Todd Gross
tag@cs.utexas.edu
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Gays say they need athletic role models

By Barry Meisel
Knight-Ridder Tribune News Service

Reprinted *without* permission

    Ed Gallagher hated himself for being trapped in a 6-foot-6-inch,
275-pound offensive lineman's body.  He hated the fact that he preferred
sex with men, hated how the world liked him as the macho weightlifting
behemoth from Valhalla, NY, who played at Pitt from 1977 to '79 and
spent two weeks in training camp with the New York Jets in 1980.

    He hated himself for living a lie and trying to be straight, but
he also felt disgusted whenever he had sex with a man.  In the five
years after his football career ended, he grew more sexually repressed,
paranoid, hypochondriacal and suicidal.

    That's why he rolled of Valhalla's Kensico Dam on March 1, 1985.


    Gallagher, 36, is a quadriplegic, but he's free now.  The fall
fractured his neck and healed his soul.

    ``When I went off the dam, I finally came to grips,'' he said.
`` `What the hell am I hiding anymore?  I don't care.'  It took me
awhile to get to that point.  I was more emotionally paralyzed then
than I am physically paralyzed now.''

    Gallagher works at a nonprofit group called Alive to Thrive,
talking to metropolitan-area youngsters who are struggling as he did.
He knows he's no big-name athlete, but he's there for kids.  He's out.
And he's positive he's doing the right thing.

    ``If I could have had a role model, sure it would have helped,''
he said.  ``If I knew somebody in sports, maybe I could have defused
it.  Now, I'm not blaming anyone.  I was a stubborn SOB.  But sure,
we need gay role models in sports.  If two came out, I think it would
have a positive domino effect.  If 10 of us got together to make a
statement, have a huge press conference, maybe it could be done that
way.  Boy, what a press conference that would be.''


    For someone in a wheelchair, Gallagher requests little for himself.
But he wanted help answering one question:  Would the man who offered
him his scholarship, Pitt Coach Johnny Majors, have recruited him if
Majors had known he was gay?

    ``That's a moot question,'' Majors said.  ``He was a young man that
I liked very much at the time.  I certainly have no reason to change my
opinion of what he is right now.  I liked him when I was around him,
but I haven't been around Ed Gallagher for, probably, 16 years.  I cannot
tell you whether I would've or not.  I normally take a young man based
on what he is like as a person, and as far [as] his athletic ability and
contribution to the squad.''

    In 1989, the US Department of Health and Human Services issued a
report of the Secretary's Task Force on Youth Suicide.  It concluded
that homosexuals ages 15-24 were two to three times more likely to
attempt suicide than heterosexuals.

    Among its recommendations were to ``enlist adult group leaders who
reflect the population of youth served.''  Leaders of social support
groups or recreational activities often function as role models to the
young people they serve.

    Dave Pallone, 41, the openly gay former National League umpire,
read the report.  He strongly believes the absence of gay role models
in sports contributes to the void in the lives of gay youngsters.  He
said he has received 40,000 letters since his 1988 autobiography was
published, a vast majority from closet gays and lesbians thanking him
for showing they are not alone.

    ``You don't know how much I would love to out an athlete.  But it
would go against all the things I talk about,'' Pallone said.  ``I'm
at the point in my life to say, `To hell with them.'  But I wouldn't
do it.''