Grand Valley joins You Can Play campaign

Grand Valley is the first NCAA Division II institution to join the You Can Play campaign, a national effort seeking to change locker room culture and support all athletes, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.

A video featuring Laker student-athletes and Tim Selgo, director of athletics, was posted on the You Can Play Facebook page. View it by clicking here.

In the video, Lakers from many different sports send the message “If you can shoot (swing, race or swim), you can play.”

Colette Seguin Beighley, director of the LGBT Resource Center, said the vision for the project lies with Joe Miller, who had an undergraduate fellowship at the center through NASPA. Miller was a sports leadership major who produced the video with help from Mark Switzer, a film and video graduate.

Selgo said coaches and student-athletes were enthusiastic about the project.

Miller is now pursuing a master’s degree in education, with an emphasis on college student affairs leadership. During his internship with the resource center, one of his goals was to connect LGBT issues with sports.

“I heard of You Can Play and I thought that it would be awesome to bring this message that at Grand Valley we support and affirm our lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender student-athletes,” Miller said. “I pitched the idea to student-athletes at their advisory committee and the response, plus from athletic administration, was great!”