MIT Baseball Captain Comes Out Of The Closet

The “T” stands for tolerance.

1. This is Sean Karson, junior at MIT. In addition to being a young entrepreneur who has already founded a tech start-up called Sponge Systems, Karson is the starting third baseman of the school’s baseball team and a co-captain.

2. Karson is good too. He hit .350 last season, including a 7 game hitting streak where he hit .540. The kid can play.

3. And after following the slow moving story of gays in sports, Karson was inspired. And after a practice last week he asked to address the team. At which point he delivered a tearful speech to his teammates coming out.

4. At which point most of the team approached him and gave him high fives and expressed their support. The teammates that didn’t? They emailed him later that night expressing it.

5. And where many would assume that this could be a harrowing experience for a young man, Karson describes the exact opposite:

“Nobody’s going to throw at you if you’re the gay person on the team. I feel great. I’m not scared.”

And though Karson’s drama-free experience may make his position on the future of gays in sports seem naive, it may actually be a first glimpse at what the next generation of gay athletes come can expect to experience: “I can’t wait to see what (the future) brings, actually. But sports are never going to be a scary place for LGBT people again. The locker room is going to be a safe space everywhere.”

8. And who am I to argue with him? He goes to MIT and hangs out with Bill Nye. That means he’s a genius.

H/T Steve Buckley at the Boston Herald.