Gay people have made strides in many sectors of American professional life. An openly gay man runs Apple, presides as the governor of Colorado, and an open lesbian runs a Fortune 500 company. But in the highest reaches of men’s basketball, gay people are almost invisible.
Ryan Resch, 29, works in basketball operations for the Suns, where he serves as vice president of strategy and evaluation for the Suns and essentially functions as the front office’s chief-of-staff. He attends to the big-picture responsibilities of team-building and runs staff-wide meetings alongside general manager James Jones, who has been a mentor to him.
This past winter, Resch came out to Jones, then the rest of the Suns’ staff. He is the first openly gay person in league history to work basketball operations in an NBA front office.
“Ultimately my goal is to normalize for people in and out of the league the existence of gay men and women on the basketball side,”
I finally separated myself from Ryan as the No. 2 of the Phoenix Suns front office. I finally looked at my personal life and I realized just how deeply unhappy I was. The hardest part then was saying, ‘What are you afraid of? Why are you actually afraid to admit who you are and tell the world who you are?’
When I decided to come out this season, I knew I was going to go all in and and open myself up to be vulnerable with my colleagues – who are extremely close friends – and to my people at Baylor, to my actual family, to my best friends, and, put myself out there and not hide it, not run from it any longer.
