Out Spotlight LXXII

Today's Out Spotlight is Lou Tharp.

Lou Tharp is the swimming coach at West Point, the United State's Army Academy. Tharp is gay, openly gay. His bosses know it. His athletes know it. Everyone knows it. And how has this panned out for him and the West Point swim team? Under Tharp’s tutelage, the Cadets have become a national player in men’s collegiate swimming.

The Army, still practices Don't Ask Don't Tell, though being gay has never impacted Tharp at West Point. He made it clear from day one that he is gay and that he is not a supporter of the Army's stance toward and gays and lesbians.

But before getting to Tharp at West Point you need to get to know more about Lou Tharp. Tharp was a a 45-year-old , 280-pound gay man, overworked PR executive with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and a sedentary lifestyle. A successful businessman and community activist was more than hesitant to take his first plunge into the pool. But his desire to "not grow old feeling the way I did" won out. In 1996, with the help of a medical team and Terry Laughlin (founder of the Total Immersion swimming program), Tharp dove into his new passion. Within six months, he was winning local and regional meets. By 1998, Tharp, became a swimming fanatic and lost nearly 100 pounds, he was a World Masters bronze medalist. He also earned two gold and two silver medals at the 2006 Gay Games. Tharp, became a swimming fanatic and lost nearly 100 pounds.

But how do you go from that to becoming a swim coach who transforms a lackluster triathlete team into a national contender?

He joined a swim team in New York and, he says, "accepted a new identity for myself. All of a sudden I was a fit, active competitor. I got up at 5:30 every morning, to get in a 90-minute workout. My forward momentum perpetuated itself." But New York City pools were crowded and expensive. Eventually, Tharp discovered a pool at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., 35 miles from his home. It was seldom open to the public, and the environment was not particularly welcoming, but the head of the West Point physical education department liked Tharp's spirit and gave him passes to the pool.

"I was an outsider, but I got to know the academy culture," Tharp says. "Everyone had a great work ethic and was highly respectful." He shared the pool with cadets, many of whom "swam very poorly." One was so bad that Tharp abruptly stopped and said, "You're driving me crazy." Tharp showed him some basic techniques, and he immediately improved. He was like most cadets, Tharp says, "a sponge. They're driven to excel, especially when they're around people with expertise."

The next day there were two cadets and the following week they invited him to their tri team swim practice. A few weeks later the cadet in charge asked if I would consider being their swim coach. My first reaction was yes, since I'd never coached before in my life, and a Division 1 school isn't a bad place to start. My next thought was, "I'm gay and we'll have to come to terms with it." In 2005, he was hired as a part-time coach.

Within two years, the team placed fifth in a national meet, just five points from first. Tharp had propelled the Army squad to national prominence - and he did it as an openly gay man.

When he was first asked to coach, he had agreed - on the stipulation that he could be completely out. "I won't put up with anything less than complete acceptance," he told the officers.

"I didn't know what to expect, and their reaction was totally unexpected. I guess we tend to think the worst because the bigots yell the loudest so we think everyone agrees with them. We forget that the vast majority of people are very gay accepting.

The reaction was a resounding, "So what?" The officer in charge had no problem with it, and when I said I would have to tell the team, he said I must have had to tell people this before so I should know how to handle it. Period."

Tharp's coming-out process to his athletes was similarly upfront and natural. Describing a swimming technique, he likened it to a baseball swing. "Now you might think a gay man doesn't know anything about baseball...," he told them. And "that was it," he recalls now. "No one said anything. It wasn't a big deal."

He took his partner, Jim, to a team party. "West Point is a difficult school to get into," Tharp says. "Cadets have to be adaptable, intelligent, and aware of their surroundings. Every cadet there made it a point to talk to Jim - and really get to know him. Cadets are truly interested in meeting new people and asking questions about the world. That really blew us away."

Institutionally, Tharp knows, West Point is "a very antigay organization." But, he says, "the rank and file is way ahead of the senior officers."

Tharp wrote a book, Overachiever's Diary, How The Army Triathlon Team Became World Contenders, recounting his experience coaching the cadets at West Point.

Tharp lives in Upper Nyack, New York, with his partner of over 25 years, Jim Bumgardner.


"My experience is that overall there are two considerations to keep in mind regarding the mindset of certain straight people. First, gay issues are not on their radar screen. They have no idea we can't pass our assets tax-free to our partners when we die as they do with their spouses, or that we are not protected against employment, credit, education and housing discrimination in two-thirds of the states or by the Federal government, or that America is the only country in the Western world that does not protect its LGBT citizens. Second, they tend to hear anti-gay messages and accept them as fact. So when they get to know a gay person, there is massive conflict between what they've been taught and what they're experiencing. We get to untangle this mess for them. Our job is to educate good but misinformed people. All it takes is getting to know people and helping them understand that what they've heard is wrong."


Lou Tharp Facebook

Overachiever's Diary, How The Army Triathlon Team Became World Contenders by Lou Tharp