Sean Karson, a junior at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and co-captain of the Engineers baseball team, took a deep breath, and told his coaches and teammates this week that he is gay.
Sean Karson
“They came up and gave me high fives and said they’d have my back and everything,” he said. “It was so supportive, it was ridiculous.”
“I have never been myself up until very recently,” Karson told the Boston Herald. “Everything’s been just sort of cold and calculated. I’ve been in this fortress, I guess, and haven’t let my emotions out at all.”
“I worried that I had no emotions, that I didn’t feel much about anything. It was really weird.”
Karson said he’s been following the work of the “You Can Play” project, founded in memory of Brendan Burke, whose own coming-out story continues to inspire. And he said he was deeply moved by James Nutter, the former University of Southern Maine baseball player who recently came out.
He said he did notice a couple of teammates held back when he announced he is gay, but got emails from them afterward saying “how much they respected me, but that they needed to collect their thoughts first.”
Karson, who grew up outside Orlando, Fla., said he looks forward to the day when “sports are never going to be a scary place for LGBT people again” and the locker room is “a safe space everywhere.”
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Filed under: People
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Everything is bigger in Texas – even the homophobia
Come out come out wherever you are!
As time goes on – it will be a moot point
The day will come when someone’s sexuality wont even be a topic of discussion unless they want it to be. you will be an athlete, a politician, a singer, an actor or a parent
His generation is more accepting of this.
And Mass is a very liberal state. They were the first to legalize same-sex marriage.
I am so Happy more people are coming out
Coming out in the face of a largely homohobic society is an amazing feat. Straight people dont have to “come out” and possibly be slandered. Good for you. Thanks for being brave.
Bravo to Sean and bravo to his teammates!
Awesome
yay! more strides taken, progress made…I’m happy for the fella.