Jennifer Harris, a promising student and star player on the Penn State women’s basketball team was unceremoniously dismissed from the team for homophobic reasons. The dismissal from the program that she worked tremendously hard for had terminated any scholarship that she had with the university and placed her immediate and future well-being in peril. Her tragic tale of suffering from homophobia by her coach prompted Dee Mosbacher and Fawn Yacker to make a documentary to shed light on the covert struggles that lesbian colligate athletes endure and how homophobia and feminization are entrenched in sport. As one of the University’s most talented players, Jennifer Harris was never able to finish her career at Penn State. Instead, she was cut …show more content…
Her implementation of these ideologies shows that homophobia was entrenched in this program dating back to the 1980s. From the documentary, the audience learns that players were specifically instructed to not talk to or even associate with any lesbians. The consequences of breaking these instructions are evident in Courtney Wicks’ situation. Wicks was a heterosexual player who had befriended a homosexual friend during her time on the team and was consequently dismissed from the team under Coach Portland’s supervision. Wicks is far from the only former player to be entrapped in Coach Portland’s web of bigotry. Former player, Lisa Faloon, was forced to devise a lie about having a boyfriend back home to wade any suspicion from Coach Portland and her unwavering ideologies. A prominent case of Coach Portland’s homophobia was the Gulas twins. Corinne and Christine Gulas were superstar players on Coach Portland’s team. Both were shamed into leaving the team based on their sexuality. The cases of former players being forced off the team or forced to hide who they truly are in order to remain on the team and the University exemplifies the lingering notion of homophobia that Coach Portland presided on her team and her