA. He said homophobia he encounters from others in his coaching fraternity has opened his eyes to the necessity of organizations like his.

“I’ve received very little help from coaches who know I’m gay going to bat for me when other coaches are throwing around homophobic language,” Joyner said. “When I experience coaches from other colleges, particularly at camps, it’s a really sexist enviroment, with some racism and homphobia.”

Joyner has started speaking up for himself when he hears homophobic language from his peers. He hopes those confrontations help lead to those coaches thinking twice before building an anti-gay atmosphere on those teams; As Joyner’s learned, many of them have gay athletes on their teams whether they think they do or not.

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