Former Stanford champion swimmer Abrahm DeVine, who September 29 claimed homophobia got him kicked off the team, has now confessed that he broke the National Team’s Honor Code by drinking alcohol. That move resulted in his expulsion.
DeVine had posted an Instagram post accusing his former coaches of homophobia, and alleging that he was not asked back for post-graduate professional swim training because he had come out as gay. Now, in an interview with The Standford Daily, DeVine has amended his story.
Related: College swimming champ says he was kicked off team for being gay
“I think that I wrote this entire Instagram post where every sentence is very important,” DeVine said, “but the only one that people are really focusing on is me calling out Stanford, and that makes my message sound very aggressive and that I’m out for blood, when in reality that is not what I wanted at all. I’m here to just say this is a systemic issue. Between coaches and other athletes, I feel there is so much ignorance to what it means to be gay in a sports world that my character is not recognized. Although I feel I can participate by being silent and non-disruptive, I feel that my identity as a gay man is incompatible with the swimming world.”
DeVine also confessed in the same interview that he violated the National Team Honor Code by drinking at a Team USA swim meet, an action that resulted in his barring from joining the post-graduate training program. He also says that he did not intend his Instagram post as an allegation. Rather, he intended to call out systemic homophobia working against queer athletes. DeVine’s former coaches have denied any feelings of homophobia.
thomes
What a pretentious asshole. And one that doesn’t accept any responsibility or blame. His original post absolutely said that he was removed off the team for homophobia.
rustyiam
Where are all the “ believe all accusers” idiots???
Cam
Interesting that when the perpetrator is a right wing bigot like George Bush or Tucker Carlson you not only excuse them, but call LGBT people “Bullies” and “Intolerant” for calling them out.
Yet you take absolute GLEE in attacking any LGBT person who lies.
We get it, you’re a right wing troll here to attack LGBT people.
Brian
It’s the living version of a Queerty article. Exaggerate or flat out lie about what really happened so you can be the victim, and make whatever valid point you might actually have vanish, because once your BS is exposed (in Queerty’s case it’s the lying headlines), nobody is gonna believe you on the rest, even if it’s true.
Cam
So why are you here?
Brian
To watch you rack up those big ShareBlue bucks 2 cents at a time.
Cam
@Brian
Thanks for exposing your Republican sympathies.
Bob LaBlah
@Brian…..” nobody is gonna believe you on the rest, even if it’s true.”
Listen to the pot call the kettle black. You know, Brian, it seems like it was only yesterday when you tried to deny what Divine walked up behind that dog on that dirty, filthy street in the movie Pink Flamingos and ate. Your defiant response to that person was “you obviously didn’t see the movie”. Well, believe it or not thats just what Divine, your idol, did do. You are a weird person whom I bet is into that type of filth. You really do sound the type.
Brian
You really think I was denying that the most famous scene in all of John Waters’ movies didn’t happen? Wow, you’re dumber than I thought.
What I was responding to was someone saying that Pink Flamingos was about scat. Which, anyone who has seen the movie would know isn’t the case.
Cam
What a pretentious lying dick.
JaredMacBride
You take absolute GLEE in attacking any LGBT person who lies.
We get it, you’re a right wing troll here to attack LGBT people.
rustyiam
@ Jared lol!
Cam
Except my comment is evidence based, and I aimed it at the actual topic of the post….you know, rather than using the post to bitch about people who suggest that rape victims being believed.
Interesting you seem to purposely want to miss that obvious difference.
truthseeker
Cam also previously said that if women ever get the ability to determine if their baby is gay, they should be allowed to abort it.
Cam doesn’t sound LGBT friendly if he said gays should be aborted.
Cam
@truthseeker
I love it, the sheer obsession with me is so bad, that not only are the right wing trolls continually trying to deflect the topic, they have to make up stuff.
So tell me, when you aren’t watching Tucker Carlson and thinking up new ways to harm the LGBTQ community, how often do you look at the multiple pictures of me you apparently have up on your wall?
truthseeker
@Cam
I’m not making up lies. I asked you if women could determine if their baby is gay, should they be allowed to abort it. You said that’s up to the mother to decide.
You have a history of accusing those of which you are guilty of. You accuse people of having multiple screen names (you actually have multiple screen names such as DCguy), you accuse people of being obsessed with you (you are actually obsessed with others when sometimes over 50% of the comments on a single article are from you), you accuse others of being anti LGBT (you have made multiple anti LGBT comments in the past)
DuMaurier
Considering how many authentic victims of homophobia there are, why does it seem like for a while now we’re either not hearing from them, or they’re being overshadowed by jerks like this?
xanadude
Why do guys like this think they can help the cause by lying? It just sets everyone BACK every time!
Cam
They are’t trying to help the cause. He was trying to use the cause to pull his butt out of a bad situation he created.
Aires the Ram
@xanadude: It does set things back. Like Jussie Smollette “helped” “the cause”?
@Cam: Maybe DeVine is a ‘right wing troll’ as you so freely throw around on here, ya think?? Just trying’ to help ya out here.
Cam
@Aires the Ram
Back to this screename I see.
GregoryH
We don’t need fake persecution when too many of us have suffered REAL persecution.
Gandalf The Grey
On a related note. Only in America do you have the ridiculous drinking age of 21. All other western nations the drinking age is 18 or younger and no-one else takes it seriously if you drink underage. I’m sick of the increasing puritanicalism that has been running through our country for a long time now!
henare
umm, actually not at all related … but thanks for sharing.
lauraspencer
As I said last week, there was more to this story. Here’s the “mo”!!!
dhmonarch89
I knew swimmers in college- they were the biggest partyers on the planet- I can’t imagine ANY of them not drinking- after practice, after a meet, etc..
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tedwardTF
This really gets it wrong. As someone who has been following this story since day 1, Devine never denied the major reasons he was not asked back, but rather pointed towards the more pervasive aspects of homophobia that lead to such a decision. This is a young gay man who is fully OUT now. No man has been fully out and reached this level in this sport, in the US, before. We (as in the LGBTQ community) deserve to listen to him as carefully as he is asking us to.