With all the former, and current, NFL players saying that
they’d be fine with an openly gay teammate, you know that it’s going to happen,
sooner rather than later. But, what if, instead of a current player coming out,
a future player, who’s already out, goes into the NFL?
Well, that could happen if Alan Gendreau, a former kicker,
and leading scorer in Sun Belt Conference history, for Middle Tennessee State,
gets his way; he wants a shot at an NFL team and he’s already out. But, as I’ve
said time and again, because he’s gay isn’t why he wants to join the NFL; he
doesn’t want to be the first gay player, he just wants to play.
“I’m a kicker that happens to be gay. It’s a part of who I am, and not everything I am. I just want to be known as a normal kicker.”
Gendreau has been openly gay since high school and says he
never hid his sexual orientation at Middle Tennessee State. In fact, as a
freshman, he told his story to Outsports, though, to be fair, he did so anonymously,
concerned about the effect the disclosure would have on his family and afraid
that it might have hurt his NFL chances.
“My whole thing in this is just to help anybody who is struggling with coming out. I want people to know that I didn’t have a problem with it, and they shouldn’t, either.”
In his first two years on his college team, Gendreau made 28
of 34 field-goal attempts, the longest from 55 yards. As a sophomore, he was
one of 20 semifinalists for the Lou Groza Award, given to college football’s
top kicker. But then, as a senior, he missed four of his first five kicks for a
team that went 2-10 and interest in his abilities kind of vanished.
“I took that as my sign to hang it up.”
After college, Gendreau moved to Washington and began
working in real estate, though when he coached at a football camp last summer,
other coaches started encouraging him to pursue a career in the NFL. He decided
that he might be ready for the NFL and the NFL might be ready for him.
“If that were to happen, I’d love to be that role model to anybody struggling. I know that’s a lot of pressure, but that’s the life of a kicker.”
Let’s hope he gets that wish, and gets to be that role
model, and gets to be that player. It is, after all, about time.
I've always felt for the kickers - the pressure they are under and the whole game stops to see what they do.
ReplyDeleteKEWL! I would so hit that!
ReplyDeleteHopefully he'll get with a team that needs a kicker. Too bad my Raiders are married to Janikowski's left leg and his off-field issues.
ReplyDelete