Former NFL player Ryan O’Callaghan announces he’s gay

Ryan O’Callaghan, who played six years in the National Football League with the New England Patriots and Kansas City Chiefs, has announced he is gay.

One day, we will not have to write articles about a player announcing he or she is gay. Not because it is an arduous task — it isn’t — but because it won’t make a difference to anybody which gender another person loves.

However, we aren’t to that juncture in world history yet, so we applaud Ryan O’Callaghan for announcing that he is gay, something he hid from society throughout his NFL career. O’Callaghan, who spoke to OutSports of SB Nation about his life, said that he believed he would play football and then kill himself once his career ended.

While his career came to a close following the 2011 season in Kansas City, O’Callaghan credits “a few good friends and a few good dogs” for his reason to stay alive. The former fifth-round pick out of California eventually came out to family and friends, who he says were supportive from the jump.

We are still waiting for an active NFL player to announce he is gay. Michael Sam announced his homosexuality before being drafted by the St. Louis Rams in 2014, but was cut in training camp and never played an NFL down.

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There have been various NFL players to come out after their careers ended, including Dave Kopay of the Washington Redskins. Kopay also insisted that teammate Jerry Smith was gay, although Smith never affirmed that before his death in 1986. Other players to announce they were gay after retirement include Kwame Harris, Esera Tuaolo and Roy Simmons.

Hopefully O’Callaghan’s announcement will help those who are homosexual within the NFL to be more confident and comfortable in their own skin.