Ex Packer Esera Tuaolo writes book on being gay in the NFL

[motife]

http://thecelebritycafe.com/features/5512.html

First Openly Gay NFL Player Pens Tell-All
14-Apr-2006
Written by: Ellen Wernecke

If the statistics are true, one man in 10 is gay. In the NFL, that man has to keep quiet... till now.

Esera Tuaolo could run and hit with the best of them playing in the NFL for over ten years.

But now Tuaolo is about to deliver the biggest hit of all: his memoir, Alone in the Trenches: My Life as a Gay Man in the NFL.

Tuaolo writes candidly in the book about his Samoan family in Hawaii, the family deaths that marked his childhood and his first job as a bodyguard for the Mexican Mafia.

But he also relates how he wanted an Easy Bake Oven at age 9, his brother's heartbreaking outing at 23 and the pressures to keep his cover as a defensive lineman.

Tuaolo said he looked at the NFL as a job and was never attracted to his fellow players, but the homophobic language he had to listen to every day made him fear for his life, were he to be discovered.

Lucky, this story has a happy ending: Tuaolo lives with his two children (whom, yes, he's teaching to play football) and his long-term partner in Minnesota. He hopes that having written Alone in the Trenches, other NFL players will be encouraged to speak out about more than their favorite flavor of Gatorade.

[Anti-Polar Bear]

Sounds like the player Thompson wish he could sign.

Im sure when the polar bear retires from front office football, he'll write a tell all book also.

[ND72]

I've seen him speak about his career...and i really look up ot him for making it known, and almost letting guys know that it's not an issue, i think anyway. just don't drop the soap i mean...

[b bulldog]

He looked good in purple

[Harlan Huckleby]

He announced he was gay 2 or 3 years after retiring. Big deal. Wake me up when an active player has the guts to come out of the closet.

[oregonpackfan]

As evidence that Taeolo wished to "hide in the closet" coming out of high school, he enrolled at Oregon State.

He was a blue-chip high school prospect recruited by many "big-name" college programs but chose Oregon State located in tiny Corvallis, OR.

When he began his collegiate career in '86, Oregon State was firmly entrenched in last place in the Pac-10. Its facilities were primitive by today's major college standards.

He hardly wanted to make an impact on college football. He just wanted to get lost in the crowd.

His insights are interesting. You might wish to check out the book from the library.

Oregonpackfan