Out magazine has an amazing, incredibly well-written, thoughtful feature on Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe. Kidding! I wrote the piece…But frankly, it only reads well because Out magazine editor Aaron Hicklin and his staff to a fantastic job weaving writers’ words into gold. Seriously – these guys are pros. Kluwe is the second NFL player to appear shirtless on the cover of Out magazine, following Michael Irvin last year.

Only half the people will ready the story — but everyone will look at the shirtless pics of Kluwe, snapped by David Bowman. They're fantastic, and this one in particular is beautiful to me – the lighting, the expression on Kluwe's face. While Kluwe says he wants a body like Adrian Peterson…He looks pretty good as-is. You can see the other photos on Out's Web site.

Out magazine has an amazing, incredibly well-written, thoughtful feature on Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe. Kidding! I wrote the piece…But frankly, it only reads well because Out magazine editor Aaron Hicklin and his staff to a fantastic job weaving writers’ words into gold. Seriously – these guys are pros. Kluwe is the second NFL player to appear shirtless on the cover of Out magazine, following Michael Irvin last year.

Only half the people will ready the story — but everyone will look at the shirtless pics of Kluwe, snapped by David Bowman. They're fantastic, and this one in particular is beautiful to me – the lighting, the expression on Kluwe's face. While Kluwe says he wants a body like Adrian Peterson…He looks pretty good as-is. You can see the other photos on Out's Web site.

Kluwe actually warned us about them in a tweet a couple weeks ago — So we figured we were in for a treat:

One little tidbit that got left on the cutting room floor was a paragraph about the first time Kluwe met fellow same-sex-marriage advocate Brendon Ayanbadejo. Football fans may enjoy it:

Chris Kluwe met Brendon Ayanbadejo once before. Backed up at his 8-yard-line in a game against the Chicago Bears in 2006, Kluwe punted the ball to electrifying Chicago Bears return man Devon Hester. When Hester broke past the punt coverage, only Kluwe was left to stop a touchdown. That’s when Ayanbadejo, a Bear at the time, decleated the Vikings punter, leveling him to the ground. Looking up from the cold grass of Soldier Field, Kluwe was helpless as the home crowd cheered a Bears touchdown.

Kluwe said Ayanbadejo remembered that hit and recently apologized to Kluwe for it. But Kluwe's a gamer — He told Ayanbadejo even a punter's gotta be willing to take the hits to play in the NFL.

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