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June 30:
David Kopay, pro football
Kopay is the pioneer of gays and lesbians coming out
in sports. His 1977 autobiography is still in print
and still moves people. |
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June 29:
Eric Anderson, high school cross-country coach
Few coaches had ever done what "Coach Gumby" did in
Orange County as a high school track coach when he
came out in the early '90s. |
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June 28:
Nat Brown, Olympic Skiing
Nat Brown did ski service for the U.S. Biathlon and
Cross-Country Ski Teams from 1979-93. Subsequently,
he worked for Belgium and Slovenia. He has prepared
skis in three Olympics, seven World Championships
and seven Junior World Championships. Brown has
written a series of articles for Outsports. |
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June 27:
Jen Moore, Collegiate Softball
An out collegiate softball player tells her Penn
classmates: "I am proud of who I am. I hope that you
are able to look yourself in the mirror and say the
same thing." |
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June 26:
Mark Bingham, Collegiate Rugby
Before Mark Bingham was known as a hero of United
flight 93, he was a warm rugby and football player
who found success at Cal-Berkeley. |
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June 25:
Christina Kahrl, 'Baseball
Prospectus' Editor
Christina Kahrl, one of the founding five members of
Baseball Prospectus, made news by coming out as
transgender in 2003. For Christina (who grew up as Chris),
coming out was relatively easy once she had made the
decision to do so. It was the journey getting there that was
the challenge. |
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June 24:
Billy Glover, NCAA cross-country
Coming out to his mother and an AIDS benefit race
eased him into his life as an out athlete, but
homophobia did rear its ugly head. |
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June 23:
Matt Coin, NCAA Tennis
The former captain of the UC-Santa Barbara tennis
team came out in college and found it difficult to
live a double life. |
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June 22:
Glenn Burke, Major League Baseball
Most people would be surprised to know that the
fomer Los Angeles Dodger who popularized the
"high-five" when teammate Dusty Baker crossed home
plate was gay and played gay softball in San
Francisco after retiring from the pros. |
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June 21:
Graham Ackerman, NCAA gymnastics
We caught up with him two years ago when the
three-time national champion gymnast at the Univ. of
California at Berkeley won his final title. |
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June 20:
Simon Latimer, Elite diving
Simon Latimer grew up in New Zealand a gymnast but
found great success diving and committed himself
full-time to that. |
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June 19:
Dwight Slater, NCAA football
There's only Div. 1 college football player we know
of who came out while on the team. Unfortunately,
Dwight Slater's story is one of struggle. |
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June 18:
Tyler Hoffman, Professional baseball umpire
Tyler Hoffman has been an advocate of gays in pro
sports since he came out and left baseball. He says
there are more of him out there in pro baseball. |
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June 17:
Mike Crosby, NCAA water polo
When Mike Crosby came out to his Harvard water polo
team, he was the only out athlete at the Ivy League
school. |
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June 16:
Jordan Goldwarg, NCAA skiing
For Goldwarg, a former skier at Williams College,
'Coming Out Often Felt Like Jumping
Off a 30-Foot Cliff into a Deep Pool of Water' |
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June 15:
Adam Goslin, NCAA football & baseball
Adam Goslin was an
openly gay two-sport athlete at Washington
University who graduated this past December. |
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June 14:
Mike Muska, NCAA athletic director
Muska was openly gay in the 1990s when he was the
athletic director of Oberlin College in Ohio. |
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June 13:
Sean Smith, NCAA swimmer &
coach
Sean Smith was the
All-American boy. He was 6-foot something,
good-looking, grew up in Oklahoma, was a standout
athlete, and even had a quintessentially American
name. He was also an openly gay swimmer and
assistant coach with the Rutgers men's swim team. |
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June 12:
Brandon Triche, NCAA gymastics
Brandon was one of the first athletes Outsports had
the pleasure of introducing to the rest of the
world. He has long since graduated from college, but
we have not forgotten his Outsports legacy. |
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June 11:
J.P. Calderon, NCAA &
Professional volleyball
J.P.
Calderon never envisioned he'd be a volleyball coach for girls and women. He was a player
in the late-1990s for
Long Beach State University and was even the team captain as
a senior, leading the 49ers to the NCAA Tournament. |
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June 10:
Ryan Quinn, NCAA skier
NCAA champion skier Ryan Quinn decided to come out
on his University of Utah team when he realized he
couldn't reach his full athletic potential if he was
still dealing with issues of his sexuality. His
column will soon appear in the upcoming book
The Outsports Revolution. |
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June 9:
Ryan White, NCAA rower
An out rower at Pacific Lutheran University learns
that even after coming out, he's still a part of the
team. |
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June 8:
Joey
Fischer, NCAA hockey goalie
University of Georgia hockey goalie
Joey Fisher decided before the 2006
season that he would come out to his
team. What he found were open arms. |
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June 7:
Sean Burns, NCAA tennis coach
From 1993 to 2002 Burns
was the men’s tennis coach at Santa Clara
University. In that time he came out to his team and
found strong support. |
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June 6:
Andrew Glenn, NCAA rower
Andrew Glenn, a rower at Penn State,
tells how reading about other out
jocks gave him the courage to tell
his team. |
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June 5:
Andrew Goldstein, NCAA & Pro Lacrosse
In 2005, Goldstein became, to the best of our
knowledge, the first openly gay athlete drafted by a
professional team. What he did in college to get
there was nothing less than spectacular. |
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June 4:
Kirk Walker, NCAA Softball
Kirk Walker, the head
coach of the Oregon State softball team, decided to
come out to his team as he and his partner were
adopting a baby. Walker is the only openly gay
Division I coach in the country. |
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June 3:
Andrea Zimbardi, NCAA Softball
Andrea Zimbardi's 2003
story on Outsports alleging homophobia in the
University of Florida softball program set in motion
a chain of events that resulted in a landmark
settlement. The head coach who kicked ZImbardi off
the team was fired in 2005. |
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June 2:
Brian Fell, UCLA Track & Field
Brian Paul Fell is a
world-class sprinter. He ran track at UCLA and was a
two-time national champion: in the 4x400-meter relay
and the distance medley, in which he ran the
400-meter leg. He has qualified for and competed in
three Olympic trials, most recently the trials for
the 2004 Olympics in Athens. |
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June 1:
Corey Johnson, High School Football
Corey's was the first big story Outsports covered,
in 2000. He was the openly gay captain of his high
school football team; and when 20/20 and the New
York Times did stories, the world took notice. He
still gets e-mail from the Outsports article. |
