Raphael Stevens

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    The N.F.L.'s Carl Nassib Broke a Barrier. Will Others Follow?

    The number of publicly out L.G.B.T.Q. athletes in men’s biggest pro leagues lags far behind that in women’s sports. Will Carl Nassib’s announcement change that?Congratulatory posts flooded social media on Monday when Las Vegas Raiders defensive lineman Carl Nassib announced on Instagram that he is gay, becoming the first active N.F.L. player to do so.Jerseys and T-shirts bearing his name were the top sellers among all N.F.L. players on Monday, according to Fanatics, the league’s e-commerce partner. Stars like Giants running back Saquon Barkley — who played with Nassib at Penn State — and Arizona Cardinals defensive end J.J. Watt quickly voiced their support for Nassib on Twitter. Well-known advocacy organizations praised his declaration as monumental.“I think people are going to see what I’ve seen for years, that sports are a lot more accepting than people give it credit for,” said Cyd Zeigler, the co-founder of Outsports, a news website that covers L.G.B.T.Q. athletes and issues in sports.Yet Nassib said in his post that he had “agonized” over the decision to go public about his sexuality, after keeping it to himself for 15 years. That he is the only active player who is publicly out in one of the four major American men’s pro sports leagues suggests the height of the barrier that male athletes face openly acknowledging a gender or sexual identity that doesn’t conform with those traditionally tolerated in locker rooms.Other gay athletes who have gone public with their sexuality have said they felt pressured to suppress it — and may still despite currents in society shifting to more acceptance — for simple yet powerfully prohibitive reasons. In locker rooms, on fields and on courts, male athletes are taught to embrace heteronormative standards of masculinity.In February 2014, the N.B.A. became the first of the four major American sports leagues to have an openly gay active player when Jason Collins, who had come out publicly the previous spring, joined the Nets. John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)“I think it’s men and the machismo culture that pro sports are played, in particular,” that has inhibited men who identify as gay, bisexual, or queer from coming out, said Richard Lapchick, the director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport.Still, some male athletes ventured to do so despite concerns about their safety and backlash from teammates and fans. In February 2014, the N.B.A. became the first of the four major American sports leagues to have an openly gay active player when Jason Collins, who had come out publicly the previous spring, joined the Nets. He retired from playing later that year.Michael Sam, who had been an all-American selection during his college career as a defensive end at Missouri, announced that he is gay weeks ahead of Collins’s signing, in the lead-up to that year’s N.F.L. draft. The Rams selected him in the seventh, and last, round, and an overjoyed Sam cried and kissed his boyfriend on national TV in one of the most visible displays of gay male sexuality in the history of sports.But the Rams cut Sam before the end of training camp. The Dallas Cowboys then signed Sam to their practice squad, but he did not play in a regular season game. He retired from football in 2015.When Michael Sam was selected in the seventh round of the 2014 N.F.L. draft, he kissed his boyfriend on national TV in one of the most visible displays of gay male sexuality in the history of sports.ESPN, via Associated PressIntermittently, a handful of other notable male professional athletes made announcements about their sexuality throughout the years only after their sports careers had ended. But in the mid-aughts the stream of male former players to publicly come out as gay quickened, seeming to herald a shift in sporting culture. Athletes like the former N.B.A. player John Amaechi (2007) and retired N.F.L. players Wade Davis (2012) and Kwame Harris (2013) publicly announced that they are gay in memoirs, magazine cover articles and, in Harris’s case, in a CNN interview.Major League Soccer has had two active openly gay players — Robbie Rogers, who came out in 2013, and Collin Martin, who did so in 2018.In Major League Baseball, Glenn Burke, an outfielder who spent four seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Oakland Athletics in the 1970s, is known as the first player in major league history to come out to his teammates during his career. He came out publicly in 1982, three years after his last major league game. Burke, who died of AIDS complications in 1995, was supported by some teammates but was largely met with discrimination.The momentum for other gay male N.F.L. athletes to come out while they were still playing may have dwindled when Sam’s career fizzled out before it began. Nassib’s announcement may have been more readily accepted — publicly, at least — among his peers because he is already a dependable veteran.Nassib has already played five seasons in the N.F.L. and has kept a relatively low profile at an unglamorous, but important, position. Drafted by the Cleveland Browns, he has appeared in 73 games, starting in 37 of them while recording 143 tackles.Being labeled a “distraction” has long been a stigma assigned to players who espoused any view or identity that stood out from their teammates, but there’s an upside to Nassib’s increased fame, Zeigler said. His visibility could offer more chances to discuss topics surrounding L.G.B.T.Q. athletes.“Tons of people are going to be talking about this over the next couple of days, then again when he shows up for his first game and then again when he intercepts the ball and runs it back for a touchdown,” Zeigler said. “Teams and players can handle a couple of extra cameras. This will be here for a while.”Layshia Clarendon, who openly identifies as transgender and nonbinary, in January became the W.N.B.A.’s first player to have a top surgery while active.Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressMen’s pro teams in America have lagged behind women’s, where L.G.B.T.Q. stars in team and individual sports have publicly identified themselves and still been celebrated. W.N.B.A. stars Diana Taurasi, Brittney Griner and Elena Delle Donne are among the league’s current players who have come out as lesbian and Layshia Clarendon, who openly identifies as transgender and nonbinary, in January became the league’s first player to have a top surgery while active.The outspoken United States Women’s National Team soccer star Megan Rapinoe, who is engaged to the W.N.B.A’s Sue Bird, said after a Women’s World Cup match in 2019 that “you can’t win a championship without gays on your team.” That year’s World Cup included more than three dozen players and coaches who are gay, in fact, and the winning United States team had at least one couple among its members.In the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the highest-caliber mixed martial arts promotion, the best female fighter of all time, Amanda Nunes, is an out lesbian.In contrast to L.G.B.T.Q. male athletes, their out peers in women’s American sports leagues have enjoyed more acceptance from the public and from their heterosexual teammates in recent years. Rapinoe and Bird are among the most popular and marketable female athletes in the world. In Nunes’s last fight in March, she brought her infant child and fiancée inside the octagon after defeating her opponent.According to Taylor Carr, chief of staff at Athlete Ally, an advocacy organization for L.G.B.T.Q. athletes, that could owe to a greater sense of camaraderie in women’s sports brought on by other collective social fights. Female athletes have for decades fought for equal pay, and the W.N.B.A. prominently led in many social justice causes, including a successful campaign by Atlanta Dream players to oust the team’s owner, the Republican former senator Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, after she opposed the Black Lives Matter movement the league’s teams were supporting.“When you have all of these people in women’s athletics who are sending very clear signals about what they believe, it makes you feel like ‘I have the ability to compete and live as my personal self,’” Carr said. “I am not just an athlete, I can bring my entire self to the court.”The U.S. Women’s National Team soccer star Megan Rapinoe, center, who is engaged to the W.N.B.A’s Sue Bird, right, said after a Women’s World Cup match in 2019 that “you can’t win a championship without gays on your team.” Ezra Shaw/Getty ImagesThere are signs of Americans’ growing acceptance of L.G.B.T.Q. people, a cultural shift that may encourage other gay, bisexual and queer male athletes to come out publicly. Seventy percent of respondents in a Gallup poll conducted this year said they support same-sex marriage, a 10 percent jump from 2015 when the Supreme Court ruled that all states must recognize those unions. Nearly 6 percent of respondents in a 2020 Gallup poll identified as L.G.B.T.Q., a 1 percent jump from 2017.It may take longer for that sea change to erode homophobic attitudes in male sports leagues, particularly the N.F.L. Players have previously faced backlash for offensive comments, some made in the immediate aftermath of a high-profile athlete publicly identifying as gay.The former Miami Dolphins receiver Mike Wallace posted on Twitter after Collins’s announcement in 2013 that he didn’t understand why with “all these beautiful women in the world and guys want to mess with other guys.” Wallace later apologized and deleted the post.San Francisco running back Garrison Hearst apologized in 2002 for using a slur and saying he wouldn’t want a gay player as a teammate after the retired Minnesota Vikings player Esera Tuaolo publicly came out as gay that year. Hearst’s comment elicited public apologies from the 49ers’ team owners and then-head coach Steve Mariucci, but no penalty from the league.For its part, the N.F.L. has made efforts to publicly support L.G.B.T.Q. inclusivity. The league sponsored a float in the 2018 and 2019 New York City Pride Parades, participated in promotional efforts during Pride Month in June like changing official social media avatars to include rainbows, and supported the You Can Play Project, which provides resources to encourage inclusivity in youth sports.Troy Vincent, the executive vice president of football operations, wrote an essay last year in which he argued that the N.F.L. was ready to welcome its first openly gay player. The league’s official social media accounts, including the Raiders’, responded to Nassib’s video with heart icons.Lapchick, who has studied gender and hiring practices in major sports leagues for over 25 years, noted football’s changing cultural landscape. “If you told me five years ago that the N.F.L. and individual teams would use hearts in their communications, I wouldn’t have guessed that,” he said. “Especially among men, there was a fear of coming out, and he broke that fear. I think the reaction will show other N.F.L. players that they can do this, too.”Andrew Das More

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    Spain Waits, Impatiently, for the Goals to Arrive

    Spain is still wonderful at passing the ball. It is far less effective, at least lately, and especially at Euro 2020, at putting it in the net.Elías Bendodo has the long and unwieldy job title of a man with too much on his plate. For the last three years, he has served as minister of the presidency, public administration and interior for the Spanish region of Andalusia. On the side, he acts as the local government’s spokesman, all while serving as president of the Málaga branch of the Spanish political organization Partido Popular.He is, in other words, busy. In the last few weeks alone, Bendodo has had to organize regional elections, handle the expansion of the area’s coronavirus vaccination program and intervene in a dispute between rivals for the post of mayor in the city of Granada.He has also spent a surprising amount of time talking about the best way to mow grass.It started after Spain’s opening game of Euro 2020 last week against Sweden, a scoreless draw at La Cartuja, a vast, soulless and unloved stadium on the outskirts of Seville. The turf, Spain’s players and staff members said, was too short, too dry, too rough. “The field of play hurt us,” said Luis Enrique, the team’s coach.Things had not improved by the time Spain returned to the stadium for its second game, against Poland on Saturday. “The field does not help,” said Rodri, the Manchester City midfielder. “It’s in very bad condition. It does not suit the fluidity of our game.” That match ended in a draw, too, leaving Spain needing to win its final game, against Slovakia on Wednesday, to be sure of qualification for the tournament’s knockout rounds.By that stage, a controversy was brewing. El País reported that Spain’s coaching staff had asked the stadium’s grounds crew to cut the grass short, perhaps too short, for the Sweden game. Luis Enrique demanded the situation be remedied. In the searing heat of an Andalusian summer, the grounds crew worked overnight to make the grass grow.It was at this point that Bendodo could not help but be drawn in. Suddenly, the most pressing issue in his bulging agenda was not the vaccination program or the lifting of the rules on wearing masks, but whether some stadium grass was a little on the short side.“Any situation relating to the lawn that can be improved will be improved,” he vowed with the kind of purpose and sincerity traditionally reserved for a condemnation of a failing school or a crackdown on crime.And yet even Bendodo recognized the inherent absurdity of the situation, that this subject should have gone all the way to the top, that one of the most senior politicians in one of Spain’s most populous regions should have to weigh in on the subject of a lawn.