Inclusivity advocate hopes to change sports culture

The ‘You Can Play Project’ is making its mark on sports culture, dedicated to ensuring equality, respect and safety to all athletes regardlessof sexual orientation.  Wade Davis is the new Executive Director — a former NFL player who graduated from Overland High School in Aurora, Colorado and began his college football career at Mesa State College in Grand Junction. The 36-year-old spoke with Out Front about coming out as gay last year, sports, career advice, and what we all can do to support his organization’s mission.

‘The OUT List’ is a HBO documentary that you were featured in with other high-profile names in LGBT culture. What was your experience like doing that project?

It was one of those very surreal moments. I’ve never seen myself as this advocate or this public figure, for lack of a better word. To have the people who are at HBO want to have my story be told was truly an honor and I was extremely nervous. I was very young as far as in my disclosure of my orientation so I was like, “I hope I don’t say anything stupid.” I was hyper-vigilant about everything that I was saying, but to be honest I was just humbled to be a part of it.

It’s been more than a year since you’ve come out publicly. How do you reflect on that experience? What does it feel like looking back at that now?

It feels like I’m a completely different person. It feels as if I have re-birthed. The amount of information I have been able to retain and understand — I went back to school, I would say that I took an American studies and women studies and gender studies classes and I just learned such a wealth of knowledge that I feel as if I’m a different person, and the best type of person that tries to have lack of judgment, that really tries to look at every experience through the eyes of someone else because every experience is very individual. I’m also really coming to understand who I am and to really own a lot of my own fears and to lean in and walk through everything and not try to go around it or over it.

Let’s talk about your new gig as the Executive Director of the ‘You Can Play Project;’ that’s really exciting.

It is. It was a true honor to have the three co-founders trust me with something that’s almost like a baby to them, and I’m really being conscious of really trying to understand what their original mission was for when they started this organization – and to really make sure that my values and ideas are in line with that and see change in the work, to really see that you can create an impact whether it’s high school sports, college sports or even the professional level and really understand that athletes actually aren’t as homophobic as we assumed, that athletes do embrace difference. I’m really excited about what the next three to five years will look like, especially on the landscape of sports, and how the ‘You Can Play Project’ can be a real force in helping to shape culture.

Aside from financial support, what are some other ways that listeners and people who are interested in the organization can support the project?

It’s really about creating an awareness of the work that we’re doing, and talking to your friends, to your family, to high schools, to corporations and really say, “There’s this organization out there that is really passionate about changing culture in the sports world and removing homophobia” and see if there’s a way that (the) organizations can actually partner. We don’t believe that we’re the only people who should be doing this work and we don’t believe that we’re the smartest ones either, so we would love to create amazing partnerships to do as much as we can to really change sports culture. And to also have any young person who is interested in sports who is interested in being a part of what ‘You Can Play’ is doing to reach out to us to do a ‘You Can Play’ video. Whatever a young person or older person thinks that they want to do that can really help our mission, we are all ears.

At what point to you believe it will no longer be a big deal to be out in professional sports? And what do you think it will take for us to get there?

I don’t think that we’re as far off as some people may think. I think one of the biggest things that everyone wants is for there to be this watershed moment when you have five, ten, fifteen, twenty athletes all come out in a row. We have to be conscious of the fact that disclosure of one’s sexuality is so individual. The reason why I came out at 28 is different from why someone may wait and come out at 50 or why a young person may come out at 15.

I think that what we’re really doing is creating a conversation around homophobia and acceptance and inclusion in sports that’s never been had before so you’re getting a chance to see so many straight-identified players from Kobe Bryant to Dwyane Wade to Robert Griffith III to really speak up in support of LGBT individuals in sports, and that’s really helping to shape culture.

There’s really this kind of trickle-down effect. I’m not a believer in trickle-down economics, but I do believe that there is a way where individuals can see athletes who they aspire to be and say, “Oh wow, Kobe Bryant just said something really amazing around LGBT issues, am I missing something here?” I think that we are experiencing this move, this shift in consciousness, where people are really understanding that if you can play a sport, you should be allowed to actually play.

What advice might you give to someone who wants to achieve their dreams in today’s world of partial acceptance of LGBT people? Is there anything you’ve learned in your training for football that might be able to be applied to any goal that somebody might have?

The biggest thing is to be persistent, honestly. A coach once told me, and it was my favorite quote, he said, “Wade, what are you going to do when no one’s watching?” Am I doing everything that it takes to be the best? Whether it’s me wanting to be the best comedian or talk show host, I need to make sure that I actually have the talent and the skills to back up any job that I’m going for so I don’t give a person any reason to ever reject me.

To listen to the full interview on Gay Ambition Podcast online, visit ofcnow.co/davis