Matt Dooley, the 22-year-old Notre Dame
tennis player who came out gay on Monday, says reaction has been
“overwhelmingly positive.”
Dooley came on in an article posted on
Outsports.
“Saying gay for the first time was
extremely tough, almost choking, because you know your life will
never be the same,” Dooley
said Thursday. “That was the hardest part, to move forward
from there.”
He said he told his teammates on the
September 16 second anniversary of an attempted suicide.
Of the attempt, Dooley
wrote on Outsports: “That day I wanted nothing more than to
escape the anguish of coming out to my family, my friends, and, in a
way, myself. Death was better than accepting – or revealing –
that I was gay.”
The Roman Catholic school's student
handbook prohibits sex outside of marriage and calls on gay students
to remain abstinent.
Dooley said that while he's received
enormous support, he continues to struggle.
“I've come a long way and I'm
comfortable with who I am,” he said. “But I also wanted to
explain that I'm not perfect. I'm not completely free from any pain
from it. It's still there. Still at times it just hurts. Certain
issues are still just painful,” he said.