“We would not be talking about this,” he said, “if we had scored a goal.”That, far more than the grass at La Cartuja, is Spain’s problem, and it has been Spain’s problem for some time. It was an issue before the tournament — Luis Enrique was pressed on it after his team lost in Ukraine last year, despite registering 21 shots on goal — and it was an issue in its tuneup games before Euro 2020. The search for “the goal” has become an overpowering theme. “The goal,” Rodri said, “is everything.”Though there have been exceptions, most notably a 6-0 win against Germany at La Cartuja in November, the pattern has been clear for some time. Spain dominates almost every game it plays. It all but monopolizes the ball. But it cannot score goals, not in any great numbers. It has, as the journalist Ladislao Molina put it, become “the king of inconsequential possession,” capable of playing 917 passes against Sweden but fashioning barely a handful of chances. Spain has created a monument to what the manager Arsène Wenger used to call “sterile domination.”If the players have chosen to point the finger of blame downward, at the turf at La Cartuja, at least a portion of fans have identified another culprit: Álvaro Morata, Spain’s top forward. Morata was jeered by the crowd during a friendly against Portugal before the tournament, and Luis Enrique has come under intense pressure to drop him from the team.In public, Morata has been adamant that the criticism does not affect him. Even his most illustrious predecessors, he has said, were targeted for abuse while playing for the national side. “If Fernando Torres has been criticized in Spain, imagine the intellectual level of many people,” he said in an interview with the sports daily AS.In private, he may be more vulnerable. It was notable that after Morata struggled against Sweden, the team’s psychologist, Joaquín Valdés, sat next to him on the bench, talking intently with a player who has acknowledged in the past that he dwells on the goals that do not go in and who was once advised by his former club teammate Gianluigi Buffon not to let anyone see him cry.He can, though, at least count on the unstinting support of his manager. A few days after the draw with Sweden, Luis Enrique declared that his team against Poland would be “Morata and 10 others.” He was rewarded by Morata’s scoring Spain’s only goal of the tournament so far; the forward celebrated by rushing to his coach, embracing him.Álvaro Morata celebrating his goal on Saturday — Spain’s only one at the Euros — with Luis Enrique.Pool photo by David RamosThat is the message that has emanated consistently not only from Luis Enrique and his staff, but the players, too: The goals will come. After that defeat to Ukraine last October, the manager insisted that if 21 shots were not enough to score a goal, then the solution was to take more shots. Pedri, his teenage midfielder, espoused the same logic after the first game at the Euros. “We have to do the same,” he said. “If we create many opportunities, the goal will go in.”It is that orthodoxy, though, that may well lie at the root of Spain’s problem, beyond the shortcomings of both the turf and Morata. The overwhelming majority of Luis Enrique’s squad came through the ranks at one of Spain’s elite academies, largely those of Real or Atlético Madrid and Barcelona, at a time when the country was home to arguably the greatest international team of all time.They were all raised not only in the shadow of the Spain team that won back-to-back European Championships — as well as the country’s first World Cup — but in the style of that team, too, forged and polished into bright, inventive, technically accomplished players designed to perpetuate the same school of thought that had brought the generation before such glory.And yet that approach is destined to fall short, to get close to the goal but never quite reach it. It was another great truism of Wenger’s that soccer was heading for a dearth of central defenders and center forwards, the positions where players needed a particular edge, one that was dulled by institutionalization.He could have predicted no better example than Spain. The team that swept all before it might have been constructed around Xavi and Andrés Iniesta, but they had the grizzled determination of Carles Puyol at their back and the incision of David Villa and Torres in front. This team, by contrast, lacks both qualities.Morata has shouldered much of the public’s blame for Spain’s scoring struggles.Pool photo by Marcel Del PozoIn defense, that is self-inflicted — Luis Enrique elected not to call up a half-fit Sergio Ramos for the tournament — but in attack, it is endemic. If Morata seems to embody the type of forward raised by an elite academy, elegant and sophisticated but lacking ruthlessness, then his putative rivals for a place support the theory.Gerard Moreno, the only other specialist striker in Spain’s squad, was playing third-division soccer at age 16, and did not make his debut in La Liga until he was 22. He bloomed late, winning his first cap for Spain at 27.It is a career trajectory that is startlingly similar to quite a few of the most productive Spanish forwards of recent years: Iago Aspas, now 33, who has only ever shone at Celta Vigo; José Luis Morales, the same age, who rose from obscurity to captain of Levante in La Liga; Kike García, a little younger at 31, coming off the back of a fine personal season for relegated Eibar.That it is these players — the ones who cut their teeth and sharpened their instincts away from the elite — who are the only viable candidates to replace Morata encapsulates the problem. Spain’s academies churn out midfielders and fullbacks with startling regularity, but they have struggled to produce the caliber of striker the national team needs if it is to scale the heights it touched a decade ago.Spain will plow on, of course. A win against Slovakia will see it through to the knockout rounds. Another draw may yet be enough to sneak through, too. From there, Luis Enrique has sufficient talent at his disposal to run deep into the tournament. Spain will, in other words, do the same thing it has always done, the only thing it now knows how to do: pass and pass and pass again, kicking the real cause of its ills into the long grass. More

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    UEFA Could Move Euro 2020 Final From Wembley

