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GOLD AND BLACK ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 25, ISSUE 5 69 BY KYLE CHARTERS KCharters@GoldandBlack.com B ree Horrocks didn't set out to be a torchbearer. But that's a role she's accepting now, after coming out publicly — her close friends and family have known for years — at an LGBTQ event in March at Purdue, one that was possibly the only of its kind in the country. In doing so, the fresh- man basketball player became Pur- due's first publicly open gay athlete in a major revenue sport. "I didn't consider it, nor did I know it, that I am the first revenue sport player to come out," she said at a breakfast before the event, while she was flanked by others in the LGBTQ community, like former Purdue athletes Dorien Bryant and Ryan Dafforn. "This is something that transcends that. It's way more important than having that title. I'm glad I'm the first, (but) I'm not glad. I'm sad because there are other peo- ple out there who could have been the first. There are a lot more people who could have been out right now and been happy. And just completely being themselves to everyone, but I'm the first. I'm glad I can be some- what of a trailblazer. "This is something I've been want- ing to do, promote equality, for all LGBTQ, not just student-athletes." That was the crux of "Champion- ing Equality: Athletes and Allies" on Purdue's campus March 30. There, a panel of athletes, like Horrocks and Bryant, with other notable experts, discussed the impact of being a gay athlete in today's sports world. It's not an easy time, although it is a more accepting society than near- ly a decade ago when Bryant was a Boilermaker. It was then that Bryant struggled with his identity, keeping his sex- uality a secret. That wasn't always easy to do; he lashed out, was angry, stayed out too late too frequently and wasn't who he wanted to be. It came to a boiling point at Indi- ana in his final regular-season game in 2007, when fans there put his pic- ture on rainbow-tinted signs, scrib- bled with vulgar messages, during warm-ups. When he had a chance to continue playing professionally for the Tennessee Titans months later, an invitation that had followed re- peated semi-veiled questions about his dating life from NFL organiza- tions at the Combine, he declined. "I told them 'No, I don't want to play anymore. I'm done with this. I've hidden who I am for the longest time and I'm going to have to do it for another five, seven years to con- tinue playing this game that I love,'" said Bryant, who came out publicly about a year later to a Philadelphia magazine. "But I can continue to do things in this game without hiding who I am. That's when I decided to Carry On Horrocks, Bryant open up about life Tom Campbell In publicly coming out in March, Bree Horrocks became the first publicly open gay athlete in a revenue sport at Purdue.