Princeton football player comes out publicly days before kickoff, Mason Darrow was in a slump. The apprentice abhorrent lineman for the Princeton Tigers had fabricated it into a brace of amateur in the 2013 season, but his practices one defining anniversary in aboriginal November were a mess. He was apathetic authoritative calls and his anxiety were ashore in the mud.
His antagonism apperception was accepting in the way of his achievement with centralized questions he was added annoyed of answering.
Walking to the amusement afterwards a decidedly poor play, Darrow's arch abashed low. The able breeze of autumn brought a chill, the sun ambience abaft the bubble of oak and maple copse lining the able-bodied accessories on campus. A thousand afar from home and arena badly, bareness and dejection absorbed him.
In that difficult moment, anyone accomplished out.
"You all right?" Caleb Slate, a adolescent abhorrent lineman and a green at the time, noticed Darrow's black demeanor.
Darrow, arena the above academy kid who couldn't be agitated with emotion, blew it off.
"Just got some claimed stuff," he said. "I'm fine."
Slate wasn't accepting it.
"No, you're not fine," Slate said, afterwards abandoning that Darrow's apperception was "on addition planet." Darrow acutely bare advice and Slate would acknowledgment the call.
"Come up to my allowance afterwards banquet and we'll talk," Slate said.
For the next hour in the locker allowance and the cafeteria Darrow sorted through all the accessible means out of the approaching chat with his teammate. He composed a argument to Slate adage something had appear up; he couldn't beat by. He would just draft off Slate and abstain it all together. Except, you just don't do that to a adolescent abhorrent lineman. Maybe to a receiver or a linebacker, but not addition guy in the trenches. Darrow had cursory thoughts about lying, but that wouldn't fly either.
He accomplished his meal, deleted the after-effects argument and trudged to Slate's room.
Poised to beating on Slate's door, agnosticism captivated aback his arm. If he absolved through that door, there would be no axis back. Football players like him - 6-foot-5, 285 pounds - artlessly weren't gay. He was a lineman at a Division 1 FCS program, not some Broadway dancer. What's worse, his teammates could end up getting the lugheads of football lore, men who would abide annihilation but a gay man showering next to them.
"I acquainted trapped. I wasn't happy. I capital to acquaint people, but I anticipation there would be a lot of animosity. There are a lot of guys from the South on the team. I wasn't abiding how humans would acknowledge to it."
Slate represented aggregate Darrow feared the most. A big able-bodied like Darrow, Slate was from Middleburg, Fla., added Alabama than Miami. Mitt Romney won Clay County, Fla., 73%-27%, in 2012; in contrast, the GOP presidential applicant won abandoned 61% of the Alabama vote. Slate was absolutely the guy Darrow a lot of feared telling.
"But I knew at that point I didn't wish to be closeted my absolute time here," Darrow said. "I knew this had to appear eventually, so it ability as able-bodied appear now. Ability as able-bodied rip off the Band-Aid."
After a brace of actual abysmal breaths, Darrow agape afore his apperception could anticipate anymore. Slate was by himself in the room, a abatement for Darrow. Bigger to acquaint one getting at a time.
Darrow absent the chat with baby allocution about banquet and questions about Slate's girlfriend. His abettor wasn't accepting it. He capital to apperceive what was up.
"I've just had some getting I've been ambidextrous with," Darrow said, "and I'm not abiding how I wish to go about ambidextrous with it."
Slate chuckled.
"If this is a babe issue," Slate said, "I'm traveling to be pissed."
Darrow looked about the allowance for an escape hatch. The moment of truth.
"Actually, it's affectionate of the opposite."
Slate was, understandably, confused. Huh?
"I'm gay."
Slate's artsy eyebrows angry into advanced eyes.
"Wow, OK," Slate said. "Didn't see that coming."
After a few added words, Slate assured Darrow it would be OK. Again they did what any added teammates would do on a Thursday afore a big game: They ate mozzarella sticks and sat down for some video games.
The abandoned affair that afflicted that night was Darrow's abrupt faculty of freedom.
Darrow never struggled with the chastity of getting gay, he just never ample he could in fact be queer. He didn't access top academy until Barack Obama was the president. Several states had already legalized same-sex alliance by then. Gay entertainers - and yes, even some gay athletes - had accustomed acclaim for their courage. Darrow had developed up in a country on the doorstep of adequation for gay people.
Yet the connected drumbeat of media images of gay men put advanced a accurate affectionate of gay guy: Small, 6% physique fat, listens to pop music, drinks blush martinis and dances on Broadway. He didn't fit the bill. Mostly.
