Arts & Entertainment
Six Yale athletes come out; organize LGBT student-athlete support group
group hopes to include women soon
Six male Yale University athletes have come out and are forming a LGBT student-athlete support group, Outsports reports.
Timothy Cox in running, Jake Leffew in golf, Luc Ryan-Schreiber in rugby, Wayne Zhang in diving, and two additional athletes who are not fully out to their families but are out to their teammates, met through mutual connections and decided LGBT athletes needed a support group. They hope to include female athletes in the group soon.
Although Yale University had a LGBT athletes group at one time, Athletes and Allies, Ryan-Schreiber told Yale Daily News he felt the group was aimed more towards the allies than the LGBT athletes. Last year the group disbanded.
Yale University does offer an LGBT co-op space, but Leffew notes it doesn’t meet every LGBT student’s needs.
“I felt uncomfortable walking into an actual physical building with rainbow lettering,” Leffew told Outsports. “I think its the formality of it that can be intimidating to someone who’s just looking for an informal resource to talk to.”
Ryan-Schreiber told Outsports about his journey creating the LGBT student-athlete group.
“Flash forward to my junior year and I have a great new rugby coach the team is awesome,” Ryan-Schreiber says. “When I got connected with Jake, who was struggling with the identity of a gay athlete, we talked it out and afterwards I realized there was no resource around currently.
“So I met with the athletic department to discuss this. After my first meeting with [senior associate athletic director] Brian Tompkins, he asked if I knew any other gay athletes. So I went to find them and we started the group with the hope of improving the reality for LGBT athletes here at Yale,” Ryan-Schreiber says.
a&e features
Television loses a legend, longtime ‘Will & Grace’ director James Burrows
Iconic hitmaker leaves behind a legacy of telling LGBTQ stories
You don’t have to be a pretentious film major to name 10 movie directors. But naming television directors is not that simple. They’re the unsung heroes of your favorite shows, and the late James Burrows was the television director. He passed on June 19, but his DNA runs through television history.
He directed over 1200 episodes of television and over 50 pilots. He co-created “Cheers” and directed many episodes of long-running series like “Friends,” “Taxi,” “Frasier,” “The Big Bang Theory,” and “Two and a Half Men.” You also may remember him from playing a heightened version of himself on the Lisa Kudrow comedy “The Comeback.”
He has left an indelible mark on the LGBTQ community. As recently as last year, he directed the series run of “Mid-Century Modern” starring Nathan Lane, Matt Bomer, and Linda Lavin. He was also a longtime director of “Will & Grace” and directed every episode of the series revival. He even directed the unaired “Absolutely Fabulous” pilot with Kathryn Hahn, Kristen Johnston, and Zosia Mamet.
Not to mention he’s worked with queer icons throughout history, including Betty White and Stockard Channing on their single-season series, and Jennifer Coolidge in “2 Broke Girls.”
He started his career on shows like “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Rhoda,” “Laverne & Shirley,” and the first four seasons of “Taxi.”
He continued to work steadily and directed successful pilots that went to series for “Roc,” “3rd Rock From the Sun,” “Dharma & Greg,” and “Wings.” He directed multiple episodes of “Friends,” “Caroline in the City,” and “Frasier.”
This magic continued into the 2000s with him directing the pilots for “Two and a Half Men,” “The Big Bang Theory,” and multiple episodes of “Mike & Molly,” and the entire return series of “Will & Grace.”
What was the secret to his success? He’d enact the “fun clause” in his contract. In his words, “Life is too short to deal with obnoxious leads,” he shared. “So as long as the writing is good and the cast is fun, I’m going to enjoy the experience.”
He had the magic touch, having multiple pilots turned into long-running series. He was nominated for an Emmy 24 times in 26 years and worked consistently until a year before his death.
The secret was the way he brought the cast together. He describes, “it was my job to mold them into an ensemble, and they did round into a group of people who loved each other.”
This earned him 11 Emmy Awards and five Directors Guild of America Awards, including being awarded the inaugural DGA’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Television Direction.
In a 2003 interview by the Television Academy, he was asked how he wants to be remembered, and he said, “That every night forever you can tune in somewhere, and there’ll be a show I did.”
He’s survived by his wife, Debbie, four daughters, seven grandchildren, and the countless people whose careers he launched and the countless viewers he inspired with his television legacy.
Photos
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Annual LGBTQ celebration held on Pennsylvania Ave.
The 2026 Capital Pride Festival was held on Pennsylvania Ave. on Sunday, June 21.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key and Landon Shackelford)
The 2026 Capital Pride Parade was held in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, June 20.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key, Robert Rapanut and Landon Shackelford)
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