NFL pro Carl Nassib has a man in his life!
via People:
During an appearance on Comeback Stories with Donny Starkins and Darren Waller, the 28-year-old Las Vegas Raiders player revealed that he has “met an awesome guy.”
“He’s the best,” Nassib told the hosts on Thursday, after saying that he felt the one thing missing from his life was being “someone’s number one priority.”
“That’s just the one thing I wanted,” he said. “And I couldn’t have that, so that was the one thing, I was like, ‘Man I really f—— want that.’ But I got that now, so it’s good.”
In June, Nassib became the NFL’s first active player to come out as gay.
“I wasn’t really trying to break any barriers or stuff like that,” he confessed. “Coming out as gay is something that, for a while, that I wanted to do and just wanted to wait for the right moment.”
The decision to come out, however, wasn’t easy. Though he initially “didn’t want to do it,” Nassib said he “felt a huge obligation” to the community, including “all the young kids out there that are struggling with their sexuality.”
“If I could just help a few of them out, then I could sleep better at night,” he said.
Nassib wanted to come out in 2020 during his first season with the Raiders, but the NFL’s strict COVID-19 protocols led him to hold off. Without the ability to see his teammates outside of Raiders’ facilities and no organized team activities (OTAs), Nassib “didn’t really have a vibe for it” at first.
“I really didn’t feel comfortable enough to do it,” he admitted. “I wanted to make sure the guys that I went to work with every single day were good dudes, were accepting dudes — and the locker rooms I’d been in before, were absolutely the same.”
Nassib’s hopes of having accepting teammates were confirmed at the end of this year’s OTAs when Raiders players met with the team’s clinical psychologist and opened up about various real-life experiences.
“Everyone responded so well, and I was like, ‘Damn, these are good dudes!'” Nassib said.
Shoutout to Carl for living his life.
