United Wins Pride In Sport Award

Melbourne United have been honoured and recognised at the 2023 Pride In Sport awards, winning the LGBTQ Positive Media Award.

United won the award for supporting and celebrating Isaac Humphries’ courageous decision to come out as gay, a story that gained international attention and praise.

Pride In Sport said Melbourne was nominated, and eventually won, for “showing their unwavering support of Isaac Humphries in his decision to come out as the only openly gay male professional basketball player in a top tier league”.

The LGBTQ Positive Media Award aims to recognise journalist’s contributions towards LGBTQ sporting related media that promote the inclusion of LGBTQ people within sporting organisations at any level, or across sport more broadly, in a positive frame.

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Upon receiving the award, Melbourne United Chief Marketing Officer Tom van de Vusse spoke about the importance of being able to help Isaac be able to live as his true self, and how crucial recognising moments like this within sport are.

“The team at Melbourne United and I were absolutely privileged to be a part of Isaac’s journey and to be able to tell his story on his special day was incredible,” van de Vusse told the crowd.

“I truly think that we are a stronger sporting organisation and league as a result.

“Over the last few years we’ve really spent a lot of time and effort on developing our culture and one of our values is to be as inclusive as we can.

“To truly live that value throughout this process was really important to us and went a long way in helping support Issac and more broadly the LQBT community.

“We’ve got a lot more to learn and a lot more to do but I really believe that awards like this go a long way to suggest that we are on the right path.”

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="zxx" dir="ltr"><a href="https://t.co/YTMc5bzLKc">pic.twitter.com/YTMc5bzLKc</a></p>&mdash; Isaac Humphries (@IsaacHumphries7) <a href="https://twitter.com/IsaacHumphries7/status/1592644869121404928?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 15, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

United CEO Nick Truelson was also part of a key panel discussion around the role coaches and teams play in providing a safe and welcoming environment.

This allowed Truelson to take the guests through what the past 12 months have been like while outlining how United looks forward to continuing further its education to play an even bigger role in the coming years alongside the NBL and league partner Champion.

“As a club and a code we need to work even closer together to make sure we continue to trail a path towards making a difference and celebrating diversity on and off the court,” Truelson said.

Launched in 2018, the Australian Pride in Sport Awards is the first celebration of its kind dedicated solely to celebrating and acknowledging exceptional efforts in making Australian sport more inclusive of LGBTQ people. It is produced by Pride in Sport, the national not-for-profit sporting inclusion program spearheaded by Australia’s largest LGBTQ health organisation, ACON.