Rating: 
Summary: A MUST read for any gay athlete!
Review: Never before has a book expressed my feelings and sentiments about being gay and an athlete. Many years ago I turned my back from the jock world because I thought I was alone. Clearly there were no role models for me and the journey of trying to explore my gay feelings in a jock world were too over-powering. This book expresses the isolation, thoughts, and struggles of many other guys just like me. How I wish this book was available to me when I was younger! Thanks Dan Woog!
Rating:
Summary: A MUST read for any gay athlete!
Review: Never before has a book expressed my feelings and sentiments about being gay and an athlete. Many years ago I turned my back from the jock world because I thought I was alone. Clearly there were no role models for me and the journey of trying to explore my gay feelings in a jock world were too over-powering. This book expresses the isolation, thoughts, and struggles of many other guys just like me. How I wish this book was available to me when I was younger! Thanks Dan Woog!
Rating: 
Summary: Very Entertaining...
Review: This is a pretty good book. I'm not gay and I learned a lot about what gay athletes have to go through. I personnally know Dan and he came to my house and autographed it for me. It is very entertaining and you learn about gay people's lives. I would suggest getting this book today if you can. Dan Woog is a nice person.
Rating:
Summary: Very Entertaining...
Review: This is a pretty good book. I'm not gay and I learned a lot about what gay athletes have to go through. I personnally know Dan and he came to my house and autographed it for me. It is very entertaining and you learn about gay people's lives. I would suggest getting this book today if you can. Dan Woog is a nice person.
Rating: 
Summary: We are indeed everywhere -- and I found us!
Review: When I started researching this book, I had no idea what -- or who -- I would find. Thanks to the Internet, and lots of phone calls, I found coaches and athletes -- as well as referees, even a lover -- in a wide variety of sports, all across the country. Fortunately, most of their stories are positive. Coming out has helped many young men become better, more confident athletes -- and participating in athletics has helped many young men come out. Their stories inspired me -- and, from what readers are saying, their stories have touched other people, too.
It was an exciting project, on an unexplored topic. I hope you enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: Woog brings the hopes & fears of gay athletics upfront.
Review: Woog has unified the diverse hopes and fears among gay athletes and coaches of all levels into a common ground- the facing of those fears and meeting of those hopes. Taking account of these gay men, those both open and in the closet, Woog brings a greater understanding to their pain and triumph, as well as the roads they have traveled to get where they now are. Woog is objective with both the positive and negative experiences, and brings out the true meaning of althetics to both team and individual, along with the struggles of these gays men to be a part of the athletic circle. Reading this book was positive and meaningful, and gave a good look at just how diverse levels of homophobia exist within different sports themselves as they do within society. Woog brings the sub-culture of gay athletics up front, showing the agonies and triumphs in this realm that are overlooked. Having read this book alongside Patricia Warren's "The Front Runner" (the fictional story of a gay man and his gay coach/lover competing into the 1976 Olympics) gave an even greater depth and aspect to Warren's book as well as a greater understanding of the painful and euphoric extremems gay athletes endure. My one hope is that Woog writes a second book, with either new accounts of these proud gay athletes, or a follow-up of those already shared in his book.
Rating:
Summary: Woog brings the hopes & fears of gay athletics upfront.
Review: Woog has unified the diverse hopes and fears among gay athletes and coaches of all levels into a common ground- the facing of those fears and meeting of those hopes. Taking account of these gay men, those both open and in the closet, Woog brings a greater understanding to their pain and triumph, as well as the roads they have traveled to get where they now are. Woog is objective with both the positive and negative experiences, and brings out the true meaning of althetics to both team and individual, along with the struggles of these gays men to be a part of the athletic circle. Reading this book was positive and meaningful, and gave a good look at just how diverse levels of homophobia exist within different sports themselves as they do within society. Woog brings the sub-culture of gay athletics up front, showing the agonies and triumphs in this realm that are overlooked. Having read this book alongside Patricia Warren's "The Front Runner" (the fictional story of a gay man and his gay coach/lover competing into the 1976 Olympics) gave an even greater depth and aspect to Warren's book as well as a greater understanding of the painful and euphoric extremems gay athletes endure. My one hope is that Woog writes a second book, with either new accounts of these proud gay athletes, or a follow-up of those already shared in his book.
Rating:
Summary: A must read for any male athletes with identity problems
Review: Woog manages to capture a fairly diverse group of athletes in a fairly wide range of sports. He seems partial to soccer--no great surprise, given his own involvement--and seems to feel that soccer players are more intelligent and independent and thus more open to gays in their ranks. That may be wishful thinkful thinking on his part, I don't know. The stories are by turns inspirational and sad, the latter especially when one reads what hoops these athletes jump through in order to appear "normal." Woog does a good job of convincing us that there are a lot more gay (or at least gay accepting) athletes than we might expect. I was most impressed by the straight student athlete who heads a gay/straight alliance--he doesn't correct people who assume he's gay. That requires a huge amount of positive self-awareness. The one place where Woog fails (for me) in his narrative is when he or his athletes show a certain condescension toward overweight people or guys in (an unfortunate loqution from the book) "pussy sports." A tight, hard body is not an indication of manhood. Likewise, the masculinity factor on the field or in the pool doesn't come from the sport, it comes from the athlete himself. I hope Woog addresses this aspect more carefully next time, which I hope will be with a book on pro athletes--even if they all have to be hidden behind pseudonyms.
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