MSNBC’S LGBTQ+ Voice: Rachel Maddow

BY IAN COLGATE (HE,HIM,HIS)

Which prominent MSNBC news personality was offered a college sport scholarship while a top athlete in high school?

If you answered the star of The Rachel Maddow Show then you are, of course, correct. Maddow is famous for her news and opinion show that takes to the air starting at 9 p.m. ET during the week.

But she was originally known as a really solid three-sport athlete during her high school years as a swimmer and a basketball and volleyball player. In fact, she was scouted by a number of schools for an athletic scholarship but a shoulder injury she sustained while playing volleyball in her senior year put an end to that. While shoulder surgery could have fixed the problem, the recovery time would have delayed her college entrance a year. Since Maddow was just beginning to come to terms with being a lesbian, she was eager to escape her strongly Catholic household.

Like her or not, Maddow has many fans. Her show launched on MSNBC in 2008 to more than 1.5 million viewers. At times the show has reached over 3 million. Over the years she has covered and commented on a number of news and social issues. Shortly after the Supreme Court’s decision to allow same-sex marriage Maddow had a widely publicized on-air debate with 2012 Republican presidential candidate and former senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. Santorum argued that the Court did not have the authority to grant such unions. Santorum now serves as a political commentator for CNN.

Maddow has often been a critic of President Trump. Throughout his presidency Maddow has challenged Trump’s policies on everything from LGBTQ+ rights to the military. In 2017 she teased that she had a copy of the president’s 2005 taxes. The story fizzled when she aired the story on her show and also disclosed that the president had paid $38 million in taxes. This past July Maddow interviewed Mary Trump, a trained clinical psychologist and niece of the president. The interview made history as MSNBC’s top-rated show ever. Maddow has won a number of awards, including multiple Emmy Awards and GLAAD Media Awards.

So you may be wondering why Maddow is included as one of our Faces of Sports this year. Well, she was indeed an athlete. And Maddow wasn’t just a good athlete, she was a really good athlete. Good enough, like I mentioned above, to earn a college athletic scholarship had she not injured her shoulder.

Like many of you, I wasn’t filled with confidence as a child. Knowing I was different yet not knowing what to do about it, I looked for role models to help me navigate my early life until I had the knowledge and courage to come out. While Maddow isn’t a role model for me, I think she is a stellar role model for many young girls who describe themselves like she did while in high school – “a cross between the jock and the antisocial girl.”

Maddow didn’t let a sports injury ruin her college plans. Although Stanford was her second choice and wasn’t offering her a scholarship, she wound up graduating in 1994 with a degree in public policy and was awarded the John Gardner Fellowship. If you’ve ever heard her program, you know Maddow is intelligent. Following her graduation from Stanford she also was awarded both a Rhodes and a Marshall Scholarship. She chose the Rhodes Scholarship, becoming its first openly lesbian winner, and went on to earn a Doctorate of Political Science from Oxford University. Her thesis is titled “HIV/AIDS and Health Care Reform in British and American Prisons.”

Today, with her growing fan base and dedication to LGBTQ+ equality, she is certainly influencing American culture and public policy. I hope she also influences younger LGBTQ+ individuals in her growing audience to participate in individual and team sports because she’s certainly knowledgeable, she has something to say worth considering, she has America’s ear and people are listening to her.