Sports
Rookies & Vets – Washington Spirit
‘There is much to learn from the veteran players’
Joanna Lohman, Didi Haracic and Cali Farquharson on the practice field. (Blade photo by Kevin Majoros)
In the long-running Rookies & Vets series in the Blade, local athletes on LGBT-inclusive teams have been spotlighted to show the dynamic between the two types of players.
In this installment, we turn to a professional team, the Washington Spirit, and take a look at an openly gay veteran and two rookies, one gay and one straight.
The Washington Spirit plays in the National Women’s Soccer League and is currently sitting near the top of the standings as they approach the last six games of the season.
Joanna Lohman is described by the Spirit’s publicity team as a complete badass and is known for her scrappy style of play and her signature ‘Jo-Hawk’ hairstyle. At 34 years old, she’s faster, stronger and smarter and is playing some of the best soccer of her career.
While growing up in Silver Spring, Md., Lohman was obsessed with elite athletes and played sports such as basketball, rugby, street hockey, tennis, swimming and cross-country. She found her niche in soccer and captained her team during her last two years at Penn State where she earned a degree in business and mathematics.
After playing for 12 years on teams all over the world, she was picked up by the Spirit as a midfielder in the waivers draft in 2014. Her game has soared since she returned to the area where she was born.
“I really found myself after coming home,” says Lohman. “I have always been unabashedly myself, but now I am surrounded by people who love me. That gives me confidence and I look forward to waking up every day. That reflects in my play.”
Lohman has never been shy about stepping forward and interacting with the rookie players. She finds that their vibrancy rubs off during team bonding activities and she offers advice both on and off the field.
“My demeanor speaks to being a role model and my energy can be contagious,” Lohman says. “I want to make the path a little easier for those who come behind me.”
Off the field Lohman works as a personal trainer, guest-coaches at local youth clubs, advocates for LGBT rights and has delivered TED Talks on the misconceptions of the lifestyles of female athletes.
“It’s not just about kicking the ball down the field, it’s about the whole community,” says Lohman. “I want each player on this team to feel like D.C. is their home. This is a great team that is happy and in a safe place.”
Two days after Didi Haracic graduated from Loyola University Maryland where she played for four years, she was playing with the Western New York Flash as a goalkeeper. Born in Bosnia and raised in Northern Virginia, Haracic chose to pursue soccer over her other two sports, hockey and basketball.
After playing with the Flash for almost two seasons she joined a team in Sweden to gain more experience. Throughout her college years, she had been on the Spirit reserve team and earlier this year she was called up to be their third-string goalie.
“I am a homebody and glad that I ended up back home near my family,” says Haracic. “I knew the Spirit was looking for a goalkeeper and I will have a better opportunity here.”
Haracic, 24, says she is comfortable with herself and hasn’t had a hard time fitting in with her new team. She even played before with fellow LGBT teammate Lohman on an amateur team in 2012.
While she waits for her moment to play, she is putting in quality training and will be ready to step up when the time comes. That moment could come at any time as fellow goalie Stephanie Labbe was called up to the Canadian national team for the Olympics.
“There is much to learn from the veteran players on the team,” Haracic says. “Watching their calm demeanor while they take shots directly at them keeps the team calm.”
Off the field, Haracic is coaching McLean Youth Soccer and National Cathedral soccer. She feels like the chemistry is already there with her teammates during their practice sessions.
“Anything can happen when you are waiting to be called up from the third-string position,” says Haracic. “I have patience and I will be ready to take advantage of that moment when it comes.”
Education and career has always been important for Cali Farquharson and she had an important decision to make after playing all four years as a forward at Arizona State University. She decided to follow her dream of being a professional soccer player and was drafted by the Spirit in 2016.
Growing up in Phoenix, she played a little volleyball but it was pretty much always soccer. It was a family sport as her brothers were also playing. In her first season with the Spirit she has played more minutes than any other rookie.
“You see these girls on social media and they have a level of celebrity,” says Farquharson. “It is pretty eye-opening when you find yourself playing alongside them.”
Despite their status, Farquharson has found the veteran players to be very welcoming and the transition to professional player easier than she was expecting.
“You can tell who the veterans are because they carry themselves differently,” Farquharson says. “I was struggling with my confidence level, but Jo (Lohman) has been helpful in reminding me not to over think everything.”
With five players pulled from the Spirit during mid-season to play for various national teams, Farquharson, at 22, has been offered new opportunities and intends to capitalize on them.
“I am always hungry and I really wanted to be a starter,” says Farquharson. “I love this team and at this level, it’s rare for everyone to get along as well as we do. I want to be the best player I can be for them and for myself.”
CONTENT WARNING: The following story discusses suicide ideation.
Her first few weeks behind bars in a Russian prison took a terrible toll on Brittney Griner, the lesbian WNBA star who is breaking her silence on the 10 months she was held on drug-related charges.
