Former Patriots offensive lineman Ryan O’Callaghan comes out as gay
Ryan O’Callaghan, an offensive tackle who played three seasons with the New England Patriots, joined a very small group of former NFL players Monday, publicly revealing for the first time that he is gay.
In an interview with SB Nation’s Outsports, O’Callaghan came out for the first time publicly and said that he contemplated suicide following the end of his NFL career.
“Football was kind of the cover for my life,” O’Callaghan said in a video accompanying the article. “Football was the most masculine thing I could do, so I decided to dedicate myself to football.”
The 6-foot-7, 330-pound tackle was taken by the Patriots in the fifth round of the 2006 draft, after winning the 2005 Morris Trophy at the University of California for the Pac-10’s best offensive lineman.
O’Callaghan says the culture at New England was a benefit to him at the time.
“I was just able to focus on football and they were going to focus on football, and not, ‘The rookie, why isn’t he married? Why isn’t he bringing a girl home when we all go out?” he said — though he did recall one situation in which he convinced a college teammate’s ex-girlfriend to be his “date” for an anniversary party for Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
After playing two seasons and missing the entire 2008 season to injury, O’Callaghan was waived by the Patriots and picked up by the Chiefs. He played two more years with the Chiefs, before again missing the 2009 season due to injury. During that final year, O’Callaghan said he began abusing pain killers to deal with physical — as well as psychological — pain.
“I was abusing painkillers, no question,” he told Outsports. “It helped with the pain of the injuries, and with the pain of being gay. I just didn’t worry about being gay when I took the Vicodin. I just didn’t worry.”
Chiefs staff members reportedly began to take notice of O’Callaghan’s drug intake, as well as his increasing talk of suicide. After counseling from the team, O’Callaghan said he got “clean” and began confiding in some staffers — including former Patriots executive and Chiefs general manager Scott Pioli — about his sexual orientation. Eventually, O’Callaghan came out to friends, family, and former teammates, too. He said he was surprised and assured by how acceptingly they embraced him.
“Being gay wasn’t just a small detail in my life, it consumed it,” he said. “It’s all I would think about. But now that I have come out it rarely crosses my mind. Yeah I’d go about my daily life in football, but thinking about hiding it and hoping no one finds out and being ready for any situation was exhausting.”
No players have come out publicly while currently on an NFL roster. Outsports reported in 2013 that only six other players had come out after retiring. University of Missouri defensive end Michael Sam came out before being drafted in 2014, but never played an NFL game and went on to play in Canada.
