Is Soccer Ready to Retire Its Last Taboo?
As a teenager, Collin Martin felt he had to make a choice. For as long as he could remember, his ambition had been to become a professional soccer player, to make a living doing the thing he loved.
He had a sense, though, that it was not compatible with who he was. Martin was gay, and there were — as far as he knew — no gay soccer players.
The two things, he came to believe, could not coexist. He could either play soccer, or he could be himself. In his telling, he approached the choice with a cool rationality. “This doesn’t seem like something I can take with me while I pursue my dreams,” he said of his logic. “I was more than ready to be in the closet.
Forever.” Or at least, he thought, long enough “for me to live out my dream.” In reality, that contrast was not quite that stark.