"Don't get me wrong, I like Broadway shows," Darrow said as I gave him a admirable bout of West Hollywood one black this summer. "But I thought, this isn't right. I like football. It just fabricated it harder to amount out because I didn't fit into the stereotype."
That attack has kept him from agreeable added with the gay community. While he came out to his team, ancestors and accompany two years ago, our affair in West Hollywood in August was the aboriginal time he had ventured anywhere abreast a gay bar, let abandoned one of the epicenters of the gay community.
"I accessory at Outsports a lot, and I analyze with a lot of those guys. But I don't analyze with the gay association actual much."
While he knew he admired guys in the sixth or seventh grade, images of able gay football players like Esera Tuaolo were few and far between. Michael Sam had appear his accuracy to his teammates but not yet to the world.
Darrow was, like so abounding gay athletes acquaint themselves, a complete anomaly. He was allotment of an able-bodied family, accessory Princeton in the footsteps of his brother, Mack, who played basketball for the Tigers. At 6-foot-5, 285-pounds, Darrow was a beast. On the top academy football acreage he angry active with his backbone and acumen.
Mid-major football programs like Wyoming, Bowling Green and Western Michigan offered him able-bodied scholarships. Michigan State fabricated inquiries, and Vanderbilt was absorbed in authoritative him allotment of the team.
This was not the activity of a gay man.
So he hid. He anachronous women. If anyone in his top academy asked him if he was gay - and that happened a brace of times - he denied it.
"I acquainted like I had to accumulate appearances up. I didn't wish to agitate suspicion that I ability be gay, so I went forth with the breeze and did what I anticipation was accepted of me."
He kept up those appearances until Nov. 7, 2013, if his abettor Slate didn't let him off the angle and Darrow was annoyed of active a lie. It didn't yield continued for chat of "the gay teammate" to advance beyond the absolute team. Darrow told some of them, and Slate aggregate it with others with Darrow's blessing.
"The abandoned prerequisite to getting on a football team," Slate assured him, "is that you plan hard. This isn't traveling to bother humans if you acquaint them."
In the advancing weeks assorted players asked Darrow if the rumor was true. While he'd alone the angle from the guys in top school, he didn't authority aback with his adolescent Tigers.
Jack Knight, a adolescent abhorrent lineman from North Carolina, is now his roommate. Knight hadn't been accompany with a gay getting afore he met Darrow. He didn't accept the rumors about Darrow getting gay afore he heard it beeline from his mouth.
"He's a abundant guy," Knight said. "I reside with him now. I've accepted him for three years. I see what he does off the acreage in the classroom. I apperceive what he does on the field. I apperceive he's a actual answerable person. He's a aggressive person. And I apperceive if I'm out on the acreage authoritative a block that he'll be appropriate there with me authoritative a hit as harder as he can."
Slate's apparent accepting had empowered Darrow, and the acknowledgment of anniversary consecutive abettor was added baptize for the beginning seeds of his courage. The bright bulletin that annihilation was traveling to change - Thursday nights would still be abounding of absurd mozzarella and video amateur - was the a lot of able one he could accept received, echoed by every abettor with whom he opened up.
Nothing was traveling to change.
Just about the abandoned humans on the aggregation who didn't apprehend about Darrow's account until this summer was the apprenticeship staff. Somehow the players had kept their teammate's claimed activity abroad from the guys in the polo shirts.
"We knew if we told the coaches, again that would accomplish it a thing," Slate said. "He's still just our abettor to us. We didn't wish to go to the drillmaster about it, we capital Mason to do it if he was ready."
When Darrow absitively this summer that he capital to allotment his adventure about to empower added gay football players, he knew the aboriginal footfall was to acquaint his arch coach, Bob Surace.
Surace, a above adolescent abhorrent lineman for Princeton and above abettor drillmaster with the Cincinnati Bengals, was at a Minor League Baseball bold with his ancestors this accomplished August if he got the affliction argument bulletin a drillmaster could accept from a player:
"Coach, can we allocution tomorrow?"
"That's never acceptable news," Surace said endure anniversary afterwards a blazingly hot convenance at Princeton's convenance facility. "I knew he wasn't arrested or in any trouble, it's not who he is. But I anticipation he may accept had addition setback in his knee or ability be abrogation the aggregation for some reason."
As he collection home from that baseball game, Surace was captivated with dread, his apperception spinning about his advancement tackle.
"He's one of our best players. We charge him in the circling at accouterment if we're traveling to accomplish this season."
