Ann Killion: Gay ex-player is finally able to be himself
Ryan O’Callaghan certainly isn’t the only one who figured out that the best way to survive was to hide behind enemy lines. To don the uniform and mannerisms of the opposition and try to blend in.
That’s what O’Callaghan did for years. This week, in a compelling story at Outsports.com, the former Cal football player, who went on to an NFL career, told his story of being a gay man in football.
“No one is going to assume the big football player is gay,” he told the website. “It’s why a
football team is such a good place to hide.”
O’Callaghan’s story is one of a young man overcoming despair to live an authentic life and provide hope for others. It’s a story worth celebrating this Pride week.
Growing up a few hours from San Francisco in Redding, O’Callaghan felt no hope of being accepted for who he is. As detailed in the story, he became convinced he would have to kill himself. But only once he was done with football, which was his “beard” for so many years. A macho accessory, behind which he believed he could hide his sexuality.
“I can definitely sympathize with how he felt, that he could not come out in our community,” said soccer star Megan Rapinoe, who also grew up in Redding and who came out several years ago. “We’re from a very conservative area.
“I think it’s easier to accept me, a female soccer player, than Ryan, a star football player who was living the small-town fairy tale.”
That fairy tale included a scholarship to play football at Cal. He blocked for quarterback Aaron Rodgers on some of the Bears’ best teams. But even there, at that bastion of liberalism and lifestyle acceptance, O’Callaghan still felt completely alone and full of despair.
In an interview with The Chronicle, he said was too caught up in his own concerns to notice if there were others like him. And he made a point of avoiding any places where he would interact with other gay men, like the Castro.
“I avoided all those things like the plague, man,” O’Callaghan told The Chronicle.
Instead, he adapted to the world of football. In high school, O’Callaghan — eventually 6foot-7 and 330 pounds — grew larger than all his peers, so football was a natural sport for him. Though he never really loved the sport, he adopted a football persona, becoming something of a bully.
Yet every time the bully heard a peer use the word “fag,” he flinched.
“When I read his story, I had to look at all the stupid things I did at 17,” said John Ryan, a family friend and high school teammate of O’Callaghan’s. “I wish I had been more openminded as a high school kid. I wish I were a better friend.”
O’Callaghan adopted football mannerisms. He chewed tobacco. He tried to become, in his words, “the sloppy straight guy.” And then he was drafted by the New England Patriots in the fifth round of the 2006 draft. His beard was now ZZ Top worthy, fixed firmly in place.
O’Callaghan became fully committed to football for six NFL seasons, distracting himself from his own discomfort. But injuries plagued him. After the Patriots cut him, he was picked up by Kansas City. He suffered more injuries, went on injured reserve and became addicted to pain killers. It was a way of fulfilling his suicide wish, in slow motion.
As detailed by Outsports. com, it was the Chiefs’ trainer, David Price, who saw O’Callaghan’s problem with pain pills. He put O’Callaghan in touch with Susan Wilson, a clinical psychologist. She essentially saved his life. He confided in her his deepest secret as well as his suicide plans. She told him his plan was a mistake, that he should come out to people and see how it went before doing something so radical.
Not surprisingly, his family and friends accepted him. And O’Callaghan now lives an open life.
From this vantage point, it seems surprising that a young man born in Northern California in the late 20th century could feel such despair. But as O’Callaghan points out, the world has changed a lot in just the past 10 years.
And it would be naive to think the problem is solved because of new societal acceptance. Golden State Warriors President Rick Welts, who made front page news when he came out in 2011, has new concerns. He recently met with an executive from GLAAD, an organization that advocates for LGBTQ issues. She told him that youth suicides have spiked recently.
It made Welts recall the words of President Barack Obama last June, at his final White House Pride celebration, which Welts and his partner attended between NBA Finals games.
“History doesn’t just travel forward, it can go backward if we don’t work hard,” Obama said that day. “So we cannot be complacent.”
“It was,” Welts recalled, “a warning for anyone who thinks the battle is over and won.”
It’s far from over in professional sports, which, as O’Callaghan found, remains so aggressively heterosexual that it is still the perfect place to hide.
But O’Callaghan, in his media blitz this week, said several times that he thinks a gay player would be accepted in today’s NFL. Only Michael Sam, who was drafted by the St. Louis Rams but cut in the preseason (he also spent time on the Cowboys’ practice squad), has come out while playing. The others are still hiding behind enemy lines.
“I think there are enough guys who would rally around him,” O’Callaghan said on Dan Patrick’s radio show. “There are enough guys in every locker room who truly understand and know that it’s not a choice.”
And now there’s Ryan O’Callaghan, to stand as an example. And a message of hope.
“I’m so happy for him,” said Rapinoe. “No one should have to live like that.”
“I know there are a lot of LBGT kids who feel they don’t have a champion,” said Ryan, his childhood friend. “He’s a hell of a champion.”
“When I read his story, I had to look at all the stupid things I did at 17. I wish I had been more open-minded as a high school kid. I wish I were a better friend.” John Ryan, high school friend and teammate of Ryan O’Callaghan