    Tournament organizers and the British government are holding talks about easing pandemic restrictions before the final at London’s Wembley Stadium on July 11.The deciding games of the monthlong European soccer championship have for years been planned for London, where Wembley Stadium is set to host both semifinals and the final of the quadrennial event next month.Only weeks before the Euro 2020 final, though, organizers and the British government are discussing exemptions to pandemic travel restrictions that would allow thousands of overseas supporters — and as many as 2,500 V.I.P.s — to attend the games in London.If an agreement, or a compromise, cannot be reached, UEFA, the governing body for European soccer that runs the championship, has not ruled out moving the final to another country.“There is always a contingency plan but we are confident that the final week will be held in London,” UEFA said in a statement.Prime Minister Boris Johnson confirmed Friday that his government was open to modifying its rules provided any changes “keep the country safe from Covid.”“We’ll be talking to UEFA about what they want and see if we can make some sensible accommodations,” Johnson said. “But the priority obviously has to be public health.”UEFA secured some exemptions to rules on travel and quarantines for visiting foreign nationals before the tournament, and both it and the British government had thought the coronavirus infection rates that had prompted the restrictions would have fallen by the time the tournament’s deciding games were to be played at Wembley in early July. Instead, case numbers are surging in England, largely because of a new and aggressive variant of the virus, and that led Johnson to postpone lifting the final restrictions on social distancing that had been planned for June 21.That delay already means that any hopes of playing in front of capacity crowds at Wembley have been dashed; it has already been announced that the 90,000-seat stadium instead will operate at only half its capacity for the two semifinals and final. The stadium — one of 11 being used across Europe — is allowing only 22,500 fans for three group-stage games being played there.Johnson held private talks this week about the matter with his UEFA counterpart, Aleksander Ceferin, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions. Privately, officials on both sides expressed confidence that a compromise can be found to keep the game in Britain, though news media reports have said that Budapest, the only host stadium operating at full capacity during the Euros, is being considered as a fallback option.The current talks about looser rules are not the first wrangle this year between UEFA and the British authorities, though, over exemptions for a soccer event. In May, the soccer body and the British government failed to come to an agreement that would have allowed this season’s Champions League final, a game featuring two English teams — Manchester City and Chelsea — to be relocated to London from Istanbul. After trying and failing to reach a deal, UEFA took the final to Porto, Portugal.There is a considerable amount at stake for both sides. For UEFA, London has become a popular and lucrative host for major finals. For the British government, which has recently waded into soccer debates in an effort to boost its popularity and credibility, keeping the games and preserving a valuable relationship with UEFA is seen as vital as Britain tries to forge a new identity after its acrimonious departure from the European Union.UEFA’s president, Aleksandar Ceferin, at a match in Munich this week.Pool photo by Alexander HassensteinBut Britain is also counting on UEFA’s support for a joint bid with Ireland to stage the 2030 World Cup. Without UEFA’s backing, that effort would be doomed. Johnson mentioned the World Cup bid on a phone call with Ceferin, according to a person on the call.UEFA’s proposed solutions to the impasse on visitors have included fans entering the country “using a strict testing and bubble concept,” its statement said. Guests would be asked to restrict their movements to approved transportation and game venues, and to leave Britain within 24 hours.“We understand the pressures that the government face and hope to be able to reach a satisfactory conclusion of our discussions on the matter,” the UEFA statement said.The pandemic era has taught European soccer’s governing body how to become nimble, and how to relocate high-profile games on short notice. For the past two years, UEFA has shifted its marquee club championship, the Champions League final, because of pandemic-related complications in the original host city.But anxiety has grown among UEFA officials since a fast-spreading variant of the virus cast doubt on the anticipated “unlocking” of Britain by June 21. Johnson confirmed a four-week delay to the plans last week, signaling to UEFA that it needed to secure new exemptions from its hosts or seek an alternative site.Privately, UEFA officials believe they are unlikely to get clearance for the thousands of foreign supporters that they are seeking, but they are optimistic that as many as 2,500 dignitaries, including executives from sponsors and broadcasters that provide much of the tournament’s $2 billion in revenue, will be cleared to come. Waivers have already been provided for about 1,000 guests, but allowing more V.I.P.s — but not access for fans — is politically risky for both UEFA and Britain.In his call with UEFA’s leaders, Johnson reminded the officials that London’s diverse population meant that any team that reached the final could count on vocal, locally based support.For UEFA, having crowds at the stadiums is as much a symbolic imperative as it is a commercial one. Much of this season’s soccer was played against the backdrop of empty seats and closed arenas, and Euro 2020, as far as the organizers were concerned, had to be seen as a sign of a return to old times. Cities that could not guarantee that fans would be allowed to attend matches were dropped and replaced. The games they lost were relocated to cities with less stringent rules.Games have now been played at all 11 venues, and attendances have ranged from as few as 10,000 to a nearly full house of 55,662 in Budapest for Hungary’s game against Portugal. More

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    Who is Carl Nassib? The First Openly Gay NFL Player

    “I’ve been meaning to do this for a while now,” the N.F.L. lineman said. He comes from a football family, was a standout at Penn State and has taught his teammates about personal finance.Las Vegas Raiders defensive lineman Carl Nassib walked outside his home in West Chester, Pa., looked directly into his phone and did something that he said he hoped would one day no longer be necessary.In a few brief sentences, the 28-year-old Nassib came out as gay. The video clip he recorded and then posted to his Instagram account made him the first active N.F.L. player to do so.