NY Times Article: Gay & Lesbian Athletes Recent History of Coming Out Of The Closet In Sports.

By ISABELLA MOSCHEN

Associated PressDavid Kopay

Big-time sports lag behind other areas of American society in terms of the number of gay and lesbian participants who feel they can be open about their sexual orientation. Not once, for example, has an active male player in any of the four major professional sports leagues in America publicly acknowledged being gay. But retired football, basketball and baseball players, along with active players in other sports, have come out. And there are plenty of lesbian athletes in women’s professional sports. Here are some milestones from the last four decades :

1975 David Kopay, a former professional football player, publicly acknowledges that he is gay in a Washington Star article. Three years after retiring from the sport, he becomes the first N.F.L. player to come out. “It took me a long time, too long, to accept myself as I really was,” Kopay tells the University of Washington alumni magazine in 2008. “I’m hoping I can at least make a difference in that others in my position will have the freedom to be who they are.”

1976 Tom Waddell, who was a decathlete in the 1968 Olympics, appears inPeople magazine — with his male partner. That same year, he serves as the Saudi Arabian team physician at the Olympics in Montreal. Waddell later founds what becomes known as the “Gay Games.”

Dennis Oulds/Central Press, via Getty ImagesAmerican tennis player Billie Jean Moffitt (later King) at Wimbledon in 1964

1981 Billie Jean King, regarded as one of the top female tennis players of all time, is outed by a former female partner. King is perhaps best known for winning a 1973 “Battle of the Sexes” match against Bobby Riggs. In 1990, Life Magazine calls her one of the “100 Most Important Americans of the 20th Century.” Today, she lives with her partner, the former professional tennis player Ilana Kloss, in New York City. “We have to commit to eliminating homophobia because everyone is entitled to the same rights, opportunities and protection,” King has said.

1981 Martina Navratilova, a tennis icon, says that she is a lesbian, soon after defecting to the United States from Czechoslovakia. Winner of two Wimbledon singles titles, she goes on to capture seven more over the course of her career. At a 2010 benefit dinner, Navratilova reflects, “I’m told I lost millions in sponsorship, but in my heart I know I gained things of much greater value — the opportunity to live my life with integrity and the knowledge that others might have come out because of my example.”

1982 Glenn Burke, a retired outfielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Oakland Athletics, comes out. He is the first openly gay former major league baseball player. “Prejudice drove me out of baseball sooner than I should have,” Burke tells The Times in a 1994 interview. “But I wasn’t changing. And no one can say I didn’t make it. I played in the World Series. I’m in the book, and they can’t take that away from me. Not ever.”

1992 Roy Simmons, a retired offensive lineman for the Washington Redskins and the New York Giants, comes out on “The Phil Donahue Show.” ”The N.F.L. has a reputation,” he later tells The Times. ”And it’s not even a verbal thing — it’s just known. You are gladiators; you are male; you kick butt.”

1994 Greg Louganis, a diver and four-time Olympic gold medalist, announces he is gay. “I was out to my friends and family,” he tells Outsports.com in July 2012. “It was just my policy not to discuss my sexuality to members of the media. I wanted my participation in the sport to be about the sport. I didn’t want it to be about being the ‘gay diver.’ ” Louganis’s best-selling 1995 memoir, “Breaking the Surface,” details his experiences coming out and being H.I.V.-positive.

1999 Billy Bean, a former major league baseball player, openly discusses his sexuality in a front-page article in The Times. He tells the reporter, ”I went to Hooters, laughed at the jokes, lied about dates because I loved baseball. I still do. I’d go back in a minute. I only wish I hadn’t felt so alone, that I could have told someone, and that I hadn’t always felt God was going to strike me dead.”

2002 Esera Tuaolo, a 300-pound, 6’3” nose guard who played in the N.F.L. for nearly a decade, comes out on HBO’s “Real Sports.” Speaking about his decision, he says, “I feel wonderful. I feel like a burden has been lifted. I feel like I’ve taken off the costume I’ve been wearing all my life.”

2005 Sheryl Swoopes, a Women’s National Basketball Association player and three-time M.V.P., says that she is gay. ”I was basically living a lie. For the last seven, eight years, I was waiting to exhale,” she later says in The Times. In 2011, Swoopes becomes engaged to marry a man.

Douglas C. Pizac/Associated PressJohn Amaechi

2007 John Amaechi, a former N.B.A. player, reveals that he is gay in his memoir, “Man in the Middle.” He is the first former N.B.A. player to come out. Soon after, Tim Hardaway, a retired Miami Heat player, says on a radio show, “I don’t like gay people and I don’t like to be around gay people.” He later apologizes for the remark, and Amaechi comments: “It is ridiculous, absurd, petty, bigoted and shows a lack of empathy that is gargantuan and unfathomable. But it is honest. And it illustrates the problem better than any of the fuzzy language other people have used so far.”

2009 Sherri Murrell, the coach of Portland State University’s women’s basketball team, becomes the first publicly out female Division 1 basketball coach. In the summer of 2009, she agrees to have a family photograph appear on the college athletics Web site. The image of Murrell — with her female partner and their toddler twins — gains national attention. “There are a lot of coaches out there that want to do this,” Murrell later tells the Oregonian. “But they’re just so afraid. I think I can kind of help say, ‘Hey, I’m successful. It has not affected my program whatsoever.’”

2011 Johnny Weir, three-time national champion figure skater, confirms that he is gay in his memoir, “Welcome to My World.” Referring to his sexuality, Weir tells the “Today” show, “I think the best way I can be an activist is to live my life, and not make that the main thing that is Johnny Weir. I’m much more than just a gay man.”

2011 Rick Welts, president and chief executive of the Phoenix Suns, publicly comes out in The Times at age 58. “This is one of the last industries where the subject is off limits,” he tells the reporter Dan Barry. In September 2011, he announces he will leave his job to be with his new partner — but he did not have to leave the N.B.A. He is now president and Chief Operating Officer of the Golden State Warriors basketball team.

2011 Will Sheridan, who played Division 1 college basketball at Villanova University, publicly reveals that he was openly gay while on the team from 2003 to 2007— and his teammates didn’t have a problem with it. In anESPN.com profile he says, “Look at me. I’m black. I’m gay. I’m like a quadruple minority, and I feel like a little piece of me resides in everybody.”

2012 Wade Davis, a retired N.F.L. cornerback, publicly opens up about being gay. Davis now works with lesbian, gay and transgender youth in New York City. In an interview with Outsports.com, he says, “It’s the first job since football that I wake up excited for work.”

2012 Megan Rapinoe, a midfielder on the U.S. women’s soccer team,confirms in July in Out magazine that she is a lesbian. “In female sports, if you’re gay, most likely your team knows it pretty quickly,” she tells Out. “It’s very open and widely supported. For males, it’s not that way at all. It’s sad.” Soon after, during the 2012 London Olympics, Rapinoe and her teammates capture the gold medal.