‘Now I Get to Be Like Everybody Else’

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HANOVER, N.H. – Margarita Monday at Molly’s on Main Street.

Those sweet, lime-colored, tequila-drenched drinks are the overwhelming hydration choice of this modest gathering of Dartmouth College lacrosse players.

It’s all legal. The waitress duly carded all four team members, as well as their eight companions, on this evening in late April. There’s a predictable run on buffalo chicken, rib-eye steaks and Caesar salads, loud talk and that typically bawdy collegiate humor.

Andrew Goldstein, leaning back in a commanding corner seat, surveys the scene and smiles. Even though he has a test tomorrow on the daunting structure of cells, he is happy to be here, hanging with his teammates. The All-American goalie, the guy everyone calls “Goldie,” fits right in.

The fact that he’s publicly gay – an unprecedented turn of events in its own way – doesn’t seem to matter. Goldstein, who graduates in two weeks, routinely faced blurring, hard rubber balls that approached 100 miles an hour during his distinguished four-year collegiate career. And yet, his courage cannot be measured by the 110 saves he recorded this season.