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Add Hall of Fame NFL quarterback Warren Moon to the list of athletes who don’t think having an openly gay teammate would be a big deal. Moon played 17 years in the NFL, with his prime being with the Houston Oilers.

Moon told the Victor and Matt Sports Podcast on Radio Exiles in May that he wouldn’t have had a problem with an openly gay teammate and is virtually certain he had gay teammates in the NFL.


Add Hall of Fame NFL quarterback Warren Moon to the list of athletes who don’t think having an openly gay teammate would be a big deal. Moon played 17 years in the NFL, with his prime being with the Houston Oilers.

Moon told the Victor and Matt Sports Podcast on Radio Exiles in May that he wouldn’t have had a problem with an openly gay teammate and is virtually certain he had gay teammates in the NFL.

I think I have played with a couple of players who have been gay. I know of a couple of players, who I won’t mention their names because they have not made it public yet. It really doesn’t bother me what your sexual preference is as along as you don’t bring in your sexual preferences to the locker room. I think that should be for homosexuals and heterosexuals. That’s a personal part of your life you should deal with in that way. As long as your coming to the football team and bringing a positive influence, that’s all that matters to me.

I suspect one of those teammates was Ernest Givens, a star receiver with the Oilers in the mid-1990s and the subject of rumors back then even before the Internet took off. Givens addressed the issue with ESPN in 1998 and denied he was gay.

I’m not gay, but there’s a rumor that’s out there, and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it.

Givens said he was called “Ernestine” and accused by others of hitting on younger receivers. In the ESPN interview, he sounds like he had a fairly miserable experience with the Oilers over the issue.

It was nice to hear Moon’s comments and he’s another prominent athlete who has addressed the gays in sports issue recently in a positive manner.

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