MIT Baseball Player, comes out

[DigitalFudge]

Massachusetts Institute of Technology baseball player Sean Karson recently revealed that he is gay, and he says he has received a positive reaction from his teammates.


Karson is a junior third baseman who batted .350 for the team last season. A co-captain and two-year starter, Karson asked his coach if he could address his teammates during a recent indoor practice, the Boston Herald reports. That’s when he revealed to his teammates in a tearful speech that he is gay. He told the newspaper that the reaction was positive.

“They came up and gave me high fives and said they’d have my back and everything,” he told the Herald. “It was so supportive, it was ridiculous.”

Karson says he didn’t get a warm reaction from all his teammates at first, but the ones who didn’t immediately approach him later sent him emails to say how much they respected him.

Karson, who is a chemical engineering major and founder of a technology startup called Sponge Systems, told the Herald that coming out has been an emotionally freeing experience.

“I have never been myself up until very recently,” he told the 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 was inspired to come out by former University of Southern Maine baseball player James Nutter, who recently came out. Outsports.com says Karson spent Super Bowl weekend at the Facebook headquarters in California as part of a conference for LGBT tech students, which may have played a role in his decision to come out. Karson also believes that a professional athlete is going to come out in the near future; he said that it would happen in the next month. He thinks things are changing in the sports world.

“But sports are never going to be a scary place for LGBT people again," he told the Herald. "The locker room is going to be a safe space everywhere.”

Though Karson has had a positive experience so far, he only needs to refer back to the comments of San Francisco 49ers cornerback Chris Culliver to know that some athletes will have a problem with gay teammates. Regardless, Karson’s announcement is a positive step in athletics.

http://www.yardbarker.com/all_sport...arson_reveals_to_teammates_he_is_gay/12892975


Kid athletes need to know about this. A hero.

 

[Alistair]

I have a problem with it being called a tearful speech. Was it really a speech full if tears, did he cry through the whole thing? I bet he didn't even shed a tear.

Good for him tho, but it's not like he's going to have a career in the pros.

 

[DigitalFudge]

It's about an athletes performance that will get them on a team. Ask any player with half a wit and they will say it again.

However I do believe it will be easier once high performing players that are already on pro teams come out for people to get picked up while being openly gay.


He's at MIT. I doubt he only has one option.

 

[G-Lexington]

He already owns his own company. I think he'll be fine.

Lex

 

[justanothershyguy]

Great for him, all the best wishes, of course. Hope he gets drafted and makes it to the majors. If not, looks like he'll be fine in another career, too. Not all baseball players are so lucky!

 

[Alistair]

That's what I meant, he's at MIT and already has a startup tech co. I doubt he's planning on going pro. I agree with you on the high profile pro players and that he could be a good role model for younger players. Now if it was a top player at say Duke or Georgia Tech (perennial college champs with many pro prospects) it would mean a little more too.

 

[RaKroma]

I didn't know MIT has a baseball team. I commend him for coming out, but I suspect that cultural atmosphere at MIT sports is tad different than in your average NFL team environment or more popular college sports teams like in Notre Dame or Bama where homophobia would be much more more rampant.

 

[DigitalFudge]

I didn't know MIT has a baseball team. I commend him for coming out, but I suspect that cultural atmosphere at MIT sports is tad different than in your average NFL team environment or more popular college sports teams like in Notre Dame or Bama where homophobia would be much more more rampant.

So many clocks in one post


You better drag


I wonder if this team is actually good

 

[star-warrior]

Massachusetts Institute of Technology rocks in more ways that I thought possible. Its awesome that he did come out, and awesome that he has friends and colleagues who are happy for him. I think it took courage to be himself and now he'll hopefully have a very full and promising future ahead of him no matter what he does. Especially when he's already created his own business

 

[loveguys72]

Good for him!

 

[pat grimshaw]

I reckon Karson and Kluewe [sp?] should get together.

 

[nycguydowntown]

Very cute guy--congrats.

 

[PreTTy PeTe]

If you can play. You can play.

We're getting to be accepted by pro sports slowly but we will.

http://youcanplayproject.org/

 

[DigitalFudge]

If you can play. You can play.

We're getting to be accepted by pro sports slowly but we will.

http://youcanplayproject.org/

 

[T-Rexx]

I didn't know MIT has a baseball team. I commend him for coming out, but I suspect that cultural atmosphere at MIT sports is tad different than in your average NFL team environment or more popular college sports teams like in Notre Dame or Bama where homophobia would be much more more rampant.

Exactly.

It is sad that an unknown player coming out on an unknown team at the college level should be news in 2013.

We've still got quite a way to go.

 

[freefall]

I didn't know MIT has sports teams at all let alone having one popular enough mentioning in the news