We talk about homosexuality in sports only when a lightning-rod moment comes along -- Kobe Bryant fined for using a gay slur in reference to an official, Sean Avery praised and derided for speaking out in support of same-sex marriage in an ad campaign -- then brush it aside, either pretending it doesn't exist or just preferring not to discuss it.
Which is why now, four years after his Villanova basketball career ended, Will Sheridan feels compelled to talk. Not because of Bryant or Avery. He decided to speak publicly months before either incident occurred.
But because he just doesn't get it anymore.
The big deal. The turmoil. The stigma.
He's proud of who he is, confident, comfortable, borderline arrogant even. And although it wasn't easy, his wasn't the torturously impossible and lonely road so many presumed it would be.
That night that he told Nardi, his teammate didn't recoil or walk out of the room. He didn't ask for a new roommate.
He made a joke.
"I just said, 'Don't go putting a hit on me or sniffing my underwear or nothing,'" Nardi said. "I mean I was surprised because it was new to me. I had never really experienced anything like that, but it's not like it mattered. I don't know. I mean, we were friends. Who cares?"
Most know Will Sheridan as a former college basketball player in the Big East, but he has a wide range of interests and career endeavors.
Will Sheridan went to Villanova with the same dream every college kid totes in his suitcases to college -- to become the person he was supposed to be.
He found that person. It's a wonderfully complicated, constantly evolving and multidimensional person.
He's an athlete, a former Division I basketball player who was good enough to start for most of his four seasons, pivotal seasons as the Wildcats blossomed into a national power.
He's a musician, with a video ("Welcome to the Jungle") that has gone mini-viral on YouTube and another one ("302") about to drop this week.
He's an artist, a performer who is packing the club scene in New York, people responding to his music and his message.
He's a businessman, a manager at a world-renowned fashion retailer.
And he happens to be gay.
"I'm trying to have a voice, and I want that voice to reach as many people as it can," he said. "I mean, look at me. I'm black. I'm gay. I'm like a quadruple minority, and I feel like a little piece of me resides in everybody. Maybe there's a kid out there who doesn't think he's OK, and he can look at me and say, 'OK, he played college basketball. He went overseas. He has a music career and now he's living his life. Now he's who he wants to be and he's happy and confident and comfortable.' It's my responsibility to talk about that."
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