How this college athlete came out and found peace again on the tennis court.
Ashley Dai, 21, has known she was gay since high school. But she pushed the thought out of her mind and focused on academics and athletics instead. As a tennis standout at the University at North Carolina, Dai figured she wouldn’t be able to be both an out lesbian and a successful tennis player because of how other people in the tennis world might view her.
“I was definitely scared of how it would affect the relationships I made through tennis,” she confessed. “I grew up in a tennis academy and never went to a ‘normal’ middle or high school, so tennis was my entire life.”
That fear began to eat away at Dai and it eventually affected her performance on the court. During one match in particular, she felt overwhelmed by the secrecy. Though she had already come out to her teammates at the time, she still hadn’t told her tennis coach the truth.
“He usually doesn't coach me during matches, but for some reason that day he ventured to my court,” she wrote in a personal essay for OutSports.com. “I had just lost the first set when he came over and started jabbering about some strategy that I didn't want to hear. He realized that I was more irritated than usual as I spat out a torrent of ambiguous passive-aggressiveness.”
Dai and her coach exchanged a few shouts and loud words. In that moment, she said he helped her regain focus and she ended up winning the match. But the light bulb had gone finally on. Dai realized that not being honest about her sexuality was causing her to feel “suffocated” on the tennis court—the very place she had always felt at peace.
“[My coach and I] have very different temperaments and have gotten into arguments before, but we had built a relationship built on trust and honesty. He is also a very sweet and caring man so I hoped that he would handle my coming out to him well … which he did.”
Looking back, Dai wishes she would have come out sooner. She said she feels so much freer both on and off the court, and that she’s a lot more confident these days. Ironically, coming out has also helped her get closer to her teammates, trainers, coaches, and everyone else involved in the tennis program—which is the exact opposite of what she thought would happen.
“They have given me so much more to play for,” she said. “Because of all their love and support, my purpose is amplified immensely and I hit every shot with all I have as an ode to them. I know and accept myself as a person wholeheartedly and it has given me so much more belief and trust in myself, which is something I have always struggled with.”
Dai has also put energy and focus into helping others by starting an LGBTQ student-athlete group called, Tar Heels 4 Equality. Her goal was to create a safe space and support group for athletes dealing with some of the same issues that she had been.
“Though my teammates were amazingly supportive, I always still felt alone and didn't have anyone who could relate. So I thought that this would be a great way to ensure that LGBTQ athletes would never feel alone.”
She added, “Everyone is better when they're playing their own game because no one can do it better than that one person. It's tiring trying to be something you're not, so just do you and rock it.”
If you are an LGBT athlete and would like to share your story with Curve Magazine, contact Lyndsey D’Arcangelo at [email protected]
Follow Lyndsey on Twitter @darcangel21