Will the NFL Finally Support Gay Players?
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 28 June 2021
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Last week, Las Vegas Raiders defensive end, Carl Nassib, came out in an Instagram post, making him the first openly gay active player in NFL histroy. The league immediately posted in in celebration of Nassib’s announcement. But given the NFL’s sorry history of standing by players on the vanguard, will the league really put its money where its mouth is this time?
Guest: LZ Granderson, LA Times opinion columnist and host of ABC News’ “Life Out Loud with LZ Granderson.”
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Quick heads up here at the top. |
| 0:01.5 | Our guest today is talking about homophobia, |
| 0:04.0 | and when he does that, he uses language that might offend you |
| 0:07.1 | because the language is offensive. |
| 0:09.6 | You've been warned. |
| 0:15.8 | What's all people? I'm Carl Nassab. |
| 0:17.5 | I'm at my house here in Westchester, Pennsylvania. |
| 0:19.9 | Last week, NFL defensive end, Carl Nassib, put out this video on Instagram. |
| 0:25.7 | In it, he is holding the camera selfie style. You can see a bright green lawn behind him. |
| 0:31.2 | And in the most understated way possible, he says, |
| 0:35.1 | I just want to take a quick moment to say that I'm gay. |
| 0:40.9 | I've been meaning to do this for a while now, but I finally feel comfortable enough to get it off my chest. |
| 0:46.0 | I'm a pretty private person, |
| 0:47.8 | so I hope you guys know that I'm really not doing this for attention. |
| 0:50.8 | I just think that representation and visibility are so important. |
| 0:55.4 | This video is so understated that it might be hard to imagine why it's a big deal at all. |
| 1:01.6 | To understand that, you need to know that no other active NFL player has said this out loud before, ever. |
| 1:09.2 | But retired football players, they have come out. Did you see how handsome |
| 1:14.1 | he is? I mean, he would attract anybody, you know what I mean? Dave Copay is one of those retired |
| 1:20.6 | football players. He's 78 now. I was the first ball player in all sports to come out. And not just in the United States, but in the world. |
| 1:30.6 | Dave loved watching this video from Carl Nassib. |
| 1:33.5 | Because I'd be stupid if I didn't say I was envious. |
... |
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