Sports
Eric Lueshen’s journey to sports advocacy
After career-ending surgery, a new role
Eric Lueshen was an openly gay, NCAA Division I place kicker at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln from 2003-2006. (Photo courtesy Leushen)
There has been a steady flow of college athletes coming out of the closet over the last 10 years who have shared their life experiences. Their journeys have been widely documented and their stories will always remain as an inspiration for LGBT youth who are looking for role models.
A surprisingly small number of those same athletes have become athletes that advocate for social change. Not everyone is cut out for that kind of work and sometimes it takes a spark to realize the impact that a story could have on creating awareness.
Eight years after a career-ending spinal fusion knocked Eric Lueshen out of his sports career, he was close to wrapping up his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Because his sports story was a “what could have been” story, Lueshen faded from the sports scene and avoided athletes and sports news for years.
In 2014, another athlete’s coming out story lit a spark that prompted Lueshen to share his own experiences. Earning his Ph.D. was postponed and a new journey began – one that came from the heart.
Eric Lueshen was an openly gay, NCAA Division I place kicker at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln from 2003-2006. His life up until that point had been defined by sports.
Born in Pierce, Neb., sports were always his solace. Gifted at football, baseball, basketball, soccer, track and wrestling, he was well known throughout the small farm communities in his area. He spent seven years on an Olympic development team for soccer and there wasn’t anywhere to hide in an area where everyone knows everyone – Lueshen came out in his junior year of high school.
“The bullying I received wasn’t in sports and I felt safe playing. I had the talent and ability to shut it down,” says Lueshen. “When I was recruited by Nebraska, I didn’t know of any other gay athletes. I put my body through a lot because I couldn’t show weakness to anyone.”
He felt the flickering of what it felt like to “give back” during his sports years at Nebraska through his interactions as a gay athlete – touching the hearts and minds of people who had never interacted with a member of the LGBT community.
“After I could no longer play sports, I started visiting hospitals and afterschool programs,” Lueshen says. “That filled a place in my heart where I didn’t even know there was a void.”
After his story went viral in 2014, Lueshen made the decision to put his education on hold and begun advocating for the LGBT sports community. His decision was reinforced by a visit to Heartland Pride where he was approached by youth that had been touched by his story. His father was there that day and after witnessing the exchanges said, “you need to do this.”
“I really felt like I needed to pursue what the universe was telling me to do,” says Lueshen. “I realized that my purpose on this planet is to serve and help others and that I am supposed to be doing this.”
Lueshen began motivational speaking and diversity consulting on multiple topics such as LGBTQ inclusion, sports, authentic living, anti-bullying and masculinity. He completed his Ph.D. in 2015 and the following year he co-founded LGBT SportSafe with Nevin Caple.
LGBT SportSafe creates an infrastructure for athletic administrators, coaches, recreational sports leaders and professional sports leagues and teams to support LGBTQ inclusion. The program uses a new benchmarking algorithm, the 3-Peat Model, to help athletic leadership address the importance of inclusive programming, policies and public awareness initiatives while offering incentives to institutions and professional sports leagues and teams that reach inclusion goals.
They launched with three universities on board – Nebraska, Northwestern and Oregon. They now have more than 30 full members in the program.
“We are examining what the needs are around LGBT inclusion in sports,” Lueshen says, “and trying to find out what’s missing in the current programming. It’s important to translate the fears of the older generation into acceptance.”
Lueshen’s return to the sports community raises the question of what has become of his own competitive urges. After suffering from chronic back pain for years, he found ways to stay physically active with help from a low inflammation diet and controlling his stress levels.
“I am a competitive athlete and I want to compete,” says Lueshen. “It took me a while to realize I can do these things. I just have to do them differently.”
He started with a 5K run and has since added both indoor and outdoor volleyball at a high level. He has hopes of competing at the Gay Games in Paris in 2018.
As for LGBT SportSafe, an upcoming goal is for expansion beyond collegiate, professional and recreational sports to include high school and municipal sports.
“The future is bright and it all starts with a conversation,” Lueshen says. “I hope to be driven out of a job at some point.”
Sports
US wins Olympic gold medal in women’s hockey
Team captain Hilary Knight proposed to girlfriend on Wednesday
The U.S. women’s hockey team on Thursday won a gold medal at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.
Team USA defeated Canada 2-1 in overtime. The game took place a day after Team USA captain Hilary Knight proposed to her girlfriend, Brittany Bowe, an Olympic speed skater.
Cayla Barnes and Alex Carpenter — Knight’s teammates — are also LGBTQ. They are among the more than 40 openly LGBTQ athletes who are competing in the games.
