Trey Cunningham discovered these first few cellphone calls excruciating. He has spent his life studying to maintain his cool whereas out on the monitor, below intense stress, within the glare of the group. However as he waited within the quiet for his household and his mates to select up, waited to inform them he’s homosexual, he discovered himself dripping with sweat. It was, he stated, the “scariest factor I’ve ever performed.”
He went via with it, at age 20, for a lot the identical cause he’s discussing it publicly now, 5 years later. There’s a approach that Cunningham has lengthy utilized in his coaching. “We are saying our objectives out loud,” he stated. “If there’s one thing we wish to obtain, we are saying it. Placing one thing in phrases makes it actual.”
That Cunningham — one of many main excessive hurdlers on this planet — is prepared, and prepared, to try this doesn’t make him distinctive. He isn’t the primary elite athlete, and even the primary top American runner, to debate their sexuality.
As one of many few energetic male athletes who’ve been comfy sufficient to return out, Cunningham is, although, nonetheless a rarity. “There are many people who find themselves on this bizarre house,” he stated. “They’re not out. However it’s form of understood.”
For the final 5 years, that has been Cunningham’s actuality, too. He had by no means actually thought a lot about his sexuality in highschool; he was too busy, he stated, “hanging out with mates, having enjoyable,” nursing goals of taking part in for the Boston Celtics after which, nearly to his shock, discovering that he loved “flinging myself at strong objects at excessive pace.”
It was in faculty when he began to “discover the thought,” however there was no sudden realization, no lightbulb second. “It took me some time to realize it felt proper,” he stated.
He attributes that to his upbringing. Cunningham grew up in Winfield, Ala., a spot he described as “rural, fairly conservative, fairly non secular: the form of place the place you didn’t wish to be the homosexual child at college. So I had sure expectations of what my life would appear to be, and it took me a short while to get my head round it wanting completely different to that.”
The identical, he stated, was true for his dad and mom. That was essentially the most tough name of all, when he determined the time was proper to make it, and there was, as he stated, some “pushback” on the information.
“What was true for me was additionally true for my dad and mom,” he stated. “They’d sure expectations for his or her little boy, for what his life could be like, and that’s OK. I gave them a five-year grace interval. I needed to take my time. They may take theirs, too.”
That equanimity is pretty typical of Cunningham. Although he missed out on a spot at this summer time’s Paris Olympics on the U.S. trials final month, putting ninth within the 110-meter hurdles in a “stacked” subject — “Should you do effectively within the U.S. trials, you understand you’ve got a superb shot at a medal,” he stated — he’s nonetheless ranked 11th in the world. In 2022, he received the silver medal within the occasion on the world championships in Eugene, Ore.
Regardless of that success, he describes himself, each by his customary and that of elite athletes, as a relaxed character. That’s not guesswork, he says; he has scientific proof. His grasp’s thesis at Florida State College concerned evaluating scholar athletes to determine which character traits had the strongest correlation with burnout. He utilized the psychometric take a look at to himself and found he was “nearly too chill.”
No matter worries he harbored whereas he made these cellphone calls, although, proved to be misplaced. His dad and mom had been the exception. The rule was both understanding or — within the nicest potential manner — one thing a bit of nearer to a shrug.
He acquired the sense that a minimum of a few of his mates had been “ready for me,” so affirmation didn’t make any distinction to these relationships, he stated. “I used to be actually fortunate to have a bunch of people that didn’t care,” he stated.
The response inside athletics has been comparable. Although Olympic-level sports activities is, naturally, a cutthroat, aggressive setting, he has discovered his sport to be instinctively supportive. Cunningham has thought loads, over the previous few years, about why that may be, and has reached the conclusion that monitor and subject has a form of twin identification.
It’s, in a single sense, the purest type of athletic endeavor, the truest measure of who’s the quickest and the strongest, who can bounce the best or throw the farthest. However monitor can be, in some ways, a “sport for misfits,” he stated.
His favourite examples are the shot-putters. “They’re the strongest individuals within the stadium,” he stated. “However additionally they have essentially the most delicate footwork.” It’s a self-discipline for that area of interest subset of the inhabitants who’ve bodybuilder arms and ballerina toes. “Observe and subject has one thing for everybody,” Cunningham stated.
It additionally has an unapologetic single-mindedness. “The one factor that issues is whether or not you’re working quick at this time or not,” he stated.
Nonetheless, few male athletes have felt comfy discussing their sexuality brazenly. It’s, in spite of everything, an intensely private factor.
Nor does he significantly imagine that it’s one thing anybody ought to really feel they should do. He would really like monitor and subject, and tradition extra typically, to get to a spot the place “individuals should not have to ‘come out,’” he stated, the place individuals can “simply get on with being them.”
However he is aware of doing so carries sensible and probably monetary issues: His career might simply require Cunningham to compete in locations the place his sexuality, extensively identified, might place him in peril. He would, he stated, should seek the advice of his administration earlier than touring to a meet in a rustic like Qatar, where homosexuality is a crime, for instance.
He believes, although, that whereas he’s neither the primary nor the one energetic athlete of his standing to debate his sexuality in public, doing so has worth. He doesn’t really feel he has been inhibited in his performances over the previous few years, when his sexuality remained a carefully held secret. He doesn’t give the impression that any nice weight is being lifted by discussing it now.
No matter stress and rigidity existed abated 5 years in the past, when he made these cellphone calls to his family and friends. Everybody who he feels must know has identified for a while, he stated.
However that outdated coaching mantra has stayed with him. Cunningham is a author, by inclination; he finds that placing his ideas on paper helps him to work his manner via them. However he is aware of that there are occasions when it pays to say one thing out loud. It helps to make issues actual.