“I’ve been meaning to do this for a while now,” Nassib said. “But I finally feel comfortable enough to get it off my chest.”In the one-minute video and a statement that accompanied it, Nassib said he had agonized over the moment for 15 years, and that he had been meaning to make his announcement for a while. Conversations with friends and family made it possible, he said, for him to publicly say that he is gay.The Raiders defensive lineman came out in a video posted on social media and said he would donate $100,000 to the Trevor Project, a nonprofit dedicated to suicide prevention efforts for L.G.B.T.Q. youth.John Bazemore/Associated Press“I actually hope that like one day videos like this and the whole coming-out process are just not necessary,” Nassib said, “but until then I’m going to do my best and my part to cultivate a culture that’s accepting, that’s compassionate.”Nassib added that he was donating $100,000 to a nonprofit suicide prevention organization that focuses on L.G.B.T.Q. people under 25 years old.Who Is Carl Nassib?Nassib, a 6-foot-7, 275-pound end, was drafted by the Cleveland Browns in the third round of the 2016 draft. He played in 14 games during his rookie season, and established himself as a starter in 2017.Nassib was a third-round pick of the Cleveland Browns. He spent his first two years in the N.F.L. with the team.Tony Dejak/Associated PressWhen the Browns released Nassib near the end of training camp in 2018, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers claimed him on waivers. He started 17 games in two years in Tampa Bay, totaling 63 tackles, 20 tackles for loss and 12½ sacks.In March 2020, he signed a three-year, $25 million deal with the Raiders. He is coming off a season in which he had 27 total tackles and his first career interception, a play on which he wasn’t taken down until he had returned the ball 23 yards.A Football FamilyBorn in West Chester, Nassib comes from a football family. His father, Gilbert, played tight end at the University of Delaware in the late 1970s. He has a younger brother who played defensive end at Delaware and a cousin who played defensive back at Syracuse.His older brother, Ryan, played quarterback at Syracuse and was drafted in 2013 by the Giants. Ryan spent two seasons as a backup quarterback in New York, then had brief and unremarkable stints with the Saints and the Jaguars before Jacksonville released him in 2017.Nassib with his former Penn State teammate Saquon Barkley in 2018.Joe Hermitt/PennLive.com, via Associated PressA Walk-On Turned All-AmericanNassib was a walk-on at Penn State who did not play at all at first, then only sparingly. He didn’t really break out on the field, in fact, until his senior season in 2015, when he led the nation with 15½ sacks.A unanimous all-American and the Big Ten defensive player of the year that season, Nassib won the Lombardi Award (given to college football’s best lineman or linebacker) and the Ted Hendricks Award (as the country’s best defensive end).His college coach, James Franklin, was among the first to release a statement of support for Nassib on Monday.“I was proud of Carl when he led the nation in sacks,” Franklin said, “but I’m even more proud of him now.”Amateur Financial AdviserSome people may remember Nassib from an episode of the HBO football reality show “Hard Knocks.”In the clip, Nassib uses a whiteboard and some quick math to teach other members of the Browns’ defensive line about compound interest and financial literacy.Support From the N.F.L.In his Instagram post, Nassib thanked the N.F.L., his coaches and his peers in the league for their respect and acceptance, and acknowledged that many gay people before him did not receive that same support.“I stand on the shoulders of giants, incredible people who paved the way for me to have this opportunity,” Nassib said. “I do not know all the history behind our courageous L.G.B.T.Q. community, but I am eager to learn and to help continue the fight for equality and acceptance.”“Very proud of Carl Nassib! Incredibly happy for him and can’t wait to watch him play this upcoming season!” wrote the former N.B.A. player Jason Collins, who became the first openly gay male athlete in 2013.N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell expressed the league’s support for Nassib in a statement.“The N.F.L. family is proud of Carl for courageously sharing his truth today,” Goodell wrote. “Representation matters. We share his hope that someday soon statements like his will no longer be newsworthy as we march toward full equality for the LGBTQ+ community.”Nassib also received public support from the Raiders, Penn State and current and past athletes. More

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    Carl Nassib Becomes First NFL Player to Come Out As Gay

    The Raiders defensive lineman came out in a statement posted to his Instagram account on Monday, becoming the first active player in the league to publicly identify as gay.The Raiders defensive lineman came out in a video posted on social media and said he would donate $100,000 to the Trevor Project, a nonprofit dedicated to suicide prevention efforts for L.G.B.T.Q. youth.John Bazemore/Associated PressOn Monday, Raiders defensive lineman Carl Nassib became the first active N.F.L. player to publicly declare that he is gay.“I just want to take a quick moment to say that I’m gay,” Nassib said in a video posted to his Instagram account. “I just think that representation and visibility are so important. I actually hope that like one day videos like this and the whole coming-out process are just not necessary, but until then I’m going to do my best and my part to cultivate a culture that’s accepting, that’s compassionate,” before adding that he would donate $100,000 to The Trevor Project, a nonprofit group that focuses on suicide prevention efforts among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning youth.“Sadly, I have agonized over this moment for the last 15 years,” he wrote in the same post.Nassib, a five-year N.F.L. veteran who previously played with the Cleveland Browns and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, said he was finally “comfortable getting it off my chest.”Nassib, 28, thanked his coaches, teammates and the N.F.L. for their support.“I would not be able to do this without them,” he wrote in his Instagram post.In a statement Monday, Commissioner Roger Goodell said he was “proud of Carl for courageously sharing his truth today. Representation matters.”The Raiders quickly showed their support for Nassib’s announcement, writing “proud of you, Carl” in a post to the team’s Twitter account that also included his original statement. Two of his teammates, defensive lineman Darius Stills and edge rusher Maxx Crosby, voiced their support by commenting under Nassib’s post that they were proud of him. DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the N.F.L. Players Association also said in a Twitter post that he and the union supported Nassib.Nassib’s announcement, made during Pride Month, is a significant turning point for the N.F.L., and makes him the first openly gay active player in the league’s 101-year history.