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‘I’ve never felt so loved’: Kansas State football player says teammates have accepted his homosexuality

Kansas State quarterback Alex Delton (5) and offensive lineman Scott Frantz (74) celebrate a touchdown by fullback Winston Dimel, middle, during the first half of an NCAA college football game against Missouri State in Manhattan, Kan., Saturday, Sept. 24, 2016. (Orlin Wagner / Associated Press)
By Matt Bonesteel Washington Post

Scott Frantz has known he is gay since the fifth grade and has been fully accepting of his own sexuality since his junior year in high school. But the 6-foot-5, 293-pound offensive lineman kept that fact hidden through his recruitment process for fear that it would scare teams away. Ranked by 247 Sports as the eighth-best high school prospect in the state of Kansas, Frantz headed to Kansas State in 2015. But he still didn’t feel comfortable revealing his homosexuality to his teammates.

That changed after he redshirted in 2015. As a team-building exercise, Wildcats Coach Bill Snyder brought in a motivational speaker who implored the players to reveal something about themselves that they previously had kept under wraps. So Frantz did, and everything was fine

“I came out to my teammates, and I’ve never felt so loved and so accepted ever in my life than when I did that,” Frantz told ESPN’s Holly Rowe on Wednesday. “And ever since then, it’s been great. I’ve grown so much closer to my teammates since. So it’s been an amazing experience.”

Frantz was understandably nervous, however.

“So the very first time I said those words were in front of, you know, 110, 120 football guys,” Frantz told Rowe. “So you can imagine how scared I was, how nervous I was… . This could go either really bad or could go really good. And thankfully my teammates embraced me with open arms, and it was great.”

According to ESPN, Frantz will be one of only two openly gay players at college football’s top level in 2017. In February, incoming Arizona freshman My-King Johnson revealed his homosexuality to the Arizona Daily Star, saying he made that fact known to the Wildcats’ coaches during his recruitment.

Frantz had a standout 2016 as a redshirt freshman, starting all 13 games for Kansas State and helping hold Texas A&M defensive end Myles Garrett, the eventual No. 1 pick in the NFL draft, to just one tackle in the Wildcats’ 33-28 Texas Bowl victory.