Ex-gridder admits homosexuality

Dave

WASHINGTON (P) Kopay, former running back and special teams player for six National Football League teams, said Thursday that he has long preferred sex with men.

Kopay, thought to be the first pro football player to openly admit his homosexuality, stepped forth via an interview with the Washington Star.

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I hope it might help some people he said of the disclosure, "especially younger people who are going through similar experiences and haven't had anyone to talk to about it."

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Kopay, 33, was signed by the San Francisco 49ers after graduating from the University of Washington in 1964. His first homosexual experience was years earlier with a fraternity brother, he aid

Kopay played mostly on special teams in the pros, though he gained 1000 yards rushing and another 600 with pass receptions over his

career. After four years with the 49ers, he was traded to Detroit and later played for Washington, New Orleans, Oakland and Green Bay. He finished up with a short stint last year for the Southern California Sun of the now-defunct World Football League.

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After leaving college, Kopay said, he long supressed his homosexuality. "I spent four years in San Francisco, playing football, dating women and making love," he said. "But not really letting any of my feelings out."

"I was uptight as hell," he said. "I never really admitted any of these feelings to myself until 1969, when I came to Washington. I saw ... a cosmopolitan attitude where you could actually see gay people in bars or at a party, people I could relate to.”

Even so, and after being traded to New Orleans, Kopay later married a girl he'd been dating for some time. The marriage lasted just a year before they were separated.