The Eagles of Boston College High School join You Can Play in promoting inclusion and diversity for all athletes, coaches and fans. BC High school hosted a You Can Play Invisible Athlete forum at the urging of You Can Play board member Lee-J Mirasolo. Lee-J, an assistant women’s hockey coach at Princeton, encouraged the forum as a way to start discussion of LGBT issues. Patrick Burke, Jose Estevez and James Nutter spoke with the freshmen and sophomore classes as well as a number of team captains.
> BC High is an all-boys, Catholic school just outside Boston. A member of the Catholic Conference, BC High has a reputation as a sports powerhouse. It was the second You Can Play address at an all-boys Catholic school in as many months, as Burke had addressed his alma mater, Xaverian, a month prior. According to BC High Coach Michael Brennan, “Being a Jesuit high school, we strive to promote justice in all areas of life and once we heard Patrick Burke speak at our school, we knew we had to make a video. Patrick was invited to speak with our students by guidance counselor Katie Griswold and the Students for Social Respect student group. BC High wants to show that in our sports program, it doesn’t matter who you are. If you know how to be a good teammate and you can play, you to play for BC High.”
“Our experience working with BC High has been amazing,” said You Can Play co-founder Patrick Burke. “Their support for LGBT issues has been exceptional. From the administration, to the teachers, to the students, it has been heartwarming to see full buy in from the community. Their support is just another example of the unmatched work YCP is doing with religious academic institutions to ensure LGBT inclusion.
“I issued BC High two challenges – the first was to eliminate anti-gay language from their community. The second was to try to beat my alma mater, Xaverian, to become the first member of the Catholic Conference to create a YCP video. In a rare upset, BC High did beat Xaverian this time. Their video is wonderful. It is great to see that BC High took our message for LGBT inclusion and extended it to the other aspects of diversity their students see on a daily basis. It shows a true understanding of our underlying mission. We hope that the LGBT administrators, teachers, and students of BC High feel a little more included today.”
All students who appear in the video are athletes and members of the class of 2014 at Boston College High School. They are: Christopher Solis (football), Stephen DeForge (Hockey, captain), Stephen DiCienzo (football, captain), Tom Moynahan (swimming and diving), John Carroll (lacrosse, captain), William Biggs (track, captain) Football, Christopher La Liberte (hockey, captain), Igor Carvalho (volleyball), Shaun Griswold, (swimming and diving),, Andrew Jaehnig (baseball), Sean Webster (baseball), Alexander Loughnane (basketball, captain), Michelle Laferriere (wresting, captain, football, track), and Jordan Samuels (track,captain).