It Takes A Team! Director Pat Griffin interviewed Lauren Lappin, openly gay USA softball Olympian, about her Olympic experience and her decision to come out, not just to her teammates and family, but to the world.
PG: Lauren, thank you for taking time to sit down and talk with me. I know It Takes A Team! readers are interested hearing more about you. Let’s start with some basics. Where did you play collegiate softball?
LL: I went to Stanford University and graduated in 2006.
PG: How long have you been playing with the national team?
LL: I started playing with the USA Elite team, which is the second team, in 2003, the summer after my freshman year at Stanford. I was an alternate for the 2004 Olympic team. Then I made the 2008 team. It was an unbelievable honor playing with the best players and coaches in the world. I plan to keep playing on the U.S. team as long as they’ll have me.
PG: What are you doing now that the Olympic Games are over?
LL: I’m a volunteer assistant softball coach at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois; so I am living in Chicago and getting my feet wet, getting experience coaching. I plan to continue as a coach. I want to give back to the sport that has given so much to me in my life, and I think we need strong female role models for athletes. I’m also playing on the PFX Pro Tour. We go to towns across the country to promote our sport and build a fan base for a professional softball system. It’s a great thing to be a part of. We interact with kids to help them see how sport can have such a positive impact on their lives and if they work hard they can realize their dreams. We try to teach them not only about softball, but also to strive to be their best in everything they do.
PG: Can you talk some about your Olympic experience?
LL: I’ll start with the months leading up to the games. The team went on a 43-city tour, getting everyone excited about the Olympics and preparing us for the games. As you know, softball will not be in the Olympics in 2012, so we also wanted to get the country excited about the possibility of getting softball back into the Olympics for 2016. The tour was incredible. People are so excited about softball in the U.S., and it was fun to see women on the team, like Jennie Finch and Crystl Bustos, treated like Madonna or Beyonce. Kids were star-struck, coming up and asking for autographs—little girls AND little boys. It was an amazing journey.
I was an Olympic team alternate in 2004, which was a great experience. I got to go to Greece and experience the culture and watch the team win gold, but I was dying to get on the field and have my own Olympic experience representing our country. This summer my eyes were wide open, taking everything in. It’s hard to describe the emotions. The opening ceremonies were so powerful. I remember walking in and thinking that this is so much bigger than me. I will hold onto that memory for the rest of my life, being with all those athletes and coaches. Everyone was so excited. We were all like little kids on Christmas morning waiting to come into the Birds Nest. As we marched into the stadium, I thought of everyone who helped me get there and everyone who has supported our team along the way. It gives me chills to think about it.
The competition in softball in Beijing was the toughest ever in the history of our game. We had a huge target on our back because we’ve been the team to beat for so many years. It’s a credit to all the pioneers who got our sport and the USA Softball program to this point. I’m so proud of our heritage and honored to be a part of it. We owe so much to people like Joan Joyce, Dot Richardson, Michelle Smith, Lisa Fernandez, Kathy Arendsen. They worked to get softball on the map and to be put on the Olympic agenda. They played on fields that no one should play on and without much support. My generation of softball players are benefiting from everything they did. These pioneers played for the love of game, and I am so privileged to be a part of a program that has so much history. If USA Softball hadn’t created that gap between the USA and other countries, there wouldn’t be a gap to close. Even though I would have loved a gold medal, I’m really proud of being a part of softball in the 2008 Olympics. Some incredible softball was played in Beijing, the most competitive international competition our sport has ever seen.
After our last game the decision to drop softball from the Olympics hit us. Until then we were so focused on the 2008 Games. After we lost the gold-medal game to Japan, the devastation of softball being dropped finally sunk in. I felt a whole lot of different emotions. I’m very proud that we were on the medal stand with Japan and Australia. After the medal ceremony, all three teams, Australia, Japan and USA, spelled out 2016 in softballs on the field. I had my left arm around Caitlin Lowe, our centerfielder and my right arm around a Japanese player, and the Australians were right behind us. We came together and sent a message to the world that we are all united in the effort to get softball back. It so thrilled me that I was even a part of that. We are working really hard as an international softball federation to get softball back into the Olympics where it belongs.
PG: I’d like to talk to about coming out and ask you what that was like for you. It sounds like you have a lot of family support and team support.
LL: I’m blessed with my family for many reasons. They support me in so many ways, including my sexuality. It breaks my heart that there are young people who don’t have their families’ support. We as a gay community need to step up and be a source of strength for them.
