Cyd Zeigler – författare
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Zeigler tells the story of how sports has been radically transformed for LGBT athletes in the past four years.
“Fair Play presents LGBT history and shows how far the movement has come. It’s also an important scrapbook of past and present-day gay athletes who have bravely tested America’s social climate and come out, even when their careers were at risk.” —Bay Area Reporter
When Cyd Zeigler started writing about LGBT sports issues in 1999, no one wanted to talk about them. Today, this is a central conversation in American society that reverberates throughout the sports world and beyond.
In Fair Play, Zeigler tells the story of how sports have transformed for LGBT athletes, diving into key moments and issues that have shaped sports for LGBT people today. He shares intimate behind-the-scenes details about various athletes and stories—including NFL Hall of Famer Michael Irvin, transgender MMA fighter Fallon Fox, and NFL hopeful Michael Sam, among others—along with contextual insights about elite sports, including the overhyped “distraction” myth surrounding gay athletes.
Always the forward-thinker, Zeigler maps out the necessary steps to complete sports’ transformation and fully open athletics to LGBT people.
Political sportswriter and Edge of Sports imprint curator Dave Zirin (the Nation) has never shied away from criticizing that which die-hard sports fans hold dear. The Edge of Sports titles will address issues across many different sports—football, basketball, swimming, tennis, etc.—and at both the professional and nonprofessional/collegiate levels. Furthermore, Zirin brings to the table select stories of athletes’ journeys and what they are facing and how they evolve both in their sport as well as against the greater backdrop of one’s life’s odyssey.
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A riveting account of life as a closeted professional athlete from gay NFL player O’Callaghan, against the backdrop of depression, opioid addiction, and the threat of suicide.
“[O’Callaghan’s] story is one of beautiful vulnerability, and it further shows the importance of knowing you aren’t alone.” —Oprah Daily, recommended by Gayle King
Ryan O’Callaghan’s plan was always to play football and then, when his career was over, kill himself. Growing up in a politically conservative corner of California, the not-so-subtle messages he heard as a young man from his family and from TV and film routinely equated being gay with disease and death. Letting people in on the darkest secret he kept buried inside was not an option: better death with a secret than life as a gay man. As a kid , Ryan never envisioned just how far his football career would take him. He was recruited by the University of California, Berkeley, where he spent five seasons, playing alongside his friend Aaron Rodgers. Then it was on to the NFL for stints with the almost-undefeated New England Patriots and the often-defeated Kansas City Chiefs.
Bubbling under the surface of Ryan’s entire NFL career was a collision course between his secret sexuality and his hidden drug use. When the league caught him smoking pot, he turned to NFL-sanctioned prescription painkillers that quickly sent his life into a tailspin. As injuries mounted and his daily intake of opioids reached a near-lethal level, he wrote his suicide note to his parents and plotted his death.
Yet someone had been watching. A member of the Chiefs organization stepped in, recognizing the signs of drug addiction. Ryan reluctantly sought psychological help, and it was there that he revealed his lifelong secret for the very first time. Nearing the twilight of his career, Ryan faced the ultimate decision: end it all, or find out if his family and football friends could ever accept a gay man in their lives.