Month: August 2011

Growing up, Vincent Pryor fought for years the fact that he was gay. It was especially hard since he was a starter on TCU's football team. But after being true to himself, he felt liberated and set a school record. After 17 years, he shares his story.By Jim BuzinskiOutsports.comVincent Pryor lined up as a pass […]

Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history. Basketball, 2011. It had been a long time coming for the president of the Phoenix Suns. Having worked in the NBA for decades, Rick Welts had kept his sexual orientation a secret from his colleagues for just as long. When his […]

Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history. Sports reporting, 1982. When Anchorage Daily News sports editor Roger Brigham walked into his managing editor’s office in 1982, he began a 30-year legacy that is rivaled by few in all of gay-sports journalism. He came out to his editor that […]

Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history. Baseball, 1993: By the time former Major League Baseball player Glenn Burke came out publicly in interviews with Sport magazine and the "Today" show, the gay community in San Francisco had long known he was gay. Burke was a fixture in […]

Oregon State softball coach Kirk Walker was no stranger to Outsports. He was one of our first readers and we kept in touch with him regularly via email. Walker was comfortably out to those who mattered in his life and not yet ready to take the step of going public.

Sam Fuld A meeting at a wine tasting between a St. Petersburg gay business owner and Tampa Bay Rays players Johnny Damon and Sam Fuld led to the team agreeing to film a video for the It Gets Better Project to fight teen bullying. Manager Joe Maddon and players Johnny Damon, Sam Fuld, B. J. […]

For a year people have been talking about out lesbian swimmer Diana Nyad’s reported attempt to break a world record and swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage. She set off into the water from Cuba Sunday night. On Monday night, she ended the swim halfway to her destination. Her team Tweeted: Realizing […]

Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history. Baseball, 1976. Major League pitcher Jim Bouton had caused quite a stir with his 1970 book, Ball Four. The book chronicled his 1969 season in the Major Leagues and brought to the public eye the rampant womanizing and drug use taking […]

Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history. Bodybuilding, 1989: It's hard to imagine there has ever been a more aesthetically pleasing body in bodybuilding than that of Bob Paris, winner of numerous major contests, including Mr. America and Mr. Universe. I know many a gay man who grew […]

Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history. Sports, 1987: When former Olympic decathlete Tom Waddell wanted to start a multisport competition for gay and lesbian athletes, his original name was the Gay Olympics. But that did not sit well with the U.S. Olympic Committee, which sued to stop […]

Christine Daniels Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history. Media 2007: For years, Mike Penner was a fixture in the sports pages of the Los Angeles Times, a gifted, graceful, funny and insightful writer. Then in April 2007, he stunned readers by writing this in a column: Today […]

The next video in Outsports’ partnership with the It Gets Better Project comes from Emma Delsohn, who is starting her freshman year at Seattle University. Emma became known to Outsports readers this spring after she wrote a fantastic article on coming out as a high school basketball player at an all-girls Catholic school in Southern […]

Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history. Swimming, 1979. In 1978, Diana Nyad’s attempt to swim from Cuba to Florida was thwarted by bad weather that repeatedly sent her smashing into the side of a shark cage. The disappointment of not completing the record 103-mile swim didn’t deter […]

Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history. Hockey, 2010: When the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup, the Chicago Gay Hockey Assn. asked the team to send a player to ride in the city's pride parade with the Stanley Cup trophy. The team agreed and defenseman Brent Sopel […]

Owens, left, and Garcia in happier times Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history. Pro football, 2004: Terrell Owens and Jeff Garcia were once teammates for the San Francisco 49ers. When Owens left for the Philadelphia Eagles in 2004, he did an interview with Playboy and was asked […]

New York Rangers hockey player Sean Avery was arrested in Los Angeles on a misdemeanor charge that he shoved a Los Angeles police officer. From the L.A. Times: Authorities responded about 1 a.m. to a neighbor’s complaint about loud music at Avery’s Hollywood Hills home, police said. New York Rangers hockey player Sean Avery was […]

Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history. Media, 1993: "The Last Closet," the CBC Radio's hourlong special on gays in sports was groundbreaking, exploring a subject that was little talked about in the media. They took the title from something I said in the interview about sports being […]

Four British track athletes have posed nude for an ad campaign by Alfa Romeo to raise money for heart research. Said sprinter Harry Aikines-Aryeete (full photo below): “I’ve actually been in a few photo shoots before but nothing to this degree. This is the most revealing I’ve been for a shoot and it really was […]

Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history. Various sports, 2003. When the NCAA instituted on-campus diversity education workshops focusing on sexual orientation issues, it made an institutional commitment to ending homophobia in sports. The workshop is free to the school and welcomes athletes, coaches, faculty and others across […]

Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history. Media, 2001: After working at the Worldwide Leader on the TV side and then online since 1999, journalist Bill Konigsberg came out publicly at ESPN in a column. Konigsberg, whom I have known as a friend for a decade, had a […]