David Testo Comes Out

American soccer player, David Testo, formerly with the Columbus Crew, has come out as a gay man, making him the first former MLS player to do so. And, to make things more interesting, and open, his former team, the Montreal Impact, say they knew he was gay when they signed him.

I'm gay, I'm gay. I did not choose. It's just part of who I am. And it has nothing to do with the talent of a soccer player. You can be both an excellent soccer player and being gay....I really regret not having said publicly earlier. I fought with it my whole life, my whole career. Living the life of a professional athlete and being gay is incredibly difficult....It saps all your energy to you, in addition to having to perform, to having to play.

David Testo, who played college soccer for the University of South Carolina, is the first American pro soccer player to come out of the closet. Although he is not with an MLS team right now, he is not retried, and were he to sign with another team, he would be the first openly gay active player in the big five leagues. Still I gather from his interview, David Testo is just happy to be open and honest and out.

It's made me realize that life is so much greater than just soccer and winning and losing. It's about the relationships you build with the people around you. In the end, when you're laying down on your death bed, it's not about how much money you’ve made, how many wins you have, any of that. You want to know those connections you had to people and the difference you made in people's lives...And I actually thank being gay for that. Because, hypothetically speaking, I don't know who I would be if I wasn't, but I know this has pushed me to grow in such a way I never would have dreamed.

Welcome out, David.

Homo HQ is sending you your Official copy of the Gay Agenda, as well as the obligatory Toaster Oven for coming out.

All kidding aside though, this has been quite the fall for people coming out of the closet. Actors like Zachary Quinto and Sean Maher, politicians like Cathleen Galgiani, comics like Oliver Callan, athletes like Jed Hooper and Gus Johnston, reporters like Dan Kloeffler. We're here, we're queer, we're coming out.

via OutSports