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GOLD AND BLACK ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 25, ISSUE 5 70 not do it." Despite the personal tumult during his Purdue days, he still looks back at his time here fondly. At the LGBTQ event, he and his boyfriend — the two live in Ann Arbor, Mich. — had a long conversation with athletic director Morgan Burke, who opened the conference with a poi- gnant statement of acceptance. "I loved my four years here and love the guys I met here — the coaches, everything — but when I was hid- ing everything, I was drinking a lot, doing things to cope with not being who I really was," Bryant said. "It hindsight, I wish I would have had the courage and been brave enough to do that. But I'm really happy with the way everything has turned out in my life. Having such support from my family and friends, former team- mates, everything. It's been great." Horrocks is just starting her Pur- due journey. Coming out was a grad- ual process for her, one that started while she was a junior at Buford High School in Georgia — a conser- vative school in the Bible belt, she said — first telling her parents, then friends and teammates. "This is that thing that I never knew was coming for me, that whole big moment," said Horrocks, whose girlfriend attends a women's col- lege in Georgia. "… I didn't really want the big moment, but it hit me at a certain point in time that I knew how I felt was the way that hundreds of other people felt. I do feel that I am putting myself at risk for a lot of things. I might face discrimination against job opportunities, the job I currently hold. I never know what's going to happen, but I know there are more opportunities for me ahead. "This is important for a whole community of people. Yeah, I'm wor- ried, but I know that the people who matter to me support me and they'll always be there for me through the thick and thin." But now Horrocks has a whole extra legion of supporters. Dafforn, a graduate student and assistant swim coach at Ohio who came out during his last semester at Purdue in 2011, says Horrocks' bravery is "incredible." "I met her this summer and her willingness and comfort with herself in wanting to help and be engaged and being who she was at that young of an age speaks a lot about her char- acter," Dafforn said. "It speaks a lot about how much she cares about Pur- due and wants people at Purdue to be comfortable with who they are and accepting. It's a huge task and she's carrying a lot on her shoulders, but she's willing and able to fill that role. "And I hope that other student-ath- letes at Purdue, if they can see Bree, a 19-year-old in women's basketball who has a pretty big spotlight, can step up, then others can be like 'OK, I can do this too. I can be myself and Purdue is going to accept me and I will have the support of Purdue.' " j PROMOTING EQUALITY Purdue stood apart. When the rest of the state was debating the merits of the Religious Freedom Res- toration Act, one that dis- senters thought would dis- criminate against the LGBTQ community, the Boilermakers were trying to unite commu- nities. At "Championing Equality: Athletes and Allies" at Fowl- er Hall on Purdue's campus March 30, some of the coun- try's foremost LGBTQ advo- cates spoke of the need for inclusion. The group included key- note speaker Dr. Sue Rankin, a Penn State associate pro- fessor and the lead investi- gator of a 2010 study into the climate and identity of NCAA student-athletes. Current and former Purdue athletes Do- rien Bryant, Bree Horrocks and Ryan Dafforn, along with transgender Ironman Chris Mosier, participated in a pan- el discussion. And Stepha- nie White, the Indiana Fever coach and former Boilermak- er guard, spoke of her expe- riences via recorded video message. But perhaps it was athletic director Morgan Burke who best set the tone — the ath- letic department was one of several sponsors of the eve-