On Monday, Carl Nassib became the first active NFL player to come out as gay, following in the wake of former draft-pick Michael Sam, who came out in 2014 but did not play in a regular season game, and a small number of football retirees who came out after they left the league. To discuss what this means not just for other LGBTQ players, but for the broader culture of the NFL and American sports, Jim Braude was joined by Howard Bryant, a contributor for Meadowlark Media and author of "Full Dissidence: Notes From An Uneven Playing Field," and Steve Buckley, a columnist for The Athletic who publicly came out when he was a sports writer for the Boston Herald in 2011.
Buckley called the move “history-making” given the NFL’s past and Nassib’s active status on the team. “The mere fact that no active player had ever done this before is all you need to know about what a big deal it is,” he said.
Bryant said Nassib’s openness is significant because of the nature of the wider sports world. “When you talk about changing culture — you’ve got to change culture within language. And the language of sports has always been incredibly misogynistic. It’s always been based on toughness, and what’s the opposite of toughness — being weak,” Bryant said about a potential shift in culture. “It’s about time.”
WATCH: Will Carl Nassib’s ‘history-making’ move shift the NFL’s culture?
