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EXCLUSIVE: Robbie Rogers Tells All.
On February 15 of this year, at the age of 25, Robbie Rogers made a dramatic announcement on his website: He was gay, and he was quitting soccer. The two points were not unrelated -- no male American athlete in a major team sport had come out while still playing professionally (although gay-friendly Sweden set a precedent when soccer player Anton Hysén came out there in 2011). Then in May, Rogers reversed course on one of those announcements and signed to the Los Angeles Galaxy.
He was no longer a gay retired soccer player; he was a history maker -- just six months after coming out to his “conservative, Catholic, close-knit” family. “Growing up, I learned that being gay was a sin,” he says when we meet at Soho House in Los Angeles. “It was not something you could be, and it wasn’t something my family would talk about much -- it was obviously something that scared the shit out of me.”
It’s only been a few weeks since he had his first match as an out gay player (stepping onto the field 13 minutes before the final whistle), and it’s clear that Rogers, who grew up in Orange County, has embraced his newfound role with gusto. Having played for one of the world’s most decorated teams -- England’s Leeds United -- as well as for the U.S. squad at the Beijing Olympics, Rogers, now 26, is in the rare position of being able to inspire young gay athletes by his example. Being invited to attend the Nike LGBT Youth Forum in Oregon in April was a wake-up call, he says. “I left the summit thinking, Come on, step up -- all these kids are so excited to make a change, you should also. God’s given you the talent to be a soccer player, to be in front of people just to show them who you are.”
Who he is, who he was, and how he got from one to the other is the subject of our conversation as Rogers opens up in a candid, thoughtful interview that reflects the emotional distance he’s travelled since hitting “send” a mere five months earlier.
http://www.out.com/entertainment/sports/2013/07/11/robbie-rogers-history-maker