His Sexuality Doesn’t Define Him, but It Can Set Him Apart
The hateful email was a surprise, but for Eric Bach, it was not entirely unexpected. The young broadcaster had been anticipating something like it for some time.
Three years earlier, while he was studying journalism at Michigan State University, he had publicly come out as gay in an essay he wrote for Outsports.
At the time of the essay, he braced for a backlash, but nothing materialized. He worked his way up from internships to full-time broadcasting jobs, and while anyone with an internet connection could learn he was gay, nobody asked, and he did not say so again publicly.
He simply showed up to work, pulled his headset over his ears and described the action for the audience at home. Then, a few days after he had called a contentious Division II lacrosse game between Wingate and Lenoir-Rhyne in North Carolina, an email arrived.
