In Spring 2013, former NFL player Kwame Harris publicly spoke about his sexuality for the first time in an interview with CNN. He came out to his family as a teen and says he partly chose to play at Stanford because he idealized the possibilities, saying, "I thought I'd come out to San Francisco, this haven for gay people, and I would spread my wings and everything would be great." Although he came close to coming out, he didn't — not until after he and an ex-boyfriend got in a public fistfight and his sexuality came into the media spotlight.
Since then, Harris said he's "relieved" to join the list of former athletes who have come out. "I'm just a number now, and we need to have numbers." He added, "No one was telling me not to come out, but the implicit rules are much stronger than the explicit ones — the shame implied by secrecy. I don't want other gay athletes to feel this way."
