Out Spotlight XXXXIII

The NFL is a supermacho culture. It's a place for gladiators. And gladiators aren't supposed to be gay. - Esera Tuaolo

Today's Out Spotlight is Esera Tualo, nicknamed Mr. Aloha, a 6' 3" tall , 300lb Hawaiian born Samoan defensive lineman who played nosetackle in the National Football League (American Football) for 9 seasons, reaching the ultimate goal of all NFL players the Superbowl during his career and hiding from everyone that he was gay.

For as fierce as he was on the line he was terrified that someone would discover his secret and he would lose everything he had worked so hard to achieve. As the youngest of eight children in an immigrant Samoan family desperately poor, living in a dirt floor hut on the family's small banana farm Tuaolo found success in playing football, for him and for his family, but feared every moment that he could lose everything if his teammates found out he was gay.

"When I was 5, I heard a friend call another friend mahu. I asked what it meant. 'Faggot,' he told me in Samoan. Ooh, he likes boys, I thought, That's bad. Then I thought, Uh-oh.

I never liked playing with stuff other boys wanted to play with. I wanted an Easy-Bake oven. I remember watching G.I. Joe on TV and thinking he was cute. I thought, That might be me."

Football was something Tuaolo did well very well, and it took him from the struggling life in Oahu, to Oregon State University and onto the NFL. Football was his savior but it was his strangehold too.

To blend into the supermacho culture he made sure that he was seen out enjoying success and kissing women, but would go home to ease his pain with pain medication and alcohol.

In 1996 a book changed his life, not reading books since college, a friend from Hawaii gave him a copy of The David Kopay Story, about the first NFL player to come out as a homosexual. Starting it and not being able put it down, Tuaolo cried finishing it. He had never heard of him, and couldn't believe it that he reading his own story in Kopay's. At an emotional meeting at a party years later, Tuaolo met David Kopay and Kopay told him "For 30 years, I've been alone." They bonded together two NFL players gay and out. Only one other player, Roy Simmons has come out.

He longed for a "lifetime partner" and a family, and in 1997 he met Mitchell Wherley at a club in Minnesota."Mitchell was sweet. "I want you to know I would never tell anyone your secret." The more he comforted me, the more at ease I felt. We talked about everything. Growing up. Football. It felt so good to unleash everything."A few weeks later Tuaolo came out to his family. Facing the NFL with his lover was another matter."[At the 1999 Super Bowl, where I played with the Atlanta Falcons] I introduced [Mitchell] as my manager and friend. It tore me up.I blew out my hamstring [the next season]. I was thinking, I can't lose this man. I was no longer willing to play football at the expense of our relationship. Just like that, I was done."

"After I retired, I secured a part in [a community theater] revival of The Most Happy Fella [in Minneapolis, where we were living together]. A retired NFL player doing theatre – anybody should've known I was gay."

In 2000, Tuaolo's dream would come closer as he and Mitchell as their adopted twins Mitchie (Mitchell Jr.) and Michele were born. He had the partner and the family he always wanted. But it now was tougher to keep his orientation a secret.

In 2002, retired from the NFL, he publicly acknowledged for the first time being gay on HBO Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. And for the first time, he felt a "rush of peace and panic" as he spoke. The rest of the interview he kept excusing himself to throw up. When they turned off the cameras, Mitchell embraced him. "Great job," he told him. "It's going to get better."

The reaction from football players was mixed." [Former teammate] Don Davey called to let me know we were still buddies. Brett Favre's brother sent me an e-mail saying, "Our family still loves you." I did not hear from Brett directly, but that's okay. People process things in their own way." But his former Green Bay Packers teammate Sterling Sharpe, an all-Pro receiver, confirmed Tuaolo's worst fears in an interview with HBO's Real Sports. Bryant Gumbel asked him how he felt about Tuaolo being gay. Sharpe said, "If the guys found out another player was gay on Monday, he wouldn't be able to play on Sunday," essentially admitting that a gay player would be gay-bashed by his own teammates. "Question my heart, question my ability, but do not question my machoism," said Sharpe.

Talking to Kopay, Tuaolo felt the NFL seemed almost more open toward gays in Kopay's era than in his. Kopay knew which teammates were gay, and knew about other players in the league. He even had relationships with some of them. With the demographic that gays are 10% of the population, there should be four or five gay players on every team. But other than himself, Tuaolo don't know of a single one in the NFL.

Tuaolo has done something about that, working with the NFL to attempt to combat homophobia in the league and is a board member of the Gay and Lesbian Athletics Foundation.

His book "Alone in the Trenches," chronicles his rise to the pinnacle of professional sports, all the while hiding his true identity. The first chapter, titled "The Torments of Success," captures how he struggled with his fame and his fear of being found out as a gay man, and how he achieves his dreams. "This is the story of how I dared to dream, not only of surviving professional football, but of living openly for who I am, a gay man."

While he and Mitchell are no longer together both are committed to their children.

"People ask me if I think a superstar football player will ever come out during his playing days. I hate to be negative, but I don't see it happening. The league just isn't ready for it, and neither are the fans. The NFL doesn't even give benefits to same-sex partners. I'd like to be wrong. It would be cool if we could just set a date, and on that day all the players, all the owners, all the coaches, all the owners' and coaches' kids, the fans -- all the people involved in football who are gay -- could just come out all at the same time"

"From now on, that uniform is the only part of me that stays in a closet."

The Advocate: Tackling Football's Closet
ESPN: Free and Clear
PrideSource: Gay in the NFL
OutSports: No More Hiding
People: Gay Man in the NFL
NPR:A Gay Football Player, 'Alone in the Trenches'

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