I had my own inner struggle coming to terms with being gay, and I was lucky to have had the support of my family during such a difficult time personally. I was most worried about coming out to my parents, especially my father. He is a high school baseball and football coach and is fairly well-known in our community. He started coaching me when I was 11. We have a very close bond because of sports, and I look up to him so much. It was hard to come out to him because I wasn’t sure how he would take it and I didn’t want to disappoint him. It was tough for him to hear. But, I put it out there to him, giving him a chance to learn and grow and most importantly open the lines of communication between the two of us about me being gay. He said to me, “It isn’t easy, but it will good for me. I’m not comfortable with it, I don’t know much about it, but I do know I love you and that you could never disappoint me.” He was honest with me about his discomfort, but he showed me that he loved me, and that was really all I could ask for at that point. It was in the midst of all the excitement about the Olympics that I had to talk to my parents about my decision to answer questions publicly about my sexuality. I wanted to help other people through telling my story, so I decided to honestly answer questions from the media about the topic. At our press conference in Beijing a writer from the Orange County Register asked me some questions about being a gay athlete in the Olympics. I wanted my parents to be aware of the fact that I was choosing to speak out. I told them, “I’m proud of the person I am, and I want to speak out about it and, if I can, help whoever may be going through a similar experience.” Since my dad is a coach of high school teams I was worried about him having to deal with any negative reactions when the news article about me came out. I don’t think that he was comfortable with my sexuality being put on the front page of the sports section of our hometown newspaper, but he has dealt with it well, and I think it has helped him in this process. He’s gotten a lot of positive feedback from people in the community, and I think that surprised him. My mom has been such an incredible pillar of strength and support for me throughout the process of me coming out. It was hard for her at first because she didn’t want her daughter to “have a hard life,” but she has been so loving and supportive of my decisions to come out privately and publicly. It’s amazing to see the kind of response we get when we speak out. People who knew my dad said, “Wow, this guy is a football coach, and he has a gay daughter who he loves, and it is OK.” It gives other people someone to talk to or relate to.
That is the reason I wanted to be honest about myself and what it means to be a gay person in America right now. I think talking about it and educating people is the only way to help others understand that we are not much different from them. … Also, the more we tell our stories the more people will understand what it means to be gay in our society. We have to start the conversation and open dialogue.
PG: How did you come out to your teammates and your coaches?
LL: With my teammates it was a process. I had teammates I was close to and I could lean on who I felt comfortable talking to. I came out to them first, and as I grew into it and had more self-acceptance, I came out to individuals in casual conversations. I didn’t want to make it a bigger deal than it was. I didn’t want to put people on the spot, but I wanted to give them a chance to ask questions if they had them. I started telling people and talking about who I was dating. Some teammates were great, some were surprised. Some were like “Oh, OK. No big deal.” I started with people I was close to and went from there. My teammates were very accepting. They have really supported and empowered me to accept myself and not hide who I am.
As a young player when I first started playing with the national team, I worried about how coaches at the top of the program would react. I was worried about how being gay might affect my standing on the team. I didn’t want anything to affect my dream of making the Olympic team. But I also wanted to achieve my dream as me.
I’ve never had conversations about it with my coaches. They learned about it through my being publicly out. It’s been touching because my coaches were really accepting. As an athlete my coaches were like an extended set of parents who I didn’t want to disappoint, so I was especially afraid of their reaction. But they have seemed unaffected by it, which has been very comforting for me. It speaks to how much different it is to be a gay athlete now than it was even five or 10 years ago. We still have a ways to go, but we’ve come a long way. My coach looked me in the eye and said, “I’m proud of you, and I want you to be happy.” That was a special moment for me. A few years ago I’m not sure if that would have happened. I really think we can grow so much through building relationships and trust and opening honest dialogue about ourselves and each other. I’ve seen the impact it can have, and that’s why I want to speak out about it. We can get more people every day and every year to learn about how it is to be gay in America and become not only tolerant of it, but accepting and supportive of us and our lifestyle. I’ve been very lucky and have had very little negative reaction. I know that is not how it is for everyone. I have older friends who were almost kicked out of school for being gay. I want my generation to take on these challenges and continue progressing toward a future of understanding and acceptance for all people.
PG: How does your experience of competing as an openly gay athlete compare to competing while closeted?
