Jerry Seinfeld once lamented being outed, even though he was never in. Former NFL player Wade Davis has now outed himself, even though he was already out.
Technically, that’s not what Davis did. But the folks at Outsports.com had previously sold it that way, subtly but unmistakably.
Last month, in an item that explores attitudes among current NFL players regarding the acceptance of gay teammates, Outsports.com said that a former NFL player would soon talk publicly about being gay, for the first time.
But Davis never played in a regular-season NFL game, and he came out, at the latest, in early 2011.
As a result, my initial reaction was to conclude that I’d been the victim of a bait-and-switch, via an effort to build advance buzz for something that, standing along, wouldn’t have drawn much attention. So I initially refused to consider the article or watch the companion interview of Wade Davis.