Growing Support for Out High School Basketball Player Omitted From Yearbook

Even a late-night network TV comic has added his voice in support of the young man from Kentucky, whose name and photograph didn't appear in the senior yearbook alongside those of his teammates.

Fallout continues in the rural town of Betsy Lane, Ky., where a basketball player won the support of his teammates when he came out as gay but apparently didn’t merit a mention alongside them in their high school yearbook.

As our sibling publication Pride reported, Dalton Maldonado spoke on YouTube and on Facebook about being snubbed, and he says the school attempted to cover up its involvement. Read Pride's story here.

“I flipped right to the sports basketball page, only to find my senior basketball picture missing … which devastated me,” Maldonado wrote.

Principal Cassandra Akers and her staff have refused to answer questions about the omission or dispute Maldonado’s claims, supported by witnesses, that he was the target of antigay harassment, Outsports reports.

Earlier this year, Maldonado came out to teammates after a disappointing defeat by a rival; he had been taunted by the opposing team. Members of the other team even chased him in a car until his teammates came to his defense, Outsports notes.

Also rising to support him is late-night TV comic James Corden. Watch the clip from CBS’s Late Late Show below.