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 strain, within the glare of the group. However as he waited within the quiet for his household and his buddies to select up, waited to inform them he’s homosexual, he discovered himself dripping with sweat. It was, he mentioned, the “scariest factor I’ve ever finished.”
He went via with it, at age 20, for a lot the identical purpose he’s discussing it publicly now, 5 years later. There’s a method that Cunningham has lengthy utilized in his coaching. “We are saying our targets out loud,” he mentioned. “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 keen, to do this doesn’t make him distinctive. He isn’t the primary elite athlete, and even the primary high American runner, to debate their sexuality.
As one of many few lively male athletes who’ve been snug sufficient to come back out, Cunningham is, although, nonetheless a rarity. “There are many people who find themselves on this bizarre house,” he mentioned. “They’re not out. However it’s sort 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 mentioned, “hanging out with buddies, having enjoyable,” nursing goals of taking part in for the Boston Celtics after which, virtually to his shock, discovering that he loved “flinging myself at strong objects at excessive velocity.”
It was in school when he began to “discover the thought,” however there was no sudden realization, no lightbulb second. “It took me some time to understand it felt proper,” he mentioned.
He attributes that to his upbringing. Cunningham grew up in Winfield, Ala., a spot he described as “rural, fairly conservative, fairly non secular: the kind of place the place you didn’t wish to be the homosexual child in school. So I had sure expectations of what my life would appear like, and it took me a short while to get my head round it trying completely different to that.”
The identical, he mentioned, 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 mentioned, some “pushback” on the information.
“What was true for me was additionally true for my dad and mom,” he mentioned. “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, inserting ninth within the 110-meter hurdles in a “stacked” discipline — “Should you do properly within the U.S. trials, you realize you will have a superb shot at a medal,” he mentioned — he’s nonetheless ranked eleventh on this planet. 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 isn’t guesswork, he says; he has scientific proof. His grasp’s thesis at Florida State College concerned evaluating pupil athletes to determine which character traits had the strongest correlation with burnout. He utilized the psychometric check to himself and found he was “virtually 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 approach — one thing a bit of nearer to a shrug.
He bought the sense that at the least a few of his buddies had been “ready for me,” so affirmation didn’t make any distinction to these relationships, he mentioned. “I used to be actually fortunate to have a gaggle of people that didn’t care,” he mentioned.
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 discipline has a kind of twin id.
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 soar the best or throw the farthest. However monitor can also be, in some ways, a “sport for misfits,” he mentioned.
His favourite examples are the shot-putters. “They’re the strongest folks within the stadium,” he mentioned. “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. “Monitor and discipline has one thing for everybody,” Cunningham mentioned.
It additionally has an unapologetic single-mindedness. “The one factor that issues is whether or not you’re working quick in the present day or not,” he mentioned.
Nonetheless, few male athletes have felt snug discussing their sexuality brazenly. It’s, in any case, an intensely private factor.
Nor does he notably consider that it’s one thing anybody ought to really feel they should do. He would love monitor and discipline, and tradition extra typically, to get to a spot the place “folks wouldn’t have to ‘come out,’” he mentioned, the place folks can “simply get on with being them.”
However he is aware of doing so carries sensible and doubtlessly monetary issues: His career may simply require Cunningham to compete in locations the place his sexuality, broadly recognized, may place him in peril. He would, he mentioned, should seek the advice of his administration earlier than touring to a meet in a rustic like Qatar, the place homosexuality is a criminal offense, for instance.
He believes, although, that whereas he’s neither the primary nor the one lively 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 recognized for a while, he mentioned.
However that previous 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 approach 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.