LL: Once I was comfortable with my sexuality, I came out to friends and teammates at Stanford that I was dating a woman. Once I came out, I was so much more comfortable within my relationships with my family and friends. Because I felt like I could finally be myself in every aspect of my life, I started to train better and play better. I didn’t have to hide anything anymore; I could just put it all out there in every aspect of my life. I felt empowered. I know I keep using that word, but it is true. Having family and friends know that I am gay and for the most part support me or just be OK with it is empowering. It has helped raise my level of play, which was instrumental in me making the Olympic team this year. I was a bubble player before, never having a solidified spot on the team. Coming into my own and accepting my sexuality allowed me to focus on becoming a better athlete and person and build stronger relationships with my teammates. Essentially, the experience of coming out has helped enable me to grow as a player and to fulfill my dreams this year.
PG: What do your teammates/coaches do to support and include you as an openly lesbian teammate?
LL: The biggest thing is just asking me about what’s going on in my life, are you dating anyone? How is your girlfriend? How are things going? I didn’t want to be the one always imposing my life on them. When they started asking me, it made me more comfortable.
On the bus traveling around the country on our pre-Olympic tour, those of us who couldn’t sleep spent hours in the back of the bus talking about girl stuff. It was a handful of gay and straight women together. We were all having similar experiences, and we would share our relationship stories and get advice from each other, straight women and gay women together.
I had good friends on the team who encouraged me to speak out more. Pretty much everyone on the team encouraged me to speak out, especially straight teammates. My gay teammates were supportive too, but they wanted to be sure I had thought about it. We (gay athletes) know it can be a scary thing. They wanted to be sure I had thought about it thoroughly and that I had considered all the consequences. Mostly, my teammates thought it was great and encouraged me to speak out more to help make a difference.
PG: Have you had any negative experiences in athletics since coming out?
LL: The struggles I had were when I was starting to figure out that I might be gay, which was during college. Some of my teammates would make negative comments about gay people or people they thought were gay on other teams. It made me question what I was feeling, and it really inhibited me from feeling comfortable around them. I felt that I always had to do certain things to prove I was straight so that they would respect me as a teammate and friend.
I had struggles with some friends who were shocked when I came out. They come from backgrounds in which they did not have gay friends before. I was their first gay friend. Some of the conversations and debates, trying to get them to see through my eyes, or a gay person’s eyes, were hard, but they haven’t turned their backs on me and they continue to support me. I’m pretty lucky in that way.
I was chatting with a friend who made some negative comments that could have been hurtful. Another friend who was there asked me later, “How do you not get mad at those comments?” I don’t let negative comments get to me. I respect the honesty of friends. It’s out on the table, and I can work with it. We can share our opinions, and hopefully by hearing my experience and being exposed to a gay person on a more personal level, these friends and teammates have been able to see homosexuality in a different, more positive light.
I’ve had lots of people I’ve never met contact me in e-mails or on Facebook being very supportive. Some have told me really touching stories or have said they admire my speaking out. Anytime I felt down or hesitant about my decision to come out, I’d get an e-mail and it would reassure me that I was doing the right thing by speaking out.
PG: What advice do you have for other gay or lesbian athletes who are thinking about coming out to their coaches or teammates?
LL: My best advice? Understand that we all come from different backgrounds. We can’t expect that everyone will accept it right away.
The most important thing is be proud of who you are. It’s not wrong to be gay, even though mainstream society tells us so. It’s who you are. I love that I’ve figured out who I am. I love being a gay athlete. I’ve grown to accept it and be proud of it. I want young gay people to know that when it gets tough, there are people like you and me out there. I wish that I could get every young gay athlete in a room and tell them, “We support you, and it is going to get better. Know that you have support when times get tough. If not family and friends, there is a community out there even if you get negative reactions.”
PG: What recommendations do you have for athletic departments or coaches about making athletics respectful and inclusive for LGBT people?
LL: Hire qualified diverse people who reflect the school’s student-athlete population. Set an example for athletes by embracing individuals from various backgrounds. Coaches and administrators should celebrate differences in athletes. Let them know they are welcome and accepted for who they are as an individual. College is when young people begin to figure out who they are. Knowing that you have unconditional support from your coaches makes such a difference in realizing your potential.
PG: Is there anything else you’d like to talk about that I haven’t asked?
LL: There are still stereotypes of what women athletes look or act like. Some of the challenges I face are that I am gay, but I don’t necessarily fit the profile of what mainstream America thinks a lesbian athlete looks like. Well, this is me. Has my experience been easier because I don’t fit the stereotype and so I “pass for straight?” Maybe. But gay athletes come in all shapes, styles and sizes just like straight athletes do. The more we speak out as gay women from different backgrounds who are proud of who we are, the more we dispel stereotypes.
PG: Thanks, Lauren. Young women athletes and coaches like you give me great hope for the future of safety and respect in athletics for all, especially LGBT people.