In a powerful new essay published by Outsports, college tennis star Mitchell Thomas writes candidly about coming out to his teammates and the surprisingly response he received.Growing up in a religious household in southern Louisiana, 22-year-old Thomas says he lived a pretty sheltered life and didn’t know any LGBTQ people before enrolling at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia four yeas ago.“Needless to say, when I began to recognize myself as a gay man, I had no gay role.