When offensive lineman Mason Darrow told his coach at Princeton, Bob Surace, that they needed to talk, Surace was worried that he was injured or wanted off the team.
The truth was a relief: Darrow revealed that he was gay.
“Here at Princeton , if we can’t handle this and say, ‘we’re supportive of everybody no matter what their background, religion, race or sexual orientation,’ then we don’t have the right guys in the locker room,” the coach told NBC Sports . “We’re going to support Mason 100%.”
Mason is now the only openly gay college football player, and Princeton’s first. His teammates knew about his sexual orientation two years ago, but Darrow only made the fact known publicly until an in-depth profile was published with Outsports on Tuesday.
Princeton’s Mason Darrow become only out gay college footballer: http://t.co/5pBZ5qghTO pic.twitter.com/e9inVmu8iK
— Attitude Magazine (@AttitudeMag) September 16, 2015
Mason Darrow and @Princeton football show how far we’ve come for #gay athletes http://t.co/cZSbdPBwv9 pic.twitter.com/vC22UvR1az
— Cyd Zeigler (@CydZeigler) September 16, 2015
Mason first confided in fellow player Caleb Slate. He said keeping the secret made him feel “trapped. I wasn’t happy.” Darrow feared that Slate would judge him; he comes from a conservative part of Florida. To his relief, the fellow offensive lineman was only concerned that his teammate was dedicated to the game.
“The only prerequisite to being on a football team is that you work hard. This isn’t going to bother people if you tell them,” Slate told him.
Since then, Mason hasn’t gotten any flak from any of his other teammates or coaches. Even better, everything has been fine back at home in Barrington, Illinois, and his fellow students on the Princeton campus weren’t fazed by the news either. His teammates and coaches also kept Darrow’s secret until he was ready for others to know.
This unconditional approval may just be a sign of the times.
“People will surprise you. I was definitely concerned that people, teammates, would react poorly. I think in this day and age, people really just don’t care about it.”
Darrow’s Princeton teammates have responded not just with acceptance, but they still treat him like “one of the guys”; locker room jibes cover Mason’s sexual preference, but he called the teasing good-natured.
That Darrow has made his sexual orientation known is notable because he didn’t wait until his college football career was over, like Michael Sam . Sam announced he was gay after his time at Missouri was over, but before the NFL draft, the Washington Post noted.
Instead, Mason has revealed the news before his junior season with the team.
As college football’s only openly gay player, Darrow hopes that his story can inspire other men who may be anxious, like he was, to tell the truth about who he is, according to the New York Times.
“If that’s going to help some sophomore in Arizona come out to his teammates and be comfortable in himself, that’s the reason I’m doing it.”
[Photo Courtesy David Lee /Getty Images]
