Sean Smith had reached the pinnacle of his athletic career, swimming for Rutgers at the NCAA championships, but everything felt wrong. He was hardly sleeping. He was battling depression and abusing alcohol, and even contemplated suicide.
He knew the reason. But what could he do?
“I had this really poor showing in the last meet of my college career because I couldn’t handle being gay and being an athlete,” Smith said last week. “I just couldn’t deal with it.”
He wonders if things would be different now. He sees so many sports figures coming out, and so many others announcing their support, he hopes athletes in a similar position will have it easier.
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Smith has followed each story, his excitement mixed with regret. He was captain of the swimming team at Rutgers in 2005, an athlete respected enough in the athletic community to serve as a chairman of the student-athlete advisory committee at the school.
But he struggled with his sexuality. He was secretly dating a teammate and feared the other swimmers would find out, and that they wouldn’t respect him anymore when they did.
The depression was at its worst at the NCAA championships that winter of 2005. He was taking a class called “Sexuality in Sports,” and it dawned on him as he worked on a research paper in his hotel room that, “I was literally living what I was writing about.”
“I wasn’t sleeping. I was abusing alcohol to try to fall asleep,” he said. “And getting to the national championships, I probably didn’t sleep more than a couple of hours that entire weekend.”
He had support — plenty of it. But he said there is a difference between having understanding friends and role models. Smith, who later became an assistant coach for the now-defunct swim team, said he never had athletes he could look at and think, “Yes, I’m like him.”
Maybe that’s changing now. This generation of gay athletes will have those role models, because last week alone, they could watch an NBA executive, a college basketball player, a pro bowler and a sports radio host come out.
Smith, who is now a full-time swimming instructor in Manhattan, has started a support group called “Our Group” to let young gay athletes know they’re not alone. He wonders who will come out next, and hopes whoever it is provides someone with the example he never had.
“Every single story you see is another step in the right direction,” Smith said. “My biggest struggle was not seeing anyone else like me. Every single story that’s printed now is another Google search result that’s going to pop up when somebody is looking for guidance.”
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