This is a nicely written article about the troubles Ryan O'Callaghan had with his sexuality before and during his time with the league. It's interesting, and heartening, to see that most of the important people he dealt with were accommodating and that the fear about what would happen turned out to be much worse than the reality.
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Kudos to Scott Pioli too.
We were shocked and really bummed, and made sure he knew none of us would ever think differently of him. But that sure made us think a lot about the way the locker room and our chatter was, and how he could have easily been scared about what the reaction would be. I'm just grateful he finally opened up to us, and ever since we've all been able to talk seriously about it at times, but also have some lighthearted jokes about it with him too.
For example, now he says he regrets not coming out sooner, bc then maybe he could have helped us improve our hopeless fashion sense as stupid college kids. Lol
We were shocked and really bummed, and made sure he knew none of us would ever think differently of him. But that sure made us think a lot about the way the locker room and our chatter was, and how he could have easily been scared about what the reaction would be. I'm just grateful he finally opened up to us, and ever since we've all been able to talk seriously about it at times, but also have some lighthearted jokes about it with him too.
For example, now he says he regrets not coming out sooner, bc then maybe he could have helped us improve our hopeless fashion sense as stupid college kids. Lol
One of my good friends from HS came out as bisexual (now openly gay) a few years after we graduated. He was worried that I would be unaccepting because for most of HS he'd heard the litany of sophomoric crap from me on the subject, words that are now unacceptable used as insults, etc etc. That concern did more to change my attitude on the subject than anything before or since. It was an unfounded fear, but he didn't know that.