Cory Benton, out Columbia University sprinter

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One of the first steps I knew I had to take after coming out to my family was to come out to my coaches. During the beginning of my sophomore year of college, I was thinking about quitting the team, and I actually did stop running for a semester because I was so uncomfortable with myself. I always thought there was no possible way an openly gay athlete could be accepted by so many people with so many different backgrounds. One of my biggest fears was the reaction of my coaches. I was uncertain how they would react, and I worried that they might no longer want me on their team. Although email is not the best way to communicate a very important message, I decided to email all of my coaches at once to tell them about my sexuality.

My head coach, Willy Wood, quickly replied and asked if I would like to come into his office and talk about it. What started off as a silent, awkward conversation turned into daily long conversations about my life and how my family was handling me coming out. I would sit in his office for sometimes hours and discuss how I felt about being gay, and how I felt now that I was out.

My coach has become a second father to me. The amount of support that he has offered is unparalleled. He would often ask me how the other guys on the team were responding to me being gay, and if I thought there should be a team meeting to discuss any issues I might have with some of the things that teammates would say that may come off as offensive. Thankfully, there were no major issues. Moreover, when I decided to take a break from the team, Coach Wood still emailed me every week to check on me. My own father never did that.