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Volleyballer declares he's gay by playing Hangman
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College athlete in California finds one strategy does not fit all for telling family, friends and teammates.

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Outsports.com

A few months ago, a story was published in my local newspaper, the Santa Cruz Sentinel, about me, a University of California, Santa Cruz, athlete who had come out to his team and was able to overcome homophobic taunts with the support of his teammates. The article, reprinted on Outsports, painted a picturesque coming out tale that all of the local Santa Cruzans could swallow with their morning coffee.

All of the responses my family and I got from friends and members of the community were overwhelmingly positive. While the article makes it sound like I confidently strode into the athletic department like a fearless warrior to declare my sexual orientation, it was actually a much more nerve-racking, drawn-out process.

Brice Dahlmeier Photo courtesy of Wyatt Hull photography

I knew I was gay probably when I was in the sixth grade. To some people’s amazement, I did actually know what it meant to be gay. I also understood from other kids using ‘gay’ as an insult, that it was a bad thing. Throughout junior high and high school in Northern California I did my best to project a masculine demeanor, going as far as having a girl friend in high school for six months -- talk about awkward. Even though I wasn’t exactly happy with how I was living my life, I wasn’t about to become the first openly gay guy at my high school. I tried to just ignore this fact about my life by focusing on getting good grades, enjoying my nonsexual relationships and volleyball.

Volleyball is traditionally perceived as a women’s sport (just look at how many collegiate women’s volleyball teams there are compared to men’s teams) and my club team did not hesitate to embrace the more feminine aspects of the sport.

While most of the teams we competed against were mainly concerned with winning, my club -- Bear Volleyball -- was mainly concerned with having fun at all costs. Our typical pregame warm up would consist of blasting some obnoxious song (something by Aqua wasn’t uncommon) on our boombox and dancing. Furthermore, we decorated our shoes using multicolored Sharpies; one of my teammates wore different colored headbands with his long curly mullet. We quickly became well known in the NorCal tournaments for our eccentric style -- and we were pretty good too. I couldn’t help but feel like other players -- probably some of who were gay -- were jealous that our team was so oblivious to the concept of hegemonic masculinity. So, I was able to act “gay” at times and not have to be scrutinized or criticized as actually being homosexual; as far as they knew I was just playing along.

Overall, my high school experience wasn’t so bad. I ended up following my coach to UC-Santa Cruz, hoping to find a similar environment where I could be myself. I remember my first exposure to the college world.

Before school started the UCSC men’s volleyball team had to show up for the girl’s games to help out with stats. I was introduced to one of the starters and we talked while watching the game. In about five minutes the question came up, “So how many times you been laid?” I had never been confronted so abruptly about my sexual life. My stomach jumped up into my mouth and I shamefully held up my hand in the shape of a zero. “What?” he exclaimed in disbelief. “Are you gay?” Bah! I scoffed. What an absurd idea I thought to myself. Meanwhile, it was as if my body knew the truth as my organs wrenched in discomfort. And so I was introduced to the more common arena of sports. I later found out that many of my teammates had gay friends, but then again they didn’t have to share a locker room or a bed with these gay friends. Quite simply, I was terrified of these guys.

My freshman year I was one of four guys on my dorm floor, living with about 18 women. It was a straight guy’s dream. While I had successfully avoided almost all possible sexual situations with women in high school, it was becoming increasingly difficult. These girls were crafty, and a few times I found myself suddenly alone with one of them in their rooms. I thought at those moments, “this is an opportunity to prove to yourself that you are in fact straight.” Considering, I was, in fact, very much not heterosexual, these situations just ended up being incredibly awkward. A combination of these sexual failures and an overwhelming feeling that I was going to one day find myself an old man with a wife and kids, led me to finally say to myself, “I’m gay.”

It wasn’t until February of my sophomore year that I finally came out to Gaby, one of my closest friends and housemate. She was blown away. Like most of my female friends, she just figured I was asexual. She explained, “I finally know how to act around you … I could never quite figure out where you were coming from.”

I wanted to come out to the rest of my housemates but wanted to avoid the super intense serious talk that started: “Guys, I have something I want to tell you …” My friend suggested that I make it a game. And so my next two housemates found out via Hangman. They had gotten down to “B-R-I-C-E I-S G-A _.” My housemate was just about to pee her pants while they were guessing, “Brice is gax! … No, Brice is gat? ... hmm.” Meanwhile I was about to have a heart attack. Finally, Gaby says “It’s a synonym for happy.” Perhaps out of fear that I would be thoroughly insulted, my other housemate cautiously whispered, “Brice is Gay?” Meanwhile, Maggie, my other housemate, was thoroughly confused. Only after several declarations, of “Yes, I am actually gay. No really! I’m gay” did they understand what was going on.

For my next friend, we set up a scavenger hunt in which the final clue was me saying, “It’s in my vagina!!!” (referencing an Oprah skit on MadTV that we had watched earlier). She searched my pants and found a note that read, “You win! Oh, and by the way, I’m gay.” After my next friend got upset when I told him using charades, I decided that this probably wasn’t the best method after all.

Next on the list was my family. My family is pretty liberal so I wasn’t expecting to be disowned or anything, but it was still really difficult to bring up this issue that we had never before discussed. I first told my brother. We were going out to dinner and I had texted him that I wanted to talk to him about something. Even though I’m really close to my brother and knew that he wouldn’t give a rat’s ass, I was literally shaking when I said, “Well uh, I’m actually gay.” Grinning and slapping his knee, he exclaimed, “I knew it!” I just about melted into the seat as the apprehension left my body.

He then proceeded to tell me how we must have some psychic connection because he knew that I was going to tell him this precise bit of information when he read my text. Over dinner we brainstormed ideas of how to come out to my parents. My favorite was to jump out of my dad’s birthday cake in a rainbow colored Speedo … “Surpriiiiise!” After I came out to my mom -- apparently she had known for years -- I shared this idea with her and she told me, “Brice I love you, but if you kill my husband in shock, I will never forgive you.” I agreed.

Up to this point in my life, I didn’t know my dad very well. I was sure he would be accepting, but I had never opened up to him about anything. It wasn’t until the traumatic episode of my other male housemate turning suicidal and blaming my other housemates and I for abandoning him that he said, “Brice, I know I’m not very good at this type of thing, but if you ever want to talk about what happened with [crazy housemate] I’m here.” I eventually was able to tell my dad I was gay over a dish of gelato. He responded, “Well, thanks for telling me.” I tried to mirror his nonchalant outward appearance, but my insides were exploding with all kinds of interesting feelings (I’m sure most gay people know this feeling).