NFL player Brendon Ayanbadejo has
walked back assertions that four football players are thinking about
coming out gay on the same day. The former Baltimore Ravens
linebacker now says “it's fathomable.”
In
comments to reporters on Thursday, Ayanbadejo remarked that an
NFL player could come out “sooner than you think.”
“We're in talks with a handful of
players who are considering it. There are up to four players being
talked to right now and they're trying to be organized so they can
come out on the same day together. It would make a major splash and
take pressure off one guy. It would be a monumental day if a handful
or a few guys come out.”
He toned down his optimism during an
appearance on CNN.
“No, actually, what it is is, is
there are organizations I'm in contact with, and there are
individuals I'm in contact with and collectively we know of some gay
players,” Ayanbadejo told Anderson Cooper. “And these players,
some of them are anonymous, some of them we know who they are, but
their identity is super secret and nobody wants to reveal who they
are, and some of them don't want to reveal who they are, rightfully
so because it's entirely up to them what they are going to do.”
“What we want to facilitate is
getting them all together so they can lean on each other. So they
can have a support group. And potentially it's possible, it's
fathomable, that they could possibly do something together, break a
story together,” he
added.