Renowned referee a sounding board for young gay players
PARIS — For rugby referee extraordinaire Nigel Owens, it’s no real surprise so few others in professional sports have followed his lead and come out as gay.
His informed guess: the traditionally macho worlds of rugby and football are ready to accept gay stars. but it is young athletes themselves, likely still struggling against their sexual identity, who are not. Are there lots in the closet? “Definitely,” he says. “I know there are.” Owens has seen first-hand how dark that place can be.
Early one April morning 19 years ago, the-then deeply unhappy young man who wanted so desperately not to be gay, who suffered from bulimia and became hooked on steroids, slipped out of his parents’ house, climbed the mountain that overlooks his village in Wales and tried to kill himself with pills and whisky.
“Funnily enough,” he says, the overdose saved him by putting him in a coma.
“If I hadn’t done that,” he explains matter-of-factly, “I would no doubt have pulled the trigger” of his loaded shotgun.
Now an entertaining, bulldog-fit and disarmingly honest 43-year-old, Owens says young rugby players, some of them turning pro, seek him out for advice, confiding, “‘I think I’m gay, Nigel, you know? How does it happen? How did I become like this? Or what do I do?’ ”
Some subsequently clam up; he may not hear from them again for months, even years.
Respected for his adroit, no-nonsense management of big matches and big men, and celebrated for scolding players, Owens shot up the ranks in the past decade to become one of the most experienced international referees in rugby history, his 56 test matches (and counting) more than any other Welshman.
He likes to wear the same “lucky” pants and listen to the same Welsh hymn before every game. This weekend, he will run the touchline as a Six Nations assistant referee during Ireland vs. France in Dublin.
Top referees’ games are generally televised live. Having his decisions replayed and picked apart by TV pundits every week has helped make him philosophical.
“Pressure on referees now is massive,” he says. “People are less forgiving.”
“You can’t go into refereeing to be liked,” he said.