Wade Davis, Megan Rapinoe, Orlando Cruz
and Seimone Augustus were among the athletes who came out gay in
2012.
Davis, whose professional football
career ended in 2003 when he dislocated his kneecap and tore his
patella tendon at a Washington Redskins training camp, came out gay
over the summer in an interview with Outsports.com.
Davis told CNN that he regrets not
coming out while in the NFL.
“It would make a difference because
youth can actually watch someone on television who's just like them.
I wish I had the courage back then to come out,” he said. “If I
could do it all over again, I would come out … while I was
playing.”
Olympian Megan Rapinoe, 27, came
out gay in an interview with gay glossy Out
shortly before heading to the Olympics, making her one of less
than two dozen openly gay athletes to compete in the summer Olympics.
“I think it's just nice to be open,
there's no more sort of omitting anything,” the soccer star said.
Puerto Rican Boxer Orlando Cruz, 31,
won his first fight in October since announcing that he's gay. He
said that he was touched by the support he received from the crowd at
the Kissimmee Civic Center outside Orlando, Florida.
“I was very happy that they respect
me,” he said. “That's what I want – them to see me as a boxer,
as an athlete and as a man in every sense of the word.”
Minnesota Lynx star Seimone Augustus,
who earned MVP honors while leading the Lynx to the 2011 WNBA
championship, over the summer began discussing her engagement to
longtime girlfriend LaTaya Varner, marking her first public
statements on her sexual orientation.
“You've got to be a role model, and
that means letting people into your life and letting them in on the
happiness and the joy,” the 28-year-old said. “And right now, I
just finished a championship season and decided to propose to the
love of my life.”