There Are Gay Players Right Now in NFL, NBA

Wade Davis was your typical journeyman NFL player, one of the faceless brutes who don’t get the endorsement deals or the big cars and mansions or the girls. Especially not the girls. Because Wade Davis is gay, and during his brief career in the NFL very few people knew it.

Or did they? In an interview published in the Daily Beast, Davis says he knows of at least three professional athletes in the NFL or NBA — including one starter — currently playing, and, more surprisingly, says most of the players’ teammates know it … and don’t care. Professional sports has often been called the “last glass ceiling,” with good reason: Just five years ago it would have seemed unfathomable that a professional athlete still playing would come out. Now, it seems, if not likely, at least possible. I can remember as a kid in the 70s when running back Dave Kopay came out after his NFL career was over — he was basically shunned from polite society. Today you have more and more “former” athletes — the NBA’s John Amaechi, the NFL’s Esera Tuaolo, diver Greg Louganis — out, but again, only after the playing days are over. Last year we ran an article, in which we found that there is certainly no shortage of gay rumors dogging a bunch of players, current and former (former Eagles QB Jeff Garcia, among others, has been a target of these kinds of allegations for years) long after their playing days are over, but the news that there are active players whose teammates are aware of their sexuality and don’t care is great news indeed. One step more out of the locker, and into the light.