The Reappearing Act: Coming Out as Gay on a College Basketball Team Led by Born-Again Christians

Fagan, a columnist for ESPN and former University of Colorado basketball player, recounts her experiences coming to terms with her sexuality in this well-crafted memoir. She focuses squarely on her college years, with a few flashbacks to her childhood and a brief ending on her post-college life. Under pressure from several of her teammates, she joins the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and spends a couple years as a believing evangelical. Her slow realization that she is gay competes with her burgeoning faith as what she calls a “temporary Christian.” Fagan recounts her ultimately unsuccessful attempts to reconcile being an evangelical Christian and being a lesbian along with larger discussions about homophobia in women’s college athletics. Despite the subtitle, Fagan only discusses her sexuality with few people while on the team. The memoir’s greatest strength is its glimpse into how a variety of lesbian athletes and coaches navigate the homophobic culture of college sports. Although she offers little hope for reconciling homosexuality and Christianity and repeats many of the same types of stories of other coming-out tales, Fagan’s work will appeal to readers hoping to better understand the complications of being gay in sports. (May)