Helen Carroll interview on battling homophobia in women's basketball

An extract from WomenTalkSport's exclusive interview with Helen Carroll of the NCLR Sports Project:

For quite some time, you've been dedicating your efforts to fighting homophobia in sports. Why do you do this?
Homophobia in sport is a barrier that can keep women-as coaches or athletes- from reaching the goals they work to attain. Negative recruiting is a practice that is harmful to women’s basketball and all sports. For anyone who doesn’t know what this means, negative recruiting occurs when coaches tell prospective athletes and their parents negative things about other coaches and teams who are also trying to recruit that athlete rather than focusing on the positive qualities of their own school and team.
In women’s sports negative recruiting based on perceived sexual orientation can be used against any woman coach, regardless of her sexual orientation. In a report authored by Pat Griffin and myself, The Positive Approach, sponsored by NCLR and the NCAA, we have tried to work to eliminate this practice. For me, approaching the issue of sexual orientation in a professional manner, using education, dialogue and researched reports can certainly make a difference in the experience and lives of many, many student-athletes. I fear we lose many women coaches as homophobia can drive women to choose other careers. I will always work to make sure LGBT coaches, administrators and athletes have their rightful place as leaders in sports.