The Olympics will end on Sunday.
Sports
Attitude! French ice dancers nail ‘Vogue’ routine
Cizeron and Fournier Beaudry strike a pose in memorable Olympics performance
Madonna’s presence is being felt at the Olympic Games in Italy.
Guillaume Cizeron and his rhythm ice dancing partner Laurence Fournier Beaudry of France performed a flawless skate to Madonna’s “Vogue” and “Rescue Me” on Monday.
The duo scored an impressive 90.18 for their effort, the best score of the night.
“We’ve been working hard the whole season to get over 90, so it was nice to see the score on the screen,” Fournier Beaudry told Olympics.com. “But first of all, just coming out off the ice, we were very happy about what we delivered and the pleasure we had out there. With the energy of the crowd, it was really amazing.”
Watch the routine on YouTube here.
Italy
Olympics Pride House ‘really important for the community’
Italy lags behind other European countries in terms of LGBTQ rights
The four Italian advocacy groups behind the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics’ Pride House hope to use the games to highlight the lack of LGBTQ rights in their country.
Arcigay, CIG Arcigay Milano, Milano Pride, and Pride Sport Milano organized the Pride House that is located in Milan’s MEET Digital Culture Center. The Washington Blade on Feb. 5 interviewed Pride House Project Manager Joseph Naklé.
Naklé in 2020 founded Peacox Basket Milano, Italy’s only LGBTQ basketball team. He also carried the Olympic torch through Milan shortly before he spoke with the Blade. (“Heated Rivalry” stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie last month participated in the torch relay in Feltre, a town in Italy’s Veneto region.)
Naklé said the promotion of LGBTQ rights in Italy is “actually our main objective.”
ILGA-Europe in its Rainbow Map 2025 notes same-sex couples lack full marriage rights in Italy, and the country’s hate crimes law does not include sexual orientation or gender identity. Italy does ban discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, but the country’s nondiscrimination laws do not include gender identity.
ILGA-Europe has made the following recommendations “in order to improve the legal and policy situation of LGBTI people in Italy.”
• Marriage equality for same-sex couples
• Depathologization of trans identities
• Automatic co-parent recognition available for all couples
“We are not really known to be the most openly LGBT-friendly country,” Naklé told the Blade. “That’s why it (Pride House) was really important for the community.”
“We want to use the Olympic games — because there is a big media attention — and we want to use this media attention to raise the voice,” he added.
Naklé noted Pride House will host “talks and roundtables every night” during the games that will focus on a variety of topics that include transgender and nonbinary people in sports and AI. Another will focus on what Naklé described to the Blade as “the importance of political movements now to fight for our rights, especially in places such as Italy or the U.S. where we are going backwards, and not forwards.”
Seven LGBTQ Olympians — Italian swimmer Alex Di Giorgio, Canadian ice dancers Paul Poirier and Kaitlyn Weaver, Canadian figure skater Eric Radford, Spanish figure skater Javier Raya, Scottish ice dancer Lewis Gibson, and Irish field hockey and cricket player Nikki Symmons — are scheduled to participate in Pride House’s Out and Proud event on Feb. 14.
Pride House Los Angeles – West Hollywood representatives are expected to speak at Pride House on Feb. 21.
The event will include a screening of Mariano Furlani’s documentary about Pride House and LGBTQ inclusion in sports. The MiX International LGBTQ+ Film and Queer Culture Festival will screen later this year in Milan. Pride House Los Angeles – West Hollywood is also planning to show the film during the 2028 Summer Olympics.
Naklé also noted Pride House has launched an initiative that allows LGBTQ sports teams to partner with teams whose members are either migrants from African and Islamic countries or people with disabilities.
“The objective is to show that sports is the bridge between these communities,” he said.
Bisexual US skier wins gold
Naklé spoke with the Blade a day before the games opened. The Milan Cortina Winter Olympics will close on Feb. 22.
More than 40 openly LGBTQ athletes are competing in the games.
Breezy Johnson, an American alpine skier who identifies as bisexual, on Sunday won a gold medal in the women’s downhill. Amber Glenn, who identifies as bisexual and pansexual, on the same day helped the U.S. win a gold medal in team figure skating.
Glenn said she received threats on social media after she told reporters during a pre-Olympics press conference that LGBTQ Americans are having a “hard time” with the Trump-Vance administration in the White House. The Associated Press notes Glenn wore a Pride pin on her jacket during Sunday’s medal ceremony.
“I was disappointed because I’ve never had so many people wish me harm before, just for being me and speaking about being decent — human rights and decency,” said Glenn, according to the AP. “So that was really disappointing, and I do think it kind of lowered that excitement for this.”
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