“Sports are, in many ways, one of the last bastions of a place where homophobia can thrive,” said Cathy Renna, a spokeswoman for the National L.G.B.T.Q. Task Force. “So to have a professional athlete of that caliber, particularly in one of the major sports leagues like the N.F.L., it really is historic.”A bevy of current and former athletes from around sports reacted positively to Nassib’s announcement, including the retired tennis star Billie Jean King, who wrote, “the ability to live an authentic life is so important,” in a social media post Monday.Sarah Kate Ellis, chief executive of the L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy organization Glaad, called the announcement “a historic reflection of the growing state of L.G.B.T.Q. visibility and inclusion in the world of professional sports, which has been driven by a long list of brave L.G.B.T.Q. athletes who came before him.”Michael Sam, an all-American defensive lineman at Missouri, had been viewed as the most likely to acquire that distinction when he announced he is gay before he being chosen by the Rams in the seventh round of the 2014 N.F.L. draft, but he was cut at the end of that year’s training camp. The Dallas Cowboys signed Sam to their practice squad, but he never played in a regular season game.Michael Sam publicly came out as gay before he was selected in the seventh round of the 2014 N.F.L. draft but never played in a regular season game.LM Otero/Associated PressSam’s draft status was seen as a barometer of whether the climate of men’s pro sports was becoming more accepting of gay athletes, particularly because in February 2014 the N.B.A. had just become the first of the four traditional major American men’s sports leagues to have an openly gay active player when Jason Collins joined the Nets.But Sam left the N.F.L. without making an impact on the field.Nassib, by contrast, has already played with three teams over five seasons and is under contract through 2022. After a collegiate career at Penn State, he was chosen by the Browns in the third round of the 2016 draft. He played two seasons in Cleveland before playing two more seasons in Tampa. The Raiders signed him to a three-year, $25 million contract in March 2020. He has tallied 20½ sacks during his career.A handful of N.F.L. players had previously announced publicly that they were gay, but all after their playing careers were over. David Kopay became the first pro football player to publicly come out as gay in 1975, three years after he retired. He played for nine seasons with the San Francisco 49ers and four other teams in the 1960s and 1970s, and has since become an activist and an ambassador for the Gay Games, a quadrennial sporting event.Roy Simmons was the second former player to announce that he was gay, doing so in 1992 after his career with the Giants and Washington Football Team had ended. He later disclosed he was H.I.V. positive and died from pneumonia-related complications in 2014 at age 57.Some players like Simmons said they felt they had no choice but to hide their sexual identity while they were in the league. Simmons said he cultivated a reputation for being the life of the party, and had to compartmentalize his football life and his personal life.Simmons also said he never would have declared himself gay during the four seasons he played for the N.F.L. for fear of destroying his career.‘’The N.F.L. has a reputation,” he said in 2003, “and it’s not even a verbal thing — it’s just known. You are gladiators; you are male; you kick butt.”In recent years, the league has publicly supported Pride Month through promotional efforts like changing official social media avatars to include rainbows and supporting the You Can Play Project, which provides resources to encourage inclusivity in youth sports, even as some players have made derogatory statements about gay people with little penalty or supported groups that oppose gay rights.Esera Tuaolo, a former Minnesota Vikings player, publicly came out as gay in 2002.Steve Wewerka for The New York TimesIn 2013, Chris Culliver of the San Francisco 49ers and Chris Clemons of the Seattle Seahawks made offensive comments when asked about the prospect of having a gay teammate.“Got no gay people on the team,” Culliver said. “They gotta get up outta here if they do.” Culliver later apologized, saying, “I’m sorry if I offended anyone. They were very ugly comments.”San Francisco running back Garrison Hearst apologized in 2002 for using a slur and saying he wouldn’t want a gay player as a teammate. His comment came after the former Minnesota Vikings player Esera Tuaolo publicly came out as gay that year after he had retired. Hearst’s comment elicited public apologies from the 49ers’ team owners and then-head coach Steve Mariucci, but no penalty from the league.“Being an African American, I know that discrimination is wrong,” Hearst later said. “I was wrong for saying what I said about anybody, any race or any religion.”The league had little to do with Sam’s announcement because it came before he was drafted. Former N.F.L. players like Brendon Ayanbadejo, who played with the Baltimore Ravens, defended same-sex marriage and gay rights and supported Sam at the time. But few active players publicly echoed his support.Seven years after Sam’s announcement, Nassib’s announcement has been met with ready public support both from the league itself and the Raiders, a team that had previously made notable football milestones with its hires. Tom Flores, who is Mexican-American, was the first Latino coach in the N.F.L. and led the team to Super Bowl titles after the 1981 and 1983 seasons.Amy Trask in 1997 became the Raiders’ chief executive and the first woman of that rank in the N.F.L. The team drafted Eldridge Dickey, the first Black quarterback taken in the first round, in 1968, when the Raiders played in the A.F.L.“We hope that Carl’s historic representation in the N.F.L. will inspire young L.G.B.T.Q. athletes across the country to live their truth and pursue their dreams,” Amit Paley, the executive director and chief executive of the Trevor Project, said in a statement Monday.Emmanuel Morgan and Jesus Jimenez contributed reporting. More

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    Euro 2020: Denmark Stuns Russia to Reach Round of 16

    A 4-1 victory over Russia sent Denmark to the knockout stages, a stunning turn in a tournament that began with the collapse of Denmark’s star, Christian Eriksen.Denmark’s players gathered in a circle on the field at the Parken Stadium in Copenhagen and stared intently at a staff member’s phone. They must have known, by then, that they had qualified for the last 16 of the European Championship, but they wanted to be sure. They wanted to see the score confirmed, officially.The Danes had come into their final group-stage game on Monday needing the dice to roll in their favor to make it through. They required a win against Russia on home soil, and for Belgium to beat Finland in St. Petersburg. That they had a chance at all, though — that their coach, Kasper Hjulmand, could tell his players that this was the start, not the end, of their tournament — was remarkable in itself.It is not yet 10 days since Hjulmand admitted that his players were “broken,” traumatized by the experience of seeing their friend and teammate Christian Eriksen collapse on the field during their opening game against Finland, forced to stand guard around him as his heart was restarted as he lay motionless on the turf, and to accompany him from the field as he was taken to a hospital.Denmark’s players formed a worried circle around Christian Eriksen on June 12. Later, they wondered if they should have played at all.Pool photo by Friedemann VogelThey had to comfort his distraught partner, and then endure the most agonizing wait to discover if he was out of danger. Soccer’s place in the pecking order was illustrated by the squad’s