Wade Davis on coming out as gay: 'People are loving you for you, not who you love'
theGRIO REPORT - In the last 72 hours, Wade Davis has gone from an anonymous former professional football player to the latest face of social change and equality...
Davis moved to Denver when his mother remarried and he lived there until 2004, when he moved to New York. Initially, when he slowly came out to family members and friends, there was no immediate relief or weight lifted off of his shoulders.
Davis admitted that he was uncomfortable at first: “It was just hard for me to verbalize those words; to say the words ‘I’m Gay.’” It was, ironically, through sports that he was able to finally reach his comfort zone.
He would work out at his local gym and had joined a basketball league, but that fear that he had as a professional athlete kept him from disclosing his sexuality, even to the men in a pick-up league.
“I used to play in a couple of straight leagues,” Davis said. “I wasn’t able to tell these guys that I was gay because I had trained myself for so long to live this lie that you just can’t turn it off. You almost have to reprogram yourself.”
“It was a gradual stage where I had to learn to love myself and understand myself more to where maybe I tell this one person this month and every two or three months I tell a few more. It’s just a gradual process.”
Davis still plays football, but now it is just recreationally, playing flag football with the New York Gay Football League. His team, the New York Warriors, won three straight championships and Davis had finally been able to find a comfort zone with both his athletic persona and his personal life.
“When I joined the New York Gay Flag Football League, I started to find a sense of family and community that helps me kind of own my gayness,” he said. “It allows me to not be afraid to come out and tell people that I’m a gay man who is attracted to other men and who used to play in the NFL.”
In terms of where he sees the potential of there being an openly gay player in the NFL, Davis said that he could see that happening within three to six years. However, it likely would not be a currently active player and certainly not a superstar.
“I think there are two options,” Davis said. “The first will be there’s a college player that is openly gay that will just be so talented that he’ll get drafted. His teammates will automatically know he’s gay and his coaches will have the conversation beforehand to let them know that any kind of homophobia will not be accepted.”
“The other way it’ll happen is that as our country keeps evolving, as conversation happen in locker rooms and front offices, there will be an increase in people saying that they’re for marriage equality and players saying they have no problem playing with a homosexual teammate. One of those two things will happen, but I don’t think it will happen tomorrow.”
Davis, an avid supporter of Barack Obama, called the president’s support of marriage equality one of the “greatest moments of (his) life.” He said that he could tell that the president took time to evolve on the issue and sees the potential for a change in mindset to occur in other parts of life, including professional sports.
“I would love to be the catalyst for a player to come out, but I think it’ll take a lot of in-house conversation and one of the team leaders to say that they are for it,” Davis said. “Imagine if Tom Brady said tomorrow that he was ok with having a gay teammate. It’s going to take a concerted effort.”
Follow Wade Davis on Twitter @Wade_Davis28
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