Background
Hawkins was born in 1970 and brought up as a devout Southern Baptist in the Saint Louis, Missouri suburb of Kirkwood, Missouri.
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Kyle Hawkins
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He attended Arizona State University where he was the president of a Southern Baptist student group.
Career
In May 2006, he discussed his sexual orientation with several media outlets, including the New York Times and Microsoft and National Broadcasting Company.com after having revealed to the university and team that he was gay. In April 2007, the story again made media waves with an Associated Press story featured on Microsoft and National Broadcasting Company.com. Hawkins was named the first openly gay man coaching an intercollegiate men"s team sport by Entertainment and Sports Programming Network.
After college, he spent time as a high school teacher where he began coaching lacrosse.
While working as a history teacher at Hazelwood Central High School, Hawkins also coached football.
Some of the football players approached with interest in starting a lacrosse team in the offseason. They needed a coach, and Hawkins volunteered to coach the new team at Hazelwood Central.
After fours years at Hazelwood Central, Hawkins was hired as the head coach of the Men"s Lacrosse Club. The Missouri lacrosse team is not a varsity athletic program, but rather a club team affiliated with the school.
Their team has no scholarships, and the decision-making of the team rests largely on the shoulders of the players, not school administrators or coaches.
While coaching the lacrosse club, Hawkins taught history at Hickman High School in Columbia, Missouri. As coach of the Mizzou lacrosse club, Hawkins compiled a 112–49 record in his first eight years of coaching the team, including a conference championship in 2004 that gave the team a berth to the league"s national tournament. In 2004, he was selected as the coach of the year.
On September 28, 2004, Hawkins joined the message boards at OutSports.com and made his first post, a 1,500-word anonymous message, seeking advice and guidance as an in-the-closet college coach.
Immediately after revealing his sexual orientation to his family, he informed the university and the other Missouri coaches. According to Hawkins, the university and his assistant coaches were supportive of his decision.
The discussion continued for almost two years, until, on June 6, 2006, he finally posted under his real name and came out of the closet. The story was picked up by numerous national news agencies.
The story again made headlines on April 7, 2007 when the Associated Press published a story detailing the after-effects of the original story.
From 2008-February 2013 Hawkins was head coach of the Warriors of the Bundesliga Nord (BLN) of the German Lacrosse Association (DLaxV). In 2012, Hawkins was named as the head coach of the German U-19 National Men"s team and program The team competed in the 2012 FIL World Championships, placing 7th.
Hawkins is the new Headcoach of the Warriors since February
2008
Having openly gay coach ‘awkward’ in Missouri
Openly Gay coach faces fire
Mizzou coach comes out
Times are *a"changing
Gay athletes still not accepted
Homosexuality, sports, still *volatile mix
Outsports.com thread in which Hawkins discussed his sexuality before coming out publicly
247Gay.com: Lacrosse’s Sexy Facelift on an Old Traditional Sport.
