At 73, this lesbian sports icon finally got to marry the love of her life
Helen Carroll and Kelly Burnette married one another in Palo Alto, a fitting next step for these two women in love. Yes, Love Wins. The post At 73, this lesbian sports icon finally got to marry the love of her life appeared first on Outsports.
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Helen Carroll has been advocating for LGBTQ equality most of her adult life, as both a national-champion coach and an activist.
Now she has been able to benefit from those decades of work for equality in a way she never had before.
Carroll has married her longtime girlfriend, Kelly Burnette, entering into marriage for the first time at age 73.
“I’ve watched marriage rights move through the decades,” Carroll told Outsports. She’s been in California — and at the National Center for Lesbian Rights — as the state codified same-sex marriage, then took it away with Prop 8. She was even in the San Francisco Bay Area when then-Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered city clerks to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in 2004 — only to have the courts declare those marriages void.
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In 2015, with their ruling on Obergefell v Hodges, the United States Supreme Court made same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states.
Given what they’ve both watched transpire in California and across the country, it was particularly poignant that the wedding cake cut by Carroll and Burnette and enjoyed by guests would include two words that became synonymous with the push for marriage equality: Love Wins.
Now Carroll, who has twins from a previous domestic partnership, has tied the knot in the eyes of the law for the very first time.
“This is like a whole new chapter of life that’s exciting,” she said. “I’m happy to get older. Every decade I’ve gotten older I’ve loved. This decade from 70 to 80 has already been great. And my 80s with Kelly will be great too.”
Carroll was the head women’s basketball coach at UNC-Asheville, which she guided to the 1984 NAIA national championship in her third and final season as head coach. That 1983-84 team finished with a 32-5 record, the best in the school’s history, ending her coaching career with an impressive record of 64-32.
She went on to become the athletic director at Mills College, and then sports director for NCLR. She was the keynote speaker at the very first event Outsports held, in Los Angeles around 2002. Along with Pat Griffin and Sue Rankin, Carroll was recently inducted into the LGBTQ Sports Hall of Fame.
Kelly Burnette was an athlete herself, rowing at UCLA in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The two women still stay active, with Burnette hitting the rowing machine on a regular basis and Carroll involved with pickleball. Always looking to improve her community, Carroll is now working with the Mountain View City Council to build more pickleball courts.
We’re so thrilled to see these two happy and together, and we wish Helen and Kelly years of joy and support together.
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The post At 73, this lesbian sports icon finally got to marry the love of her life appeared first on Outsports.
