Since joining the Harvard men’s swim team in the fall of 2015, Schuyler Bailar has been blazing the trail as the first openly transgender Division 1 NCAA Swimmer. Bailar, a butterflier and breaststroker for the Crimson, is the first openly transgender athlete in any men’s Division 1 sport. Tomorrow, April 10th, Bailar will be profiled on 60 Minutes, which will be shown on the CBS Televsion Network. A preview of the segment can be found here.
In the interview, Bailar discusses his decision to swim for the men’s team and why that was the right choice. At first, he considered competing on the women’s team while living as a man during his classes and day-to-day life on campus. However, Bailar decided it was more important to live his life in a way that made him happy, even if that meant overcoming challenges in the athletic aspect of his life.
Both the Harvard women’s coach, Stephanie Morawski, and the men’s coach, Kevin Tyrrell, were supportive of Bailar’s decision. Morawski had recruited him to the women’s team, but was encouraging when it came to making the decision to swim on the men’s team. Bailar was welcomed to the men’s team by Tyrrell.
Bailar’s best swims have been in the 100 and 200 breaststroke events. His season best times in both events were set in Harvard’s tri-meet with Yale and Princeton. There, he swam a 59.46 in the 100 and a 2:11.43 in the 200. He also swam a best of 56.26 in the 100 fly at the Harvard vs. Bryant meet.
Schuyler has an amazing story. Schuyler, you are an incredible person. Never let anyone bring you down.
Congrats to Schuyler. I followed his season at Harvard and thought it was great that Harvard was putting him in relays at duel meets.
I also noticed he swam a 58.76 in a relay which would rank him faster than about half of all D1 breast stroke swimmers this year. Go Schuyler!
58.76 on a relay is faster than about half of all D1 breaststrokers? Wha?