Speakers at the Outsports Pride Summit this June in New York City will include the NFL’s only publicly out coach, a former NFL player, a former D1 basketball player, an ESPN editor and many more.
The NFL will take center stage in conversations at Outsports Pride as San Francisco 49ers coach Katie Sowers and former NFL player Ryan O’Callaghan will share their stories and insights at the event.
Other confirmed speakers include former Villanova basketball player Will Sheridan, high school track coach Jarrin Williams, ATP Tennis radio host and reporter Nick McCarvel, Univ. of Nebraska athlete Jace Anderson, ESPN baseball editor Christina Kahrl, and journalist Dawn Ennis, with additional speakers to be announced in coming weeks.
Outsports Pride will span four days at New York City Pride, June 21-24. It will bring together LGBTQ, straight and cisgender people in and around sports interested in learning more about inclusion and building bonds across the community. Events planned include a series of LGBTQ-sports discussions at the Dream Hotel, the Dodgers-Mets game, social events and participation in New York City Pride March.
Registration for the event is open to everyone.
Ryan O’Callaghan played for the New England Patriots and Kansas City Chiefs for six NFL seasons. He was part of the 18-1 Patriots team and played a key role in the game that made the Patriots the first NFL team to record a 16-0 regular-season record. He came out publicly last year in a story for Outsports that has received numerous accolades. O’Callaghan was Outsports’ 2017 Person of the Year.
O’Callaghan’s appearance at Outsports Pride is made possible by our teammates at the NFL and NFL Pride.
Katie Sowers came out publicly in a story on Outsports during last year’s NFL preseason. The 49ers assistant coach is the first woman to be hired by an NFL team to a full-time regular-season coaching position. She is also the first publicly out LGBTQ coach in the NFL. The team’s five-game winning streak to end 2017 was the league’s longest to close the regular season. Sowers was Outsports’ 2017 Female Hero of the Year.
Will Sheridan played on the Villanova men’s basketball team from 2003 to 2007 and was out to his teammates at the time. Sheridan came out publicly in 2011. The Villanova Wildcats advanced to the Elite Eight in 2006 with Sheridan a member of the team. Sheridan is now a music artist in New York City. You can check out Sheridan’s music on itunes.
Nick McCarvel has covered some of the biggest sporting events in the world. He was a correspondent for NBC at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. He has covered all four Grand Slam tennis tournaments for USA Today and other publications. McCarvel discussed his work as an out gay journalist in a story on Outsports in 2016.
Jace Anderson is a long jumper and triple jumper on the men’s track & field team at the Univ. of Nebraska. Last year as a sophomore he finished sixth in the triple jump at the Big Ten Indoor Championships. Anderson came out publicly in 2017 in a story on Outsports.
Christina Kahrl came out publicly as an editor of Baseball Prospectus over a decade ago. Since then she has become a baseball editor at ESPN and is a thought leader on transgender issues in sports. Kahrl’s piece about outing a transgender sports inventor was a tentpole in the conversation about handling trans stories. She is a board member of NLGJA.
Jarrin Williams came out publicly in a personal essay on Outsports last year. He is an eighth grade English teacher at Washington Junior High School in Rock Island, Ill. He is the head boys’ cross-country coach and assistant track and field coach at Rock Island High School. He attended Outsports Pride 2017 in Denver.
Dawn Ennis is a journalist, blogger and host of YouTube talk show “RiseUP With Dawn Ennis.” Writing and producing for CNN, CBS, NBC, and ABC News, Ennis was America’s first transgender journalist in a TV network newsroom when she came out five years ago. She now writes for several online outlets.
Anyone interested in learning more about LGBTQ inclusion in sports is welcome to register for Outsports Pride and join us at New York City Pride, June 21-24, 2018.
