Happy National Coming Out Day: My Dad Found Out That I'm Gay Through My Blog
Rich Juzwiak · 10/11/12 01:45PMFor most of my life, I felt like I was a disappointment to my father. He never told me that I was, but it was obvious to me that I did not live up to the ideals he had in mind for his only son. I am not an athlete or a sports fan – my father has been both. He played football in high school and college, and then went on to coach the local high school football team when he and my mother moved to Ocean City, NJ, in the mid-'70s after they married. I was dressed up as a boxer for my first Halloween (just 10 days shy of my first birthday) and encouraged throughout my childhood to watch and play sports, despite my apathetic tolerance of the former and vocal disinterest in the latter. I played soccer, baseball and basketball until about 7th grade. I was terrible at all of them.