QUESTION

Did you come out while playing basketball? And were the coaches and players accepting??

Answer

So interestingly enough I wasn’t a very good basketball player. I was a bad shooter and not the most athletic guy you’d ever meet. But for me I loved being part of a team and working together towards a collective goal. So I tried to hide for over 29 years. For a while I thought I was actually going to be able to keep it a secret. I would date girls and tried to “change” myself.

Ultimately I learned the hard way that sexualityis a very hard thing to suppress and we are who we are. This is just who I am but it did take me a long time to learn to love myself. Since it took me 30 years to come out I don’t think it is fair for me to expect people to just accept me after 30 seconds. Things take time. I came out via an essay written on Outsports. I reached out to Jim Buzinski who helped me put my thoughts into words, and Jim has become one of my closest friends. As for the Coaches and Players, everyone is going to have their opinions, but the truth is for the most part it's all been positive. I think your outlook needs to be that you are coming out for you, not for anyone else. My dad would always tell me that “the more you can let roll of your shoulders in life, that happier you’ll be!”. Great advice from a great man.

Matt Lynch
He/Him

Matt Lynch is head coach at the University of South Carolina Salkehatchie and the first publicly gay men's basketball coach in the NCAA.