Carl Nassib Becomes First Active NFL Player to Announce that He is Gay, Gets Guff For Being A Republican
Raiders pass rusher announced on Instagram yesterday that he was gay and Twitter had a field day when they found out that he was a republican.
Yesterday night, Penn State alumni and Raiders pass rusher Carl Nassib announced in an Instagram post that was reposted by the NFL that he was gay and would be donating one hundred thousand dollars to the Trevor Project to prevent LGBTQ+ suicide. Nassib becomes the first active NFL player to be openly gay. Michael Sam was the first gay player to be drafted but never made an active NFL roster.
Nassib walked onto the Penn State football team in 2011 and didn’t play in his first two years at State College. The next three years were massive for Nassib as he recorded 64 tackles, 17.5 sacks, and 7 forced fumbles from 2013 to 2015.
In 2015, Nassib earned a boatload of collegiate accolades winning the Ted Hendricks Award, the Lombardi Award, BIG Ten Defensive Player of the Year, first team All American, and first team BIG Ten.
He was selected sixty fifth overall in 2016 by the Cleveland Browns and was waived in 2018. He played two seasons in Tampa Bay with the Buccaneers where he was named a team captain. In March of 2020, Nassib signed a three year, twenty five million dollar deal with the Las Vegas Raiders. In 2018 with the Buccaneers, Nassib had his best season recording 6.5 sacks, 29 tackles, and 12 tackles for loss.
Yesterday, Nassib becomes the first active NFL player to announce that he is gay. Like I mentioned prior, Michael Sam was the first gay player drafted but never played a regular season snap for the an NFL team.
The majority of the football community sent out their support to Nassib through Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms. Star players like J.J. Watt and Saquon Barkley, retired legend Warren Moon, and organizations expressed their support and had Nassibs back.
For Nassib, it seems like the honeymoon stages of his coming out party were short lived when extreme leftists found out that Nassib is a registered republican even though he did not vote in the 2020 election. Some of the tweets that were thrown his way are actually disgusting and pretty vile.
“ISTG, fucking white gays.” Appalling behavior by some members of the LGBTQ+ community that look at Nassibs politics and essentially reject him from their group. What Carl Nassib did yesterday is a real example of bravery, to come out as gay in the “manliest” sport takes real guts.
In todays America where people will bash, disassociate, and smear you for having “bad” political thoughts, Nassib coming out as gay has almost taken the back seat. In my God honest opinion, I’m happy for Nassib and I think that this is a huge step because statistically speaking, Nassib is not the only gay player currently in the league or on a division one roster. He could be a trailblazer, much like Michael Sam was, and help lead athletes that are questioning to come to grips with their sexuality.
Nassib said that he wrestled with his sexuality for fifteen years and that yesterday "he “finally felt comfortable to get it off his chest.” Nassib also noted that he is a private person which is true. He doesn’t have a Twitter account and has an Instagram account that he rarely posts from.
Nassib also doesn’t flaunt the fact that he is republican so, that means that people had to dig this up which is pretty darn pathetic and just not a great thing to do less than twenty four hours after Nassib courageously comes out of the closet.