In powerful rebuke of hate, Jaguars' Kevin Maxen makes history coming out as gay
What Kevin Maxen has done, coming out as gay, making him what's believed to be the first publicly out male coach in major American men’s professional sports, is brave enough. Remarkably so. The NFL is changing, but it's long been stubborn and closeting of its LGBTQ players. The idea of a coach coming out is even more staggering, and it's difficult to put into words how monumental this moment is inside the NFL.
The NFL coaching community is small and tight, and full of cliques and groups. Think high school cafeteria but worse. Coaches keep many aspects of their personal lives closed because they are wary anything can be used against them when going for jobs. I've been told this by coaches over several decades. There's also the fact that some of the NFL coaching community is extremely conservative, and I would even say anti-LGBTQ. I've been told this for decades, too.
If you think the NFL is bad when it comes to issues of race in coaching, parts of the league can be downright prehistoric in its attitude about the LGBTQ community. This is a fact. Maxen isn't the first gay coach in the NFL. There have likely been dozens in the past, if not more. It's that he's the first to publicly talk about it.
Maxen has and will receive support from some (Jaguars ownership has publicly backed him), but there's certain to be a segment of coaches – and not a small one – who will be uncomfortable with what Maxen has done.
So, for these reasons alone, this is one of the bravest things we will see. He could literally save lives by setting an example for others in the LGBTQ community.
But his courage goes beyond even all of this.
Maxen has opened himself to a country that right now is in the middle of a hate storm aimed at the LGBTQ community. Gay and transgender Americans are perhaps the biggest targets of that right-wing Hatred Industrial Complex. We can go down the list starting with the top court in the land that just sanctioned discrimination against the gay community.
Much of the media on the right is full of hateful messages and propaganda. There are numerous laws enacted to try to deprive the LGBTQ community not just of basic rights but of their very existence. The Human Rights Campaign says a record 70 anti-LGBTQ laws have been enacted this year.
In many ways, Maxen's announcement is a powerful rebuke to all of this hatred. But it is an ocean of hatred.
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Florida is where some of this bigotry is at its worst. Extremist Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law last year a "Don't Say Gay" bill. Also, I lived in Jacksonville for several years while a sports columnist at the Florida Times-Union. It's one of the best places I've ever lived, and I will forever stand for the city, but there's no question that it's a hardcore conservative place. There will be Jaguars fans who won't care about Maxen's sexuality, but there will also be people – a lot of them – who will refuse to support him. They'll frame it with the lie that they don't like his lifestyle when it's really about fear and ignorance.
The good news is that despite the hatred the community faces, in sports at least, things are moving forward. In 2021, Carl Nassib became the first active player in the NFL to come out. Each time one of these moments happens, it moves the country – and humanity – forward. Eventually we'll reach a place where the bigots will be fossilized.
Each step, each move forward, treks us towards a better future.
Maxen spoke eloquently to Outsports about why he made his decision. "I don’t want to feel like I have to think about it anymore,” he said. “I don’t want to feel like I have to lie about who I am seeing, or why I am living with someone else."
“I want to be vocal in support of people living how they want to live, but I also want to just live and not feel fear about how people will react," he said.
Maxen added: “It wasn’t until recently – and with the immense love and support of my family, my friends, colleagues and peers, and the courage and sacrifice from my partner – that I realized I have the right and responsibility to love and be loved, and that maybe sharing this will hopefully give someone else the strength to accept their own life and take control of their own story.”
This is real courage and also what a rebuke to hate looks like.