Scott Frantz, an offensive tackle for Kansas State, came out to his teammates that he is gay during a team-building exercise and has been welcomed with acceptance.
"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 during an interview 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."
Prior to Frantz coming out, his coach Bill Snyder had invited a motivational speaker to come and talk to his team. The speaker urged players to open up to their teammates and reveal something that they had never shared before.
"So the very first time I said those words were in front of, you know, 110, 120 football guys," Frantz told ESPN. "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."
Frantz would later tell his family his secret as well, according to USA Today.
Arizona freshman My-King Johnson is the only other active openly gay player in the Bowl Subdivision, USA Today said.
Frantz said he struggled with his sexual orientation from the fifth grade to his junior year of high school. He said his fear of jeopardizing a college football scholarship is what kept him from coming out in the past.
Snyder said if he knew Frantz was gay when he recruited him, that would have had no influence on his decision.
"I was quite comfortable that they (the team) would be very receptive and that they would treat him as they always said," Snyder told ESPN. “As ... his teammate and someone that they cared about. And they did."
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.