Anthony Nicodemo is a sports fan, a sports fanatic. He grew up in an Italian neighborhood in New York City and heard all kinds of jokes and gay slurs; he also learned to hide his sexual orientation. And when he became a high school basketball coach, he stayed hidden. But last week, standing in front of his team, the Saunders High School basketball team, he decided to stop hiding.
It wasn’t an easy decision, or a quick one. Nicodemo had only recently found other gay coaches while browsing through Outsports online, and with the Equality Coaching Alliance. He also attended the Nike LGBT Sports Summit with hundreds of other LGBT athletes and coaches, and that was where he changed his mind. He started slowly, sending out this Tweet from the Nike summit:
Still, even after that Tweet, he worried that his coming out might spur someone into keeping him from coaching. He knew that, especially in high schools, out gay coaches are very much the minority.
"All it takes is one parent to make a lot of trouble. The school board can always find a reason to fire you if one parent with too much time on their hands wants to take you down."— Anthony Nicodemo
When he took over the boys basketball program at Saunders in 2009, the team had won only a handful of games during the previous four years; most visiting teams consider playing against Saunders an easy win.
"We always went into games and did whatever we wanted. We never ran plays before coach came along. We basically had five guys just playing street ball. No chemistry. My teammates were good, but it just wasn't there. We were known as a losing program. Nobody believed we could win. It had been 15 or 20 years since the basketball program went to the playoffs."— Matthew Clayton, who played basketball for Saunders before and after Anthony Nicodemo was named coach
The Saunders basketball team was so bad that, even after interviewing for the job, Nicodemo decided not to take it. But, after talking with officials at Saunders, and taking advice from his own coaches and friends, he saw this as an opportunity. An inner-city school with 1,200 students, Saunders provided a great deal of raw talent. If he could change the culture of the team and recruit the right players, he might turn this team around.
Nicodemo's coaching record his first two seasons was 9-29; kind of a disaster, but, for Saunders, it was considered an improvement. In the next two seasons, Saunders posted winning records and even hosted a state-tournament playoff game. Still, for Anthony Nicodemo, building the team into a kind of family was key; he realized he wasn’t a coach for basketball, but he could also be a coach for life.
"We talk about being on time, about putting in the work. There's so much to teach these kids about life, stuff they don't get at home or in the classroom. I try to prep them for college, for life in the real world."— Anthony Nicodemo
Matthew Clayton is a prime example. Arriving at school that first season, Nicodemo was advised to kick Clayton off the team; the kid was called a lost cause. But Anthony Nicodemo wasn’t having that; he met with Clayton, told him what others had suggested, and then assured him he wasn't going anywhere. Nicodemo told Clayton he would make sure he graduated.
"When coach came along my senior year, I'd already gone through two coaches. From day one, he walked in and told me I was going to get through the season, I'd pass all my classes and I'd graduate. From that day, we started running practices, everybody got along with him. He knew what he was doing. The way he treats these kids, he gives them whatever he can. He takes them on trips. He's doing everything he can to make these kids better. He made it a winning program."—Matthew Clayton
But, even with his skills as a coach, as a mentor, even with his ability take the team from a losing enterprise to a winning one, nothing prepared Anthony Nicodemo for coming out.
He first told the superintendent, who offered Nicodemo his personal and professional support; he came out to a couple of his former captains while watching Game 7 of the NBA Finals. Matthew Clayton, whom Nicodemo gave the team's "Mr. Hustle" award in 2010, was among them that night.
"It was very surprising. I just basically told him, at the end of the day he's still my coach. Nobody would have ever known. I told him what he does in his personal life is his personal life. It's his life. Whatever he does behind closed doors is up to him, nobody can judge him. I told him, 'coach, if you ever need me, if you ever get into any trouble, I'll be there. I've still got your back.'"—Matthew Clayton
But he wondered about his team; how would they react to having a gay coach?
Last Monday he called the team together with a couple of the parents, past captains and the school principal, and told them that, despite preaching the importance of honesty, he had not been forthright with them. He told them he was gay. The reaction was not the one he’d expected; his team literally embraced him.
"It was humbling. Very quickly the kids started to speak. A couple of the kids said, 'Who cares? Coach has done more for us in our lives than anyone else. We love him and we've got to focus on our goals.'"—Anthony Nicodemo
Of course, with everything being about social media, two of the team members took to Twitter to express how they felt about his coach's revelation:
With that one speech, to a locker-room of players, parents and school officials, Nicodemo became, probably, the first boys high school basketball coach in the New York City area to ever come out as gay.
And he won’t stop there. He knows it’s hard for LGBT advocates to institute sensitivity training for high school coaches and administrators, and he wants to bring that kind of training to his school, and other school in the area, for the next coach who might come out, or the next player who comes out, or for anyone who comes out.
Welcome out, Anthony.
And please accept as our gift from HOMO HQ, a copy of The Gay Agenda and the Official Coming Out Toaster Oven.
Welcome out, Anthony Nicodemo. Welcome out.
via Outsports
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