insistence it would not decide whether that game would continue or not until the players had word about Eriksen’s health.Only when they were told that he was conscious and speaking at the hospital did they press on, playing the game the same evening because — as Hjulmand said — they could not bear to face a night of sleepless worry and then have to start again the next day. They played, and lost. A few days later, in front of an emotional crowd of about 25,000 fans at Parken, they played and lost again, this time to Belgium.That was hardly surprising. Hjulmand had said that counseling would be available to all of his squad, should they feel the need, but it would take some time for that to have an impact. This was not the sort of blow you shake off in time for the next game.Still, Denmark had one more chance. It had taken the lead, through Eriksen’s replacement, Mikkel Damsgaard, and doubled it through Yussuf Poulsen, but Finland was still stubbornly holding on in St. Petersburg. And then a roar swept around Parken: News had filtered across the Baltic that Belgium had scored. Only, as it turned out, the goal was ruled out — after a short delay — for offside.Defender Andreas Christensen scored Denmark’s third goal.Pool photo by Stuart FranklinAs Denmark was absorbing that blow, Russia won — and converted — a penalty kick. Everything hung in the balance once more. Again, Denmark was made to wait.A few minutes later, there was another roar from the stands, this one a little more reticent. This time Belgium had taken the lead. This time the goal counted. Denmark could relax. When Andreas Christensen scored a third, and Joakim Maehle a fourth, the team and the stadium and the nation could celebrate. Maehle ran to the crowd, holding up the numbers 1 and 0 with his fingers: Eriksen’s jersey number.“I’ve never experienced anything like this,” Maehle told the Danish broadcaster DR.Denmark’s prize is a round of 16 match on Saturday, against Wales, in Amsterdam, at the stadium where Eriksen made his name. It does not matter at all, not in the grand scheme of things, but still, it means the world. More

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    Portugal's Renato Sanches and the Risks of Going Too Fast

    For a couple of months, no more, the fee seemed steep. A few weeks before the start of the last European Championship, in 2016, Bayern Munich agreed to a deal with Benfica to sign the latest prodigy from the Portuguese team’s apparently never-ending production line: an 18-year-old midfielder with only nine months of senior experience on his résumé.If it was something of a coup for Bayern — Manchester United and several other members of Europe’s elite had been interested, too — it was a resounding success for Benfica.Bayern, the perennial German champion, was committed to paying a basic fee of $41 million, with $53 million more due if certain performance targets were met. All told, it amounted to the most valuable sale of a player in Portuguese history, which was not bad, given that the teenager, Renato Sanches, had started the season on the club’s reserve team.After just a few weeks, and Bayern seemed to have pulled off a heist. Sanches went supernova at Euro 2016 that summer: If Cristiano Ronaldo was the undisputed star of Portugal’s championship-winning campaign, the teenager ran him close.Sanches created the goal that helped Portugal squeeze past Croatia in the last 16, scored in the quarterfinal against Poland and then demanded not only to take a penalty in the subsequent shootout, but to go second. He would happily have stepped up first, but that spot had already been reserved by Ronaldo.Sanches was named man of the match for his performance that day — handpicked by Claude Makélélé, no mean midfielder himself — and before the final, against the host nation, France, he was honored as the best young player of the tournament. A few months later, he would be named the most promising player under age 21 in Europe.The agreement with Bayern held hints of that promise. One of the clauses dictated that the German team would have to pay a few million more if Sanches was crowned world player of the year before the end of his initial contract, in 2021. Before the tournament, Bayern might well have regarded that as very much a theoretical contingency. By the end, it looked all too real.That clause would have expired this summer. Bayern never had to honor it. Sanches made the last of his meager 53 appearances for the club almost two years ago, the light from his starburst long since faded. In the five years that have passed since Euro 2016, Sanches has lost his place in his team, lost his way, and finally lost himself. Only now is he beginning to find the road back.Sanches was one of the world’s most valuable teenagers after Euro 2016.Bartlomiej Zborowski/European Pressphoto AgencyIn a HurryRenato Paiva, the coach of Benfica’s under-19 team at the time, had pinned the set-piece routines to the locker room wall and gone outside. A few minutes later, he returned, and found a group of players in conclave, with Sanches at their center. “I’d put down who was going to take free kicks short,” Paiva said. “Renato was telling them all: ‘Don’t bother with short ones; the way we score goals is to get the ball into the box.’”Paiva slipped away, unnoticed. “I waited until after the warm-up,” he said. “I pulled him aside and asked him if he wanted to be a player or a manager. He said, ‘No, no, I want to be a player.’ So I told him to concentrate on that and leave the set-piece routines to me.”Sanches was clearly a young man in a hurry. He had been promoted to Paiva’s under-19 team early, one of a handful of players — including Manchester City’s Rúben Dias — to be fast-tracked straight from the under-17s. “When he first joined us, he said to me that he was not here to watch, and he was here to play,” said Paiva, who said he replied: “You show that on the field, not in conversation.”When Sanches did, another leap followed. He was 17 when he made his professional debut, for Benfica’s second-string team. Within a year, the first team called for him. “The transfer market was closed, and the first-team manager, Rui Vitória, needed an energetic midfielder,” Paiva said. “It was the sort of time where you have to experiment, so he took Renato and gave him a chance. That is soccer: It is about the moment.”Though circumstance had fallen in his favor, nobody at Benfica doubted he was ready. “It was fast,” said Nuno Gomes, the director of Benfica’s youth academy at the time. “But if you had watched him play at all those levels, as I did, then you would not have been surprised.”If anything, though, Sanches was just getting going. His first start for Benfica’s first team was on Nov. 25, 2015. Within six months, he had been selected as part of Portugal’s squad for the European Championship and sold to Bayern Munich for a king’s ransom.Sanches was 18 when he joined the first team with Benfica.Peter Kneffel/European Pressphoto AgencyA stint at Bayern Munich didn’t go as well as he hoped.Christof