Young and out on the field - An emerging generation of gay athletes in high school and college is changing the rules.

Stories like this one in the LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sp-gay28jul28,1,7710596.story?track=rss&ctrack=2&cset=true) give me great hope for the future. Would that I and others of my generation had had the courage to defy convention and come out of the closets decades earlier. As I posted yesterday, the Advocate is doing it's poll on LGBT heroes, but these kids are perhaps the true heroes who will change the world for future generations of LGBT Americans. Here are some higlights (photos of some of the students are set out above):

Seattle — THE guys in his boat took to calling him "Badger" because of the grimace he wore during races. Part of a junior rowing club that ranked among the fastest in the nation, Lucas Goodman was relentless on the water.It was a different story on land.The teenager with the powerful build and close-set eyes had to be careful.

He hung back ever so slightly when teammates shot the breeze, talking about girls."You get tired of constantly watching what you say, constantly watching how you act," he said. "You're almost paranoid."Goodman felt so uneasy that he finally told the Green Lake Crew his secret: He is gay.The 18-year-old belongs to an emerging generation of openly gay and lesbian athletes on high school and college campuses across the country.

These young men and women are quietly venturing where no pro football or baseball star has gone, challenging the conformist, if not downright homophobic, tradition of the playing fields.Their numbers are difficult to gauge because many confide only in peers. Experts chart the trend anecdotally through athletes who join gay rights clubs at school, e-mail gay rights advocates for advice or announce their sexual orientation on websites such as Facebook and MySpace."This is an issue that's in transition even as we speak," said Jay Coakley, a noted scholar and author on sports culture. "We're looking at how the world is changing."

Not all the stories have happy endings — a high school football player in Northern California tells of being ostracized. But others, such as a Delaware runner and a Georgia hockey player, say they were welcomed by their teams.Sociologists see the openness as a generational shift. Polls suggest a growing percentage of young people have more relaxed views about sexual orientation than their parents did.

I encourage you to read the full story. These young people are remarkable.