Night. Ruined.
The next morning Darrow confused into Surace's office. Afterwards a annular of baby allocution the arch drillmaster anchored for the worst. If Darrow told him that he was gay, it was like a Christmas present in August.
"That's great," Surace said. "Geez, I anticipation you were injured."
For the arch coach, gearing up for a 2015 division with top expectations, accepting a gay amateur was and is of no concern. Princeton sports an ballsy history in football, starting with the actual aboriginal academy football bold anytime played - adjoin Rutgers in 1869. The academy claims 28 civic titles, the a lot of contempo of which was a aggregate appellation in 1950 (with Oklahoma topping the AP and Coaches polls).
In 2010, Surace took over a aggregation that had three beeline 4-6 seasons. He won the Ivy League in 2013 (Princeton was ranked No. 24 nationally in the NCAA Div. 1 FCS poll) and hasn't had a accident division back 2011. At a austere bookish academy like Princeton, teaching adolescent athletes is paramount, but victories are next to godliness. Surace just wants the best athletes he can get through the accurate analysis of an Ivy League school. Darrow -- an economics above with a affidavit in German -- is one of them.
Then Darrow told Surace he capital to allotment his adventure publicly.
Oh, and he capital to do it the anniversary afore their division opener.
There is so abundant allocution about the "distraction" a gay amateur can accompany to a aggregation by advancing out. If you're traveling to allotment your accuracy with the world, the mantra goes, you charge to do it aboriginal in the offseason so no one gets "distracted" by any absorption that ability come.
The media would accept had their ample of interviews and "so what's it like accepting a gay teammate?" questions by the division opener. Darrow capital to do it now. No holds barred. Put it all on the line.
Surace wasn't fazed.
"Here at Princeton, if we can't handle this and say, 'we're admiring of everybody no amount what their background, religion, chase or animal orientation,' again we don't accept the appropriate guys in the locker room," Surace said.
"We're traveling to abutment Mason 100%."
The struggles Darrow accept faced back advancing out to his aggregation accept had annihilation to do with his animal orientation, but with the realities of football itself. In the third bold of the 2014 season, he tore his ACL on a accident point-after attempt. Darrow's charge to the aggregation and to his action collection him to abide to play the blow of the bold on that season-ending injury.
"He kept arena afterwards disturbing his ACL," Surace remembered. "It just epitomizes his courage as a football player."
Darrow had dealt with injuries afore - two torn anxiety in top school. The accretion from the ACL abrasion was added ambitious than that of any abrasion he'd anytime considered.
Yet day afterwards day over the endure 11 months Darrow has been focused on his 2015 acknowledgment to the field. He's exceeded every time table the apprenticeship agents has laid out advanced of him.
The abrasion has, to an extent, brought out the best in him. With affliction has appear befalling to advance by example. During training affected the apprenticeship agents conducts several "two-a-days," area the players clothing up for on-field convenance alert in one day. It's the a lot of arduous and alarming allotment of football training from top academy to the pros. Surace consistently gives the guys with leg injuries a canyon on the additional convenance in a day - bigger to accumulate them advantageous than accident a setback.
Darrow wouldn't accept any of it.
"He gives you the accessory like 'I'm good,' " Surace said. "So far we've had three doubles and I've accustomed him one off, and that one he fought me on because he wants to practice. It's absolutely acclaim to the blazon of amateur he is.
"He's tough, he's physical. He's one of the guys you adore and you love. He's one of our leaders."
Surace said Darrow has been arena "really well" in camp, and that he will be in the circling now at larboard tackle. Advancing off the injury, Darrow is aiming for the second-string and expects to play in their division opener, a alley bold at Lafayette Academy this Saturday, Sept. 19.
Darrow is now just "one of the guys" like he never has been before. He has aggregate his accuracy with anybody in his life. In all of that, he hasn't accomplished a individual abrogating reaction. Not from a teammate, not from a coach, not from a friend, not from a ancestors member. Not one.
He even gets teased about getting gay in the locker room, a assurance of accurate acceptance. His teammates aren't abashed to mix it up with him, accomplish him the base of jokes (pun intended) like so abounding added athletes are on their teams in every action and every academy in America. It's a rite of access for American athletes, to be teased by adolescent teammates.
For Darrow, it's a antecedent of pride.
One memorable moment for Darrow came during bounce brawl beforehand this year. The aggregation was walking out to the field, and Slate let his absorbed get the best of him.
"What if we went out to the acreage and drillmaster had strippers for us?" Slate asked the guys about him. Darrow was in earshot.
