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Former Golden Gopher
comes out
Basketball standout
Zach Puchtel talks about his sexuality and his hopes of tackling
the NFL
By
Cyd Zeigler jr.
Outsports.com
Chances are,
unless you're a Big Ten fan or follow college basketball very
closely, you've never heard of Zach Puchtel. So, it might
surprise you to know that, according to a Minnesota sports blog,
the former basketball standout for the University of Minnesota
came out of the closet months ago. Gopherhole.com today
published
a lengthy interview with Puchtel in which he talks about his
sexuality to the press for the first time.
According to
the interview and a short entry on
a Harvard blog, last spring Puchtel stopped a fashion show
called
Eleganza and announced that he is gay.
"It was a
spectacle because it was on stage, in front of about 3000
people," Puchtel told Gopherhole. "I stopped the show, walked to
the front of the stage, and made my announcement that I was
gay."
What's
surprising is that so few people picked up on it, and it never
got any traction in the press. While John Amaechi had come out,
a former Big Ten player of the week coming out is, indeed, news;
other than Amaechi, to the best of Outsports' knowledge, Puchtel
is only the second Div. 1 male college basketball player ever to
come out in the press.
For the record,
Puchtel does not consider himself gay or straight. As he said in
his blog,
The Search:
"I am sexually
attracted to men and women, and I enjoy being with women in
intimate relationships. I think human beings are beautiful, and
I try not to differentiate due to sex, race or any other minute
detail. We are all humans, we are more than 99.9% similar in
every way, and we all share this life together."
It is an
interesting revelation, and indicative of where sexuality is
headed in our culture. While many people don't want to believe
that bisexuality is real, forcing people to "choose" between
homo- and heterosexuality, more and more young people are
finding themselves attracted to both sexes and allowing
themselves to pursue those attractions. As former Out editor
Brendan Lemon said in our book, The Outsports Revolution:
 "So
much of the attention to gay pro athletes has been, 'who's gay,
who's gay,' and my experience of them has been much less
categorical. … My perception of it, my personal experience of
it, is much more bisexual than what gay sports fans might want
to hear. … For most athletes I know who have been expressive or
open or had experiences sexually, that's not how it works for
them. Of the gay or bisexual pro athletes that I've met or know,
about half of them are married to women or they have
girlfriends. And that's something that neither the gays or the
Middle American sports fan wants to think is true."
Puchtel
revealed that he had shared his sexual attraction with teammate
Spencer Tollackson. While many people assert that a big-time gay
football or basketball player would find little support in his
locker room, Puchtel told Gopherhole, "It didn't change
anything, he was completely supportive." He added that he has
told other former teammates, and that he has found support from
them. "I haven’t told all of them, but those of them that I did
tell were great. It makes me wish I wouldn't have waited so
long; it was really a burden on me. I had a few good friends who
were outlets for me, including Spence, but it was very difficult
not being able to express my self truly.
Puchtel says he
now wants to play in the NFL; he played football in high school
and for Harvard before transferring to Minnesota to play
basketball; the 6-foot-6 power forward certainly has the size to
succeed there.
"I believe that
I was put on this earth to play football," he said in his blog.
"This is my next goal, and I don't see anything that can stop
me."
But does coming
out about his sexual attraction have an impact on his chances of
making an NFL roster?
"Everything you
do affects the future," Puchtel told Gopherhole. "I believe that
they have no choice; it's discrimination if they don’t allow
someone to play because of their sexual preferences."
We'll certainly
be watching closely.
Oct. 23, 2007
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