Brittney Griner, the 6-foot-8 basketball phenom who played for Texas' Baylor University, is speaking out about the Christian school in her new book, claiming it was hard to be a gay woman there.
The 23-year-old, who graduated last year and went on to play for the WNBA's Phoenix Mercury and now for the Zhejiang Golden Bulls in China, wrote in her new autobiography that Baylor was not particularly supportive of gay athletes.
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"The more I think about it, the more I feel like the people who run the school want it both ways: they want to keep the policy, so they can keep selling themselves a Christian university, but they are more than happy to benefit from the success of their
gay athletes," Griner wrote, according to The Los Angeles Times. "That is, as long as those gay athletes don't talk about being gay."
Her book, "In My Skin: My Life On and Off the Basketball Court," was published earlier this month.
Griner said she remembers head coach Kim Mulkey telling her when she was recruited out of high school, "Big Girl, I don’t care what you are. You can be black, white, blue, purple, whatever. As long as you come here and do what you need to do and hoop, I don't care."
But just two years later, when Griner was a sophomore, she says Mulkey pulled her aside and told her to be careful who she was seen with and what she posted on Twitter.
Her experiences as a gay athlete at the school make it difficult for her to want to represent Baylor, Griner wrote.
"I would love to be an ambassador for Baylor, to show my school pride, but it’s hard to do that. I've spent too much of my life being made to feel like there’s something wrong with me. And no matter how much support I felt as a basketball player at Baylor, it still doesn’t erase all the pain I felt there."
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