"Well we can get Mason his own little booth," addition abettor quipped.
No one jeered. Anybody laughed.
Darrow knew again he had charted a new activity for himself that just 18 months beforehand was impossible.
"Telling my teammates was the best accommodation I accept anytime made."
His antagonism apperception was accepting in the way of his achievement with centralized questions he was added annoyed of answering.
In that difficult moment, anyone accomplished out.
"You all right?" Caleb Slate, a adolescent abhorrent lineman and a green at the time, noticed Darrow's black demeanor.
Darrow, arena the above academy kid who couldn't be agitated with emotion, blew it off.
"Just got some claimed stuff," he said. "I'm fine."
Slate wasn't accepting it.
"No, you're not fine," Slate said, afterwards abandoning that Darrow's apperception was "on addition planet." Darrow acutely bare advice and Slate would acknowledgment the call.
"Come up to my allowance afterwards banquet and we'll talk," Slate said.
For the next hour in the locker allowance and the cafeteria Darrow sorted through all the accessible means out of the approaching chat with his teammate. He composed a argument to Slate adage something had appear up; he couldn't beat by. He would just draft off Slate and abstain it all together. Except, you just don't do that to a adolescent abhorrent lineman. Maybe to a receiver or a linebacker, but not addition guy in the trenches. Darrow had cursory thoughts about lying, but that wouldn't fly either.
He accomplished his meal, deleted the after-effects argument and trudged to Slate's room.
Poised to beating on Slate's door, agnosticism captivated aback his arm. If he absolved through that door, there would be no axis back. Football players like him - 6-foot-5, 285 pounds - artlessly weren't gay. He was a lineman at a Division 1 FCS program, not some Broadway dancer. What's worse, his teammates could end up getting the lugheads of football lore, men who would abide annihilation but a gay man showering next to them.
"I acquainted trapped. I wasn't happy. I capital to acquaint people, but I anticipation there would be a lot of animosity. There are a lot of guys from the South on the team. I wasn't abiding how humans would acknowledge to it."
Slate represented aggregate Darrow feared the most. A big able-bodied like Darrow, Slate was from Middleburg, Fla., added Alabama than Miami. Mitt Romney won Clay County, Fla., 73%-27%, in 2012; in contrast, the GOP presidential applicant won abandoned 61% of the Alabama vote. Slate was absolutely the guy Darrow a lot of feared telling.
"But I knew at that point I didn't wish to be closeted my absolute time here," Darrow said. "I knew this had to appear eventually, so it ability as able-bodied appear now. Ability as able-bodied rip off the Band-Aid."
After a brace of actual abysmal breaths, Darrow agape afore his apperception could anticipate anymore. Slate was by himself in the room, a abatement for Darrow. Bigger to acquaint one getting at a time.
Darrow absent the chat with baby allocution about banquet and questions about Slate's girlfriend. His abettor wasn't accepting it. He capital to apperceive what was up.
"I've just had some getting I've been ambidextrous with," Darrow said, "and I'm not abiding how I wish to go about ambidextrous with it."
Slate chuckled.
"If this is a babe issue," Slate said, "I'm traveling to be pissed."
Darrow looked about the allowance for an escape hatch. The moment of truth.
"Actually, it's affectionate of the opposite."
Slate was, understandably, confused. Huh?
"I'm gay."
Slate's artsy eyebrows angry into advanced eyes.
"Wow, OK," Slate said. "Didn't see that coming."
After a few added words, Slate assured Darrow it would be OK. Again they did what any added teammates would do on a Thursday afore a big game: They ate mozzarella sticks and sat down for some video games.
The abandoned affair that afflicted that night was Darrow's abrupt faculty of freedom.
Darrow never struggled with the chastity of getting gay, he just never ample he could in fact be queer. He didn't access top academy until Barack Obama was the president. Several states had already legalized same-sex alliance by then. Gay entertainers - and yes, even some gay athletes - had accustomed acclaim for their courage. Darrow had developed up in a country on the doorstep of adequation for gay people.
Yet the connected drumbeat of media images of gay men put advanced a accurate affectionate of gay guy: Small, 6% physique fat, listens to pop music, drinks blush martinis and dances on Broadway. He didn't fit the bill. Mostly.
"Don't get me wrong, I like Broadway shows," Darrow said as I gave him a admirable bout of West Hollywood one black this summer. "But I thought, this isn't right. I like football. It just fabricated it harder to amount out because I didn't fit into the stereotype."
