Hampton football player reveals his sexuality
Fred Jeter | 10/27/2022, 6 p.m.
Hampton University’s Byron Perkins has become the first HBCU football player to announce he is gay.
“I will no longer be living a lie...I am who I am,” Perkins stated on his Instagram page.
A starting defensive back for the Pirates, Perkins is a 6-foot-3, 190-pound Chicago native who transferred to HU from Purdue. The red-shirt junior has 17 tackles and two pass breakups this season.
There have been other college players to come out.
In 2013, Missouri linebacker Michael Sam won All-American honors and was Southeast Conference defensive player of the year. After announcing he was gay, Sam went on to play in the NFL with the St. Louis Rams and Dallas Cowboys.
Perhaps the first openly gay player in big-time football was Jerry Smith, who went from Arizona State to play tight end with Washington from 1965 to 1977.
Smith caught 60 touchdown passes for Washington. In 1984 Smith became the first professional athlete to die of AIDs.
