Former pro soccer player David Testo has only one regret about going public with his homosexuality: He wishes he had done it a long time ago. “I really do regret not coming out publicly earlier,” the 30-year-old midfielder, who also played with the Vancouver Whitecaps and Richmond Kickers of the USL and Columbus Crew of the MLS, told Radio-Canada.
“It’s like carrying around a secret, you know, and carrying around luggage and just never being allowed to be yourself.”
The North Carolina native said he now feels more confident and mature and is ready to speak publicly about his sexual orientation.
Testo said he had wrestled with making his sexual orientation public for a long time. He added that he was also regrets not thanking his partner as he accepted the team’s most valuable player award in 2009.
“The one person I wanted to thank the most, I couldn’t,” he said. “I just didn’t feel comfortable at the time.”
Testo said his sexual orientation wasn’t a secret among his family, friends or teammates. In the interview, he talked about the difficulty of being a gay athlete, both for himself and his teammates.
Heart-warming - and surely ungenerous to carp with a "better late than never". Even though that might be true, how many of us would truly have had the guts to come out under the circumstances? I definitely not.
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