Sheryl Swoopes comes out

WNBA star Sheryl Swoopes, a forward for the Houston Comets, came out in the most recent issue of ESPN The Magazine.

From The New York Times:

[Swoopes,] the three-time Most Valuable Player of the W.N.B.A., disclosed today that she is gay, an announcement that she described as lifting a burden from her, and one encouraged by an endorsement she received from a cruise line that caters to lesbians.
…She is the first high-profile African-American basketball player to come out as gay.
“I was at a point in my life where I am just tired of having to pretend to be somebody I am not. I was basically living a lie. For the last seven, eight years, I was basically waiting to exhale.”
“Hopefully, this will not have a negative effect on the W.N.B.A.,” Swoopes said. “Me coming out does not change what the W.N.B.A. stands for as a basketball league. I don’t think there’s any secret that the huge support we get comes from the gay and lesbian community. It’s unfortunate that people, and those not only in W.N.B.A., are not able to feel like they can be who they are. They lose endorsements; they lose friends and family.”

Swoopes also talked about her concern over the lack of well-known gay African Americans who have come out, and the effect her coming out will have on her younger fans:

My biggest concern is that people are going to look at my homosexuality and say to little girls — whether they’re white, black, Hispanic — that I can’t be their role model anymore.
I don’t want that to happen. Being gay has nothing to do with the three gold medals or the three MVPs or the four championships I’ve won. I’m still the same person. I’m still Sheryl.