We at Outsports have been saying it for years: Football players and coaches are now ready to accept gay athletes. We have seen it numerous times this year as gay football players in high school and college come out publicly.
The latest is Scott Frantz, the Kansas State Wildcats lineman who came out publicly as gay this week and talked about the acceptance he has received from his teammates. In Kansas. Head coach Bill Snyder, at 77 years old, also publicly offered his support of Frantz.
It’s not fair to gay football players to continue to talk about their sport as though it’s rife with rejection of gay people. It is not. We must change the dialogue about football to reflect the fact that many gay football players will be accepted for who they are, whether they are Michael Sam at Missouri or Austin Hodges at a Texas high school.
We also need to stop saying things like “they might be accepted in San Francisco, but not the rest of the country.” Rather, it’s in the Plain States, Midwest and other “Red” places of the country where gay football players are coming out to acceptance.