“I wanted to take my life more than once in the first weeks,” Griner told ABC’s Robin Roberts in a primetime interview Wednesday. “I felt like leaving here so badly.”
The two-time Olympic gold medalist and nine-time WNBA All-Star, who plays for the Phoenix Mercury, said she ultimately decided against suicide, partly because she feared Russian authorities would not release her body to her wife, Cherelle Griner.
Griner, 33, was arrested on Feb. 17, 2022, at Sheremetyevo International Airport in Khimki, a suburb of Moscow. Authorities said they found vape cartridges in her luggage containing cannabis oil, which is illegal in the country.
Griner told Roberts that was the result of a “mental lapse” on her part — packing the cannabis oil cartridges in her luggage, Griner said that she had overslept on the morning she was leaving for Russia to play during the WNBA’s off-season, which is how many of the league’s vastly underpaid players earn a living, compared to NBA players.
So, she packed while she was “in panic mode,” Griner said.
“My packing at that moment was just throwing all my stuff in there and zipping it up and saying, ‘OK, I’m ready,’” she told Roberts.
After landing in Russia, Griner realized that she had those two cannabis oil cartridges in her luggage as Russian security officers inspected her bag at the airport. She recalled the moment as a sinking feeling.
“I’m just like, ‘Oh, my God.’ Like, ‘How did I — how did I make this mistake?’” Griner said. “I could just visualize everything I worked so hard for just crumbling and going away.”
Russian authorities immediately arrested Griner, but her trial would not take place for five months. She described the horrible conditions of her imprisonment during that delay, saying that she didn’t always have toilet paper and that the toothpaste they gave her had expired about 15 years ago.
“That toothpaste was expired,” she said. “We used to put it on the black mold to kill the mold on the walls.”
“The mattress had a huge blood stain on it, and they give you these thin two sheets,” she added. “So you’re basically laying on bars.”
On July 7, 2022, Griner pleaded guilty at her trial to drug charges, admitting that she had the vape cartridges containing cannabis oil but stating she put them in her luggage unintentionally. She testified that she had packed the cartridges by accident, and had “no intention” to break Russian law.
Roberts pressed Griner on this point: “You know there are those who say, ‘Come on. How did you not know that you had cartridges in your luggage?’”
“It’s just so easy to have a mental lapse,” Griner replied. “Granted, my mental lapse was on a more grand scale. But it doesn’t take away from how that can happen,” she explained.
Griner was sentenced to nine years in prison on Aug. 4, 2022, and in October 2022, a judge denied the appeal filed by Griner’s attorneys.
The sentence landed Griner in a penal colony in the Russian region of Mordovia.
“It’s a work camp. You go there to work,” said Griner. “There’s no rest.” Her job was cutting fabric for Russian military uniforms.
“What were the conditions like there?” Roberts asked.
“Really cold,” Griner said. So cold that her health was impacted and she decided to chop off her long dreadlocks.
“What was that like losing that part of you, too?” Roberts asked Griner.
“Honestly, it just had to happen. We had spiders above my bed — making nests,” she said. “My dreads started to freeze,” she added. “They would just stay wet and cold and I was getting sick. You’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do to survive.”
Her arrest came around the same time as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, further increasing tensions between Russia and the U.S. But as the Los Angeles Blade reported on Dec, 8, 2022, Russia agreed to release Griner in exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
However, before winning her freedom, Griner revealed authorities forced her to write a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“They made me write this letter. It was in Russian,” she said. “I had to ask for forgiveness and thanks from their so-called great leader. I didn’t want to do it, but at the same time I wanted to come home.”
Griner said her heart sank upon boarding the plane to freedom and finding that Paul Whelan, another American the White House said was “wrongfully detained,” wasn’t leaving Russia with her.
“I walked on and didn’t see him, maybe he’s next. Maybe they will bring him next,” she said. “They closed the door, and I was like, are you serious? You’re not going to let this man come home now.”
Griner recounts on the experience in “Coming Home,” a memoir set to be released on May 7.
988 is the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline and is available 24/7 via phone, text or chat to everyone of all ages, orientations and identities. If you are a transgender, nonbinary, or gender-nonconforming person considering suicide, Trans Lifeline can be reached at 877-565-8860. LGBTQ+ youth (ages 24 and younger) can reach the Trevor Project Lifeline at 1-866-488-7386. You can still also contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 24 hours a day, and it’s available to people of all ages and identities.
Additional resources:
If you are in a life-threatening situation, please dial 911.
If you are in crisis, please dial 988 or contact Rainbow Youth Project directly at +1 (317) 643-4888
Sports
Bisexual former umpire sues Major League Baseball for sexual harassment
Brandon Cooper claims female colleague sexually harassed him
A fired former umpire is suing Major League Baseball, claiming he was sexually harassed by a female umpire and discriminated against because of his gender and his sexual orientation.
