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mahatmakanejeeves

(56,890 posts)
Mon Oct 26, 2015, 04:46 PM Oct 2015

‘I’m going to be myself’

October 22, 2015 at 11:48 am EDT | by Kevin Majoros

‘I’m going to be myself’

During a 2005 segment on ESPN’s SportsCenter, Dartmouth lacrosse goalie Andrew Goldstein uttered the words, “I’m gay, this is me. I’m going to be myself. I’m not going to hide because you like it.”

Goldstein had come out to friends and teammates in 2003, but those were courageous words to speak publicly considering the climate of sports culture at the time, especially team sports.

After arriving in the Los Angeles area, Goldstein joined the L.A. Blades ice hockey team and played with them at the 2010 Gay Games in Cologne, Germany. His return to lacrosse happened in 2013 when he was recruited by the Israeli national lacrosse team where he found himself in the spotlight again.

A year and a half later, across the country in Philadelphia, a 12-year-old lacrosse player came out as gay and found himself struggling with the process. Braeden Lange’s father remembered Goldstein’s story and reached out to him. ... “Braeden’s story brought up so many memories about my own experience,” Goldstein says. “I had been through the same struggles he was going through. I had been there.”

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:13536127
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