In an op-ed published Thursday, college
basketball coach Matthew Lynch announced that he's gay.
Lynch has been coaching basketball for
10 years, most recently at the University of North Carolina
Wilmington.
In his essay, published by LGBT sports
blog Outsports, Lynch, 29, said that the coronavirus epidemic
has made him realize that he might not have a job in coaching next
year.
“This is a scary time for everyone
and the unknown is always difficult to deal with,” Lynch wrote.
“But I have made a decision to use this time to become completely
open and honest with myself and the people around me.”
“I'm gay,” he
added.
Lynch said that he always believed he
would “die with the lie.”
“That was my plan,” he said.
“So as I chased the dream of becoming
a basketball coach, I found myself getting lost in my work. I didn’t
think about being gay or that part of me as much. I didn’t date, I
didn’t talk about it, and it got to the point that I almost began
to believe that I could shut that side of my life 'off.'”
“I became very good at what I do.
When other coaches on the staff would go home at night to their wife
and kids, I would stay at the office. I would keep working, keep
learning. This helped my career, but I didn’t realize the negative
effects it would have on my mental health.”
Lynch said that he “built up a sort
of self-homophobia.”
At the end of each season, when the
long days were over, Lynch said that he would go into a depression.
He started telling people around him about his struggle. And the
response was overwhelmingly positive.
“I think it's important for me to be
publicly out. Not only for me and my mental health, but for anyone
else out there like me,” he wrote.
“I don't know if I will be able to
get another college basketball coaching job as an openly gay coach,
but I refuse to take any job where I am not my authentic self. I
refuse to die with the lie,” Lynch said in conclusion.