RC Legion: Book Launch – Betty Baxter ‘Outspoken’

Doors 6:30pm. Includes live music, author reading and Q&A, book signing, cash bar. Come celebrate! All are welcome!

An Olympian recounts her experiences as a young gay athlete and coach in the 70s and 80s, turning discrimination into celebration. When Betty Baxter was hired to coach the Canadian women’s volleyball team in 1980, she was met with a media frenzy as the first woman in the position. Then her career was cut short—Baxter was fired in January 1982 and tossed from volleyball at age twenty-nine because of rumours about her sexual orientation.

Outspoken: A Journey from Olympic Athlete to Activist exposes the persistent flaws of elite sport in Canada. It lays bare a system so resistant to change that forty years later the same issues, particularly for women, remain under scrutiny. But it also highlights the resilience and perseverance required of marginalized athletes to survive. Most of all, it champions the capacity to succeed.