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I’m a gay high school soccer coach in rural America. I was afraid to be visible. Not anymore. Couper Gunn came out as a gay college soccer player, but he withdrew as a coach. After leading his state to a win, he won’t hide now. Couper Gunn August 12, 2026, 8:40 am PDT Couper Gunn is an award-winning, champion high school soccer coach in New Hampshire. | Photo courtesy of Couper Gunn I often tell my players that, over the course of a season, a number of questions will be asked of them as individuals and collectively as a team. These questions could be coming up against a team that sits deep, looking to defend for 90 minutes. It could be a team with a potent offense that requires us to do some defending of our own. It could be a team with one highly talented player who requires our special attention. Whatever that “question” is, I tell them it must be answered. I tell them that this is necessary to achieve our goals. And I tell them to be brave, to know and trust in who they are and how we play. Get off the sidelines and into the game Our weekly newsletter is packed with everything from locker room chatter to pressing LGBTQ sports issues. Over the last two years though, I have not been following my own advice. Bravery has escaped me. I love where I live and where I work. There are many stereotypes about what it’s like to live as a gay person in somewhere described as “rural America.” Some things are true. I’ve had my fair share of difficulties in the opening half of my 20s, some of which were unfortunately due in part to my sexuality. But it is only in the last couple of years that I have felt my bravery waning, my comfortability with visibility as a gay man and a gay coach diminish. Finding a way back to visibility as an out gay coach Why? I don’t have a clear answer. That second refrain I constantly make to my players that I have failed to do myself: Solve the problems presented to you, even if they are not of your own making. What needs to happen if your teammate loses possession. Do you stand there with your arms thrown up in frustration? Or do you work twice as hard to win it back? When I ask for a player to bring me the bib bag, do you turn around and yell for someone to get the bib bag, repeating what I said? Or do you go get the bib back yourself even though I did not explicitly ask you? There are larger questions there: Why is the ball being turned over in a bad area? Why is the bib bag not where it should be? We might not know or be able to answer those questions at that moment. But there is a problem to fix and it must be done then and there. That is what I try to instill in my players. And I ignored my own advice. Though I may not know the answer to my question about my withdrawal as a gay high school soccer coach from elevated visibility, it took representing the state of New Hampshire as a head coach to figure out a new path. The Lions Cup tournament is a game that occurs every year between the best 20 high school players from Vermont and New Hampshire. The coaches each year of the New Hampshire team are those coaches who were named Coach of the Year for the previous season and I, thanks to my incredibly talented players and top level coaching staff, earned that honor. Outside of a state final, this is certainly the highest profile game I had ever coached, and I found the visibility that would come with that to be intimidating for many reasons. Some of this had to do with my sexuality. What if the players find out I’m gay, and that somehow undermines our team chemistry? What about the parents? And then, what if we lose? As is often the case, my fears were overblown. Some of these questions did not need answers. We won the game, 5-1. The brilliant players representing New Hampshire in that game shined. Feeling that trophy in my hands after the match is one of the greatest feelings I’ve ever had as a player or as a coach. No one cared that I was gay, or that I had never coached that high a level. In the end, that visibility cost me nothing. Yet I think about that kid – in New Hampshire, Vermont or wherever – who sees an out gay, that kid I was when I played high school soccer. It’s for that kid – I’m making a shift. This visibility had been the ethos of my playing and coaching career, and it has been soothing to find myself settling into it once again. Though I do not have a clear answer for my original question, I do have one that I can answer in this moment with absolute conviction. That question is: Where to now? This is one I can answer, as the response has not changed since the day I came out: Forward. 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