I had prepared myself for this horrible thing and it just wasn’t. It was very heart-warming, and yet in a strange way anticlimactic. I then said, “If you don’t get it, I’m gay.”Ī ton of people were supportive, even people I thought would not be. I admit that’s kind of cryptic, but I wanted it to be kind of funny in a way. Jake Streder (60) is an offensive lineman who also lines up on defense. Two weeks after I came out to my parents, right after my football season had ended, I went on Snapchat and posted the gay flag emoji on my story. The rumors at school settled down for a few days but started again the next week and I decided to attack it head on. But my worries weren’t over despite having the support of my parents and sisters. We told my dad that night and he gave me a hug and said he loved me. When she saw it, she came home right away and all went well.
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I was so anxious hitting send I forgot that she was at a movie with friends. My sisters thought I was joking at first, but then they said, “Did you tell mom?” I said yes, but she hadn’t seen it yet. On that day, at 8:18 pm, I texted my mom and my sisters with a screenshot of a National Coming Out Day picture. Ironically, that coming Thursday was Oct. My friends were being asked, but no one had the guts to ask me yet. I was terrified someone was going to come up to me and ask the question. I knew that regardless of whether or not I was ready, I was either going to have to come out or lie to people and say I was straight. I had obviously trusted the wrong person. It was someone I had trusted with the information that I was gay and knew I was not out.
I started hearing that people outside of the team heard I was gay. I was a freshman high school football player in the closet at Metea Valley High School in Aurora, Illinois, and learned that someone was going to out me. Last year as a freshman in high school, exactly two weeks before the season ended, I was faced with the reality that football might be quitting me. Beth Ebel MadiolĮvery year since first grade I wanted to quit football by the last two weeks of the season. Jake Streder (60) with his Metea Valley High School teammates. Their embrace of me was something I never expected after a year of anxiety and struggle of coming to terms with being gay. I am not the gay guy - I’m just a football player. It was worth it to get to this point with my teammates that I was just one of the guys. Soon it was the whole team and I felt all the fear and anxiety I dealt with in the last year melt away. I was apprehensive and hoped a couple of them wouldn’t mind. I had never had an actual verbal conversation with any of my teammates about me being gay. I figured that just sending a text in our team group chat would be the best way to ask. I get it and understand that with maturity comes the realization that gay isn’t contagious.
There is absolutely a “gay by association” phobia in high school and it’s a big unspoken thing. I don’t really hang out with guy friends. Though I am on the team, it’s still a bit awkward when you are a 15-year-old gay guy. So many of the things that go down on Sunday afternoons between September and December are homoerotic that it's a wonder that more gay men aren't football fans.As I was writing this story, I knew that I had to get some photos of me playing football and ask my teammates if any of them would be in a picture with me. It's something my friends never understood, even though I've tried to explain to them time and time again that football is a gay man's best friend. Within one 24-hour time frame I posted status updates on Facebook that communicated not only how overjoyed I was that All My Children and One Life to Live were coming back but how upset I was that my beloved Redskins had lost their playoff game to the Seattle Seahawks. Yes, I spend most Sunday mornings enjoying brunch at some of New York's most famous eateries, but when the rest of my friends are "liking" pictures on Instagram, I'm constantly pressing "refresh" on my Yahoo Sportstacular app, to make sure I know who's winning what game. Yes, "Piece of Me" by Britney Spears has been played on my iPod 1,352 times, but I also know that after 33 carries for 200 yards, Alfred Morris set a franchise record in rushing yards during the Redskins' final game of the season. Long after he passed, I moved to New York, and even though I continued to parade around in pink pants singing show tunes, my love for the Redskins never waned. My grandaddy was a diehard fan of the Washington Redskins and made damn sure that each and every one of his grandchildren shared his love for the burgundy and gold. When I was a child, even though I paraded around my parents' living room wearing pink pants while singing the entire score from The Sound of Music on repeat, I always had an affinity for America's favorite pastime, football.