Matt Hasselbeck, quarterback for the
Tennessee Titans, has said he would support an openly gay teammate.
The 36-year-old Hasselbeck said in an
interview with gay blog OutSports.com
that he believes three out of the four quarterbacks on the Titans
rooster would be okay with a gay teammate.
“The quarterback room conversation
was that, 'Hey, has anybody played with an openly gay teammate?' And
nobody had,” Hasselbeck said. “And it's kind of irrelevant to
the discussion in terms of how we would view that person as a
teammate or how we would view that person as a friend, or how we
would trust that person.”
“But I think, at least for the three
quarterbacks in our room, it was kind of a shrug, yeah, so what?”
Hasselbeck, brother of ESPN analyst Tim
Hasselbeck, who is married to The View co-host Elizabeth
Hasselbeck, added that coming out gay in the NFL would be brave.
“Statistically, it's a fact that any of
us who played in the NFL for a period of time has played with a gay
teammate,” he said. “That's just a fact. If somebody came out,
I think it would be brave of him, because of what the culture has
been. But I'm sure we all have.”