That attack has kept him from agreeable added with the gay community. While he came out to his team, ancestors and accompany two years ago, our affair in West Hollywood in August was the aboriginal time he had ventured anywhere abreast a gay bar, let abandoned one of the epicenters of the gay community.
"I accessory at Outsports a lot, and I analyze with a lot of those guys. But I don't analyze with the gay association actual much."
While he knew he admired guys in the sixth or seventh grade, images of able gay football players like Esera Tuaolo were few and far between. Michael Sam had appear his accuracy to his teammates but not yet to the world.
Darrow was, like so abounding gay athletes acquaint themselves, a complete anomaly. He was allotment of an able-bodied family, accessory Princeton in the footsteps of his brother, Mack, who played basketball for the Tigers. At 6-foot-5, 285-pounds, Darrow was a beast. On the top academy football acreage he angry active with his backbone and acumen.
Mid-major football programs like Wyoming, Bowling Green and Western Michigan offered him able-bodied scholarships. Michigan State fabricated inquiries, and Vanderbilt was absorbed in authoritative him allotment of the team.
This was not the activity of a gay man.
So he hid. He anachronous women. If anyone in his top academy asked him if he was gay - and that happened a brace of times - he denied it.
"I acquainted like I had to accumulate appearances up. I didn't wish to agitate suspicion that I ability be gay, so I went forth with the breeze and did what I anticipation was accepted of me."
He kept up those appearances until Nov. 7, 2013, if his abettor Slate didn't let him off the angle and Darrow was annoyed of active a lie. It didn't yield continued for chat of "the gay teammate" to advance beyond the absolute team. Darrow told some of them, and Slate aggregate it with others with Darrow's blessing.
"The abandoned prerequisite to getting on a football team," Slate assured him, "is that you plan hard. This isn't traveling to bother humans if you acquaint them."
In the advancing weeks assorted players asked Darrow if the rumor was true. While he'd alone the angle from the guys in top school, he didn't authority aback with his adolescent Tigers.
Jack Knight, a adolescent abhorrent lineman from North Carolina, is now his roommate. Knight hadn't been accompany with a gay getting afore he met Darrow. He didn't accept the rumors about Darrow getting gay afore he heard it beeline from his mouth.
"He's a abundant guy," Knight said. "I reside with him now. I've accepted him for three years. I see what he does off the acreage in the classroom. I apperceive what he does on the field. I apperceive he's a actual answerable person. He's a aggressive person. And I apperceive if I'm out on the acreage authoritative a block that he'll be appropriate there with me authoritative a hit as harder as he can."
Slate's apparent accepting had empowered Darrow, and the acknowledgment of anniversary consecutive abettor was added baptize for the beginning seeds of his courage. The bright bulletin that annihilation was traveling to change - Thursday nights would still be abounding of absurd mozzarella and video amateur - was the a lot of able one he could accept received, echoed by every abettor with whom he opened up.
Nothing was traveling to change.
Just about the abandoned humans on the aggregation who didn't apprehend about Darrow's account until this summer was the apprenticeship staff. Somehow the players had kept their teammate's claimed activity abroad from the guys in the polo shirts.
"We knew if we told the coaches, again that would accomplish it a thing," Slate said. "He's still just our abettor to us. We didn't wish to go to the drillmaster about it, we capital Mason to do it if he was ready."
When Darrow absitively this summer that he capital to allotment his adventure about to empower added gay football players, he knew the aboriginal footfall was to acquaint his arch coach, Bob Surace.
Surace, a above adolescent abhorrent lineman for Princeton and above abettor drillmaster with the Cincinnati Bengals, was at a Minor League Baseball bold with his ancestors this accomplished August if he got the affliction argument bulletin a drillmaster could accept from a player:
"Coach, can we allocution tomorrow?"
"That's never acceptable news," Surace said endure anniversary afterwards a blazingly hot convenance at Princeton's convenance facility. "I knew he wasn't arrested or in any trouble, it's not who he is. But I anticipation he may accept had addition setback in his knee or ability be abrogation the aggregation for some reason."
As he collection home from that baseball game, Surace was captivated with dread, his apperception spinning about his advancement tackle.
"He's one of our best players. We charge him in the circling at accouterment if we're traveling to accomplish this season."
Night. Ruined.
The next morning Darrow confused into Surace's office. Afterwards a annular of baby allocution the arch drillmaster anchored for the worst. If Darrow told him that he was gay, it was like a Christmas present in August.
"That's great," Surace said. "Geez, I anticipation you were injured."