Brandon Cooper worked in the minor league Arizona Complex League last year, and according to the lawsuit he filed Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan, he identifies as bisexual.
“I wanted my umpiring and ability to speak for itself and not to be labeled as ‘Brandon Cooper the bisexual umpire,’” he told Outsports. “I didn’t want to be labeled as something. It has been a passion of mine to simply make it to the Major Leagues.”
But that didn’t happen. Instead of being promoted, he was fired. His suit names MLB and an affiliated entity, PDL Blue, Inc., and alleges he had endured a hostile work environment and wrongful termination and/or retaliation because of gender and sexual orientation under New York State and New York City law.
“Historically the MLB has had a homogenous roster of umpires working in both the minor and major leagues,” Cooper claims in his suit. “Specifically, to date there has never been a woman who has worked in a (regular) season game played in the majors, and most umpires are still Caucasian men. To try to fix its gender and racial diversity issue, defendants have implemented an illegal diversity quota requiring that women be promoted regardless of merit.”
Cooper claims former umpire Ed Rapuano, now an umpire evaluator, and Darren Spagnardi, an umpire development supervisor, told him in January 2023 that MLB had a hiring quota, requiring that at least two women be among 10 new hires.
According to the suit, Cooper was assigned to spring training last year and was notified by the senior manager of umpire administration, Dusty Dellinger, that even though he received a high rating in June from former big league umpire Jim Reynolds, now an umpire supervisor, that women and minority candidates had to be hired first.
Cooper claims that upon learning Cooper was bisexual, fellow umpire Gina Quartararo insulted him and fellow umpire Kevin Bruno by using homophobic slurs and crude remarks. At that time, Quartararo and Cooper worked on the same umpiring crew and being evaluated for possible promotion to the big leagues.
This season, Quartararo is working as an umpire in the Florida State League, one of nine women who are working as minor league umpires.
Cooper said he notified Dellinger, but instead of taking action against Quartararo, he said MLB ordered Cooper to undergo sensitivity training. According to his lawsuit, he was also accused of violating the minor league anti-discrimination and harassment policy.
Cooper’s suit says he met with MLB Senior Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Billy Bean — who the Los Angeles Blade reported in December is battling cancer.
The lawsuit says at that meeting, Bean told the umpire that Quartararo claimed she was the victim, as the only female umpire in the ACL. Cooper said he told Bean Quartararo regularly used homophobic slurs and at one point physically shoved him. He also claims that he has video evidence, texts and emails to prove his claim.
But he said his complaints to Major League Baseball officials were ignored. His lawsuit said MLB passed him over for the playoffs and fired him in October. He said of the 26 umpires hired with Cooper, he was the only one let go.
Through a spokesperson, MLB declined to comment on pending litigation. Quartararo has also not publicly commented on the lawsuit.
Sports
Brittney Griner, wife expecting first child
WNBA star released from Russian gulag in December 2022
One year after returning to the WNBA after her release from a Russian gulag and declaring, “I’m never playing overseas again,” Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner and her wife announced they have something even bigger coming up this summer.
Cherelle, 31, and Brittney, 33, are expecting their first child in July. The couple shared the news with their 715,000 followers on Instagram.
“Can’t believe we’re less than three months away from meeting our favorite human being,” the caption read, with the hashtag, #BabyGrinerComingSoon and #July2024.
Griner returned to the U.S. in December 2022 in a prisoner swap, more than nine months after being arrested in Moscow for possession of vape cartridges containing prescription cannabis.
In April 2023, at her first news conference following her release, the two-time Olympic gold medalist made only one exception to her vow to never play overseas again: To return to the Summer Olympic Games, which will be played in Paris starting in July, the same month “Baby Griner” is due. “The only time I would want to would be to represent the USA,” she said last year.
Given that the unrestricted free agent is on the roster of both Team USA and her WNBA team, it’s not immediately clear where Griner will be when their first child arrives.
The Griners purchased their “forever home” in Phoenix just last year.
“Phoenix is home,” Griner said at the Mercury’s end-of-season media day, according to ESPN. “Me and my wife literally just got a place. This is it.”
As the Los Angeles Blade reported last December, Griner is working with Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts — like Griner, a married lesbian — on an ESPN television documentary as well as a television series for ABC about her life story. Cherelle is executive producer of these projects.
Next month, Griner’s tell-all memoir of her Russian incarceration will be published by Penguin Random House. It’s titled “Coming Home” and the hardcover hits bookstores on May 7.
Tel Aviv authorities cancel Pride parade
EXCLUSIVE: White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on speaking out and showing up
Vladimir Putin takes office for fifth term as Russia’s president
Billy Porter, Keke Palmer, Ava Max to perform at Capital Pride
