Parenting & Family Quote by Greg Louganis

Louganis is doing two things at once: naming a familiar wound and reclaiming a traditionally hostile arena as a tool for repair. The first half lands with the blunt clarity of lived experience: when you suspect you are gay as a kid, you become a target before you even have language for yourself. “Different” isn’t an identity here so much as a social diagnosis, delivered by peers through teasing. The phrase “can really destroy your self-esteem” is intentionally plain, almost understated, which makes it harder to wave away as melodrama. He’s not asking for pity; he’s describing a mechanism.

Then comes the pivot: “But sports can be great for building self-esteem.” That “but” is the hinge and the provocation. In a culture where sports have often functioned as a policing apparatus for masculinity, Louganis offers them as a counter-programming space. The subtext is that self-esteem isn’t built through inspirational slogans; it’s built through competence, discipline, and belonging - the concrete feedback loop of practice, improvement, team structure, and public achievement.

Context sharpens the stakes. Louganis isn’t a theorist making a case for inclusive recreation; he’s one of the most decorated divers in history, a man whose career unfolded in an era when being openly gay in elite sports invited suspicion, silence, or outright punishment. He’s implicitly arguing for access: keep queer kids in the game, not because sports are magically pure, but because they can provide the kind of earned confidence that bullying tries to steal.