Gay ex college footballer says he was hospitalised over stress of being closeted
Jake Eldridge. (Kristina Bumphrey/Variety via Getty Images)
Jake Eldridge. (Kristina Bumphrey/Variety via Getty Images)
Former Division I college football player Jake Eldridge has shared that he spent so much of his sports career hiding his sexuality that the stress put him in the hospital.
Speaking to People on 27 January, he said he knew he was gay from a young age, but “football became the thing that kind of pushed everything else aside”.
Eldridge was recruited to play football in Big 10 at Rutgers University, and it wasn’t long before the weight of hiding his sexuality began to have an impact on his mental health.
“While it felt like everything I’d worked for was finally coming true, at the same time, it felt like an imprisonment – like this was my life now, and I didn’t have another option,” he said.
Things came to a head when people began speculating about his sexuality. “My roommate would come home and tell me people were asking if I was gay,” he shared. “My biggest fear wasn’t just people knowing – it was people knowing before I was ready.”
Eldridge began to worry that he would be bullied, his scholarship would be rescinded or he wouldn’t be allowed to play anymore if people found out he was gay.
As his freshman season drew to a close, he was hospitalised with ulcerative colitis, an autoimmune condition, for three days, which doctors said was likely triggered by stress.
“It was the stress of being closeted,” he says. “Going in every day and faking who I am for years on end. I’d been saying for years, ‘This is making me sick.’ And then my body finally proved it.”
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