Stache/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA move to France’s Lille brought a way out and a French title.Michel Spingler/Associated PressThat, Paiva said, had not necessarily been part of the plan. Benfica had been preparing a new contract, hoping to keep him with the club for a couple more years. As soon as Bayern’s offer came in, though, the equation changed. “It is very difficult, even for the biggest club in Portugal, to compete with those teams,” Gomes said. “The value of the offer, and also the wages being offered to the player, were too big to refuse.”Even if Sanches’s departure came earlier than planned, Gomes, like everyone else with Benfica, assumed that his rapid trajectory would continue in Germany. “We thought he would perform well there,” he said. Paiva, though, harbored a few doubts. “He still had a lot to improve, especially tactically,” he said. “Economically, selling him was the only thing the club could have done. But was it the right time in terms of the development of the player? No.”Watching the RainSanches’s most memorable contribution to English soccer was not a flattering one. It came in a road game against Chelsea. Sanches, wearing the red alternative jersey of Swansea City, the team he had joined on loan in 2017, picked up the ball and glanced to his left, looking for a pass.As he did so, the electronic advertising boards running around the perimeter of the field changed display, the red logo of an energy drink brand suddenly flashing. You can predict the punchline. Instead of passing to one of the two teammates equidistant from the logo, Sanches sent the ball to the advertising board itself. Somehow, the fact that he got the pass exactly right — it hit the logo, square and plum — added to the farce.Sanches’s spell at Swansea has long been filed away as one of those curious, comic interludes that English soccer does so well. That he was there at all — only a year or so after he had emerged, fully formed, as European soccer’s next sensation — was strange enough. That he should have made so little impact made it only more baffling still.“I think, if I’m honest, that he never really wanted to be here,” said Alan Curtis, a longstanding member of Swansea’s coaching staff, and now an honorary club president. “I think he was sent here.”A spell with Swansea was probably the low point.Andrew Boyers/ReutersSanches’s first season with Bayern was underwhelming, but hardly embarrassing. The club raised the idea of sending him out on loan, to allow him to get more regular game time, accelerating his development. “If he stays, no problem,” his coach at Bayern, Carlo Ancelotti, said. “If he goes, also no problem.” It was hardly a ringing endorsement.Ancelotti’s former assistant, Paul Clement, was in charge at Swansea, and used his relationship to pitch South Wales as a possible destination. Sanches had moved to Wales on his own, though, and while Swansea’s staff and squad did their best to “look out for him,” he struggled to settle.“I think he wanted, if he was in the Premier League, to be in London,” Curtis said. “This is a beautiful part of the world, with some amazing walks and some stunning beaches, but it’s quiet.“We can control a lot of things, but we can’t turn Swansea into a teeming metropolis. No matter how much you want it to work, if a player is not happy, if there is something in the back of their mind, then it is hard to perform.” Clement — fired in December of that season, after a poor start — said it seemed to him as if Sanches had “the weight of the world on his shoulders.”That, certainly, is how the player remembered it. “Everything went wrong,” he wrote in an article for The Players’ Tribune a couple of years later. “Just as I was adjusting to my new team, I got these weird injuries. I had never had injury trouble before, but all of a sudden I was out for months, sitting alone in an apartment in Swansea, watching it rain all day.”He returned to Bayern — where he was promised a fresh start under Ancelotti’s eventual replacement, Niko Kovac — but he remained a peripheral figure. “This is not how any of this was supposed to go,” Sanches wrote at the time.He grew frustrated, the impatience that had once supercharged his rise now speeding his downfall. At the start of the 2019-20 season, he either forgot or refused to do a warm-down session after Bayern’s first game of the campaign. He had appeared, briefly, as a late substitute. He remembered, though, to give a television interview suggesting he wanted to play more regularly, or leave.Sanches was a rising star at Euro 2016, but the label faded as he struggled to find a club role.Hugo Delgado/EPA, via ShutterstockThe Way BackPaiva saw the move and recognized it instantly. He was watching Portugal’s opening game of Euro 2020 — the 3-0 win against Hungary this week — from Ecuador, where he is coaching Independiente del Valle, but it transported him back to Benfica’s youth academy.A few minutes after his introduction as a substitute, Sanches picked the ball up on the right flank and darted past one opponent. He cut inside, and squared up to two more. He barreled straight past both of them through sheer force of will and continued his run. He looked up and slipped a pass into Rafa Silva, who drew a foul, won a penalty and secured the victory.“That was pure Renato,” Paiva said. “It showed everything about him: his ability, his power, his determination, his will to win. It is what he did at every level when he was younger. He was on the field for 10 minutes, but he used it like it was 100.”Even after all he has been through, those that know him well are sure that the ability that marked him out for greatness is still there. It was never an illusion. It had not disappeared. It was just lying dormant.Sanches, over these last two years, has started to right his course. It began with a move to Lille, only a few days after that disruptive interview while still at Bayern. He was not cheap — he was, at the time, the most expensive player in the club’s history — and his impact was not immediate.Pegged for stardom, Sanches has often remained in the shadow of more high-profile teammates instead.Pool photo by Tibor Illyes“You arrive at Lille, having not played for several seasons,” the club’s manager, Christophe Galtier, said a few months after his arrival. “You might ask yourself if you have made the right choice, or have the required level. He needed reassuring.” Galtier has advised him to “relax” a little, to be less impatient.The change of environment has worked. Sanches, who has played most often on the right of midfield, emerged as one of the driving forces behind Lille’s unexpected French title. Europe’s big clubs, including Liverpool and Manchester United, are said to be circling once again.He is back on the Portugal squad, too, back in the European Championship, back to where he was before, the world at his feet. “I feel much better than in 2016,” Sanches said last month. “I feel more capable, more experienced. I feel prepared to play more and more.”He has come full circle. Now, at last, he is ready to start his journey again. More