The first active NFL player to come out as gay said he agonized over the decision last year, but finally told the world “for the kids.”
Defensive end Carl Nassib, who was most recently a Las Vegas Raider but is now a free agent, told “Good Morning America” host and former NFL star Michael Strahan Tuesday he had to get up the nerve to announce on a video posted to Instagram he is gay.
“I stared at the phone for, like, an hour just looking at it, trying to hype myself up,” Nassib told Strahan, who also played defensive end. “The last thing I said was like, ‘You know what — for the kids.’ And pressed post.”
A year later, NFL free agent Carl Nassib says he agonized over his decision to come out publicly:https://t.co/D7MHVxbzmC
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) July 19, 2022
Nassib, who played at Penn State and was a third-round draft pick by the Cleveland Browns in 2016, said his teammates supported him when he came out. The 29-year-old lineman, whose brother Ryan was an NFL backup quarterback, said he believes most people support gay people coming out of the closet.
“We are making strides in a positive direction,” the 6-foot, 7-inch athlete said. “It won’t be a perfect road, and we just have to continue the course and make sure that we do it from a place of love and not from a place of animosity.”
In March, the Raiders donated $100,000 to The Trevor Project, a suicide prevention charity for LGBTQ+ youth. The donation matched the contribution Nassib made at the time of his announcement.
Nassib has played two years each for the Browns, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the Raiders. In his time in Las Vegas, he started five of 27 games and had four combined sacks and an interception. For his career, he has 113 tackles and 22 sacks – half a sack less than Strahan tallied in his record-breaking 2001 season.
Nassib said he hopes to catch on with another team before the upcoming season.
“The best scenario for me is, like, the best opportunity to show what I got,” he said. “Got a lot in the tank.”