For the arch coach, gearing up for a 2015 division with top expectations, accepting a gay amateur was and is of no concern. Princeton sports an ballsy history in football, starting with the actual aboriginal academy football bold anytime played - adjoin Rutgers in 1869. The academy claims 28 civic titles, the a lot of contempo of which was a aggregate appellation in 1950 (with Oklahoma topping the AP and Coaches polls).
In 2010, Surace took over a aggregation that had three beeline 4-6 seasons. He won the Ivy League in 2013 (Princeton was ranked No. 24 nationally in the NCAA Div. 1 FCS poll) and hasn't had a accident division back 2011. At a austere bookish academy like Princeton, teaching adolescent athletes is paramount, but victories are next to godliness. Surace just wants the best athletes he can get through the accurate analysis of an Ivy League school. Darrow -- an economics above with a affidavit in German -- is one of them.
Then Darrow told Surace he capital to allotment his adventure publicly.
Oh, and he capital to do it the anniversary afore their division opener.
There is so abundant allocution about the "distraction" a gay amateur can accompany to a aggregation by advancing out. If you're traveling to allotment your accuracy with the world, the mantra goes, you charge to do it aboriginal in the offseason so no one gets "distracted" by any absorption that ability come.
The media would accept had their ample of interviews and "so what's it like accepting a gay teammate?" questions by the division opener. Darrow capital to do it now. No holds barred. Put it all on the line.
Surace wasn't fazed.
"Here at Princeton, if we can't handle this and say, 'we're admiring of everybody no amount what their background, religion, chase or animal orientation,' again we don't accept the appropriate guys in the locker room," Surace said.
"We're traveling to abutment Mason 100%."
The struggles Darrow accept faced back advancing out to his aggregation accept had annihilation to do with his animal orientation, but with the realities of football itself. In the third bold of the 2014 season, he tore his ACL on a accident point-after attempt. Darrow's charge to the aggregation and to his action collection him to abide to play the blow of the bold on that season-ending injury.
"He kept arena afterwards disturbing his ACL," Surace remembered. "It just epitomizes his courage as a football player."
Darrow had dealt with injuries afore - two torn anxiety in top school. The accretion from the ACL abrasion was added ambitious than that of any abrasion he'd anytime considered.
Yet day afterwards day over the endure 11 months Darrow has been focused on his 2015 acknowledgment to the field. He's exceeded every time table the apprenticeship agents has laid out advanced of him.
The abrasion has, to an extent, brought out the best in him. With affliction has appear befalling to advance by example. During training affected the apprenticeship agents conducts several "two-a-days," area the players clothing up for on-field convenance alert in one day. It's the a lot of arduous and alarming allotment of football training from top academy to the pros. Surace consistently gives the guys with leg injuries a canyon on the additional convenance in a day - bigger to accumulate them advantageous than accident a setback.
Darrow wouldn't accept any of it.
"He gives you the accessory like 'I'm good,' " Surace said. "So far we've had three doubles and I've accustomed him one off, and that one he fought me on because he wants to practice. It's absolutely acclaim to the blazon of amateur he is.
"He's tough, he's physical. He's one of the guys you adore and you love. He's one of our leaders."
Surace said Darrow has been arena "really well" in camp, and that he will be in the circling now at larboard tackle. Advancing off the injury, Darrow is aiming for the second-string and expects to play in their division opener, a alley bold at Lafayette Academy this Saturday, Sept. 19.
Darrow is now just "one of the guys" like he never has been before. He has aggregate his accuracy with anybody in his life. In all of that, he hasn't accomplished a individual abrogating reaction. Not from a teammate, not from a coach, not from a friend, not from a ancestors member. Not one.
He even gets teased about getting gay in the locker room, a assurance of accurate acceptance. His teammates aren't abashed to mix it up with him, accomplish him the base of jokes (pun intended) like so abounding added athletes are on their teams in every action and every academy in America. It's a rite of access for American athletes, to be teased by adolescent teammates.
For Darrow, it's a antecedent of pride.
One memorable moment for Darrow came during bounce brawl beforehand this year. The aggregation was walking out to the field, and Slate let his absorbed get the best of him.
"What if we went out to the acreage and drillmaster had strippers for us?" Slate asked the guys about him. Darrow was in earshot.
"Well we can get Mason his own little booth," addition abettor quipped.
No one jeered. Anybody laughed.
Darrow knew again he had charted a new activity for himself that just 18 months beforehand was impossible.
"Telling my teammates was the best accommodation I accept anytime made."
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