Coming out: A primer

 I don't know where Dave Kopay is these days, so I don't know how he took the news. Maybe with a smile and a sigh. Maybe with an extremely heartfelt, "Finally." Maybe neither of the above.

What I do know is Kopay is 78 years old now, and he was only 35 when his biography, "The Dave Kopay Story," came out. That was in 1977, five years after he retired from the Green Bay Packers as a journeyman running back. In nine NFL seasons, he played for five teams. His career numbers were unremarkable: 876 yards and three touchdowns.

What was remarkable is what he revealed in his biography. Namely, that he was gay.

This was a hell of a thing in 1977, and it was even more a hell of a thing because Kopay was perhaps the first gay professional athlete to openly come out. That he'd been a gay professional athlete in perhaps the most testosterone-saturated of American sports was yet more a hell of a thing.

I know this because it took 44 more years for a gay professional football player to come out while he was actually playing.

That player is Carl Nassib, 28, a defensive end for the Las Vegas Raiders. He told the world yesterday. And if I don't know how Dave Kopay reacted, I do know he understands better than anyone what it took for Nassib to do what he did. 

Kopay couldn't, not in the 1960s and early '70s; that he did so in 1977, after he quit, still demands our admiration for the courage it took.  As does what Nassib did yesterday, because even if 44 years is a long time, it's still not long enough for some folks.

Which is to say there was likely the inevitable backlash from the usual suspects, many of whom no doubt had the standard reaction to these things: "I don't care if he's gay. Why does he have make a big deal out of it? Why do 'they' have to shove it down our throats?"

First off, we all know who "they" are, and what that last question implies about those asking it.

Secondly, the answer to Why does he have to make a big deal out of it? is a simple one.

Because it's not about you, chief.

A Carl Nassib comes out publicly because it's a big deal to him, and it's for his own well-being, and it's also for the well-being of those like him he knows are out there. He's not trying to shove anything down our throats or indulge himself at our expense. Again, it's not about us.

So enough with our own self-indulgence, and just say, "Good on you, Carl Nassib."

And then remember Dave Kopay, and say, "Forty-four years was too damn long."