Coming Out to Play, page 6
What turned out to be really confusing for me was that when Leslie and I were apart, when we were not in the same space physically, I could convince myself that I was actually sexually attracted to her. But when I was with her physically I felt I was gay. Let me see if I can explain this. I could have sex with Leslie, but afterward I couldn’t wait to get away from her or to get her to leave my room—it was the same experience I’d had with every other girl I’d had sex with. The difference here was that I really liked Leslie. And while I could manage the sex, which felt okay, I couldn’t deal with the intimacy after sex, even with her. I didn’t want to cuddle or talk. I just wanted to be alone. I’d try pretending, but I couldn’t fake feeling intimate, and that’s what forced me to face the truth. I was gay and no girl, not even Leslie, could inspire the kind of desire I instinctively knew had to be there if I was going to have a relationship with a girl. It just wasn’t there. And I knew instinctively it would be there with a man, if I liked him in the way I liked Leslie.
You would think that from that point forward I would have simply accepted that I was gay and whether I liked it or not I was going to be gay for the rest of my life. But I wasn’t yet done trying, because maybe there was another girl out there who would somehow inspire the change I so desperately wanted. Because I still thought I’d have to figure out a way to get married to a woman and have kids so I could play professional soccer and avoid being rejected by my family. Being gay and open about it wasn’t an option. And I couldn’t imagine being like one of those guys I’d heard about growing up who was secretly gay, but married to a woman. I wanted to want to marry a woman without being secretly gay and sneaking around having sex with men outside of the marriage.
In retrospect it seems silly that I’d ever thought that dating a woman could make me straight or that I had any hope of managing to pull off a heterosexual marriage, but I was young and really ignorant. I know there are books out there that could have helped me understand myself, but I would never have risked being caught reading them or even searching for information online.
After freshman year, Leslie and I talked occasionally and sometimes I’d see her, but we never hooked up again. But despite what should have been a critical turning point in my thinking about my sexuality, I wasn’t yet ready to give up on my hope that the right woman could somehow change me.
On balance, I loved my first year at the University of Maryland, my teammates, my coach, and my friends. And the fact that I’d had the best year of my life on the soccer field to date and helped my team win the NCAA championship definitely helped balance my struggles over being gay and wanting to be straight. Leaving aside what happened with Leslie, I truly had never been happier.
So during the summer after my freshman year, when I was offered the opportunity to turn professional and play for a team in the Netherlands, you might have thought I’d seriously think about what I’d be giving up. I remember telling a reporter at the time that it was going to be a difficult decision because “I love college and I enjoy my team and friends . . .” but the truth is it wasn’t a difficult decision and once I made it I never looked back. And that makes me wonder if there was something going on subconsciously for me. Maybe I wasn’t as happy as I told myself I was. Maybe I was looking for a way to get away, especially after that disappointing experience with Leslie. Maybe I was looking for a way to put even more distance between me and my family.
Now, with an offer on the table to play professional soccer in the Netherlands, I had an opportunity to get away from all that, from the questions from my teammates about girlfriends, from the girls I knew weren’t going to be the answer to my prayers, from my family and their natural curiosity about my love life. (My sister Alicia came to visit me in Maryland one time and tried to get me drunk so I’d answer her questions about whether I had a girlfriend or had ever had a girlfriend.) Moving to the Netherlands meant I could get away from all that and get a fresh start in a place where no one really knew me. And, not incidentally, I’d get to fulfill a childhood dream of playing professional soccer in a part of the world where soccer is king.
Whatever was going through my mind at the time, consciously or subconsciously, there’s one thing that I’m certain never occurred to me about leaving my life behind at the University of Maryland and moving to Holland. It never crossed my mind that things could get a lot worse.
CHAPTER 7
A DREAM COME TRUE?
If my mother had been making the decisions for me, I would have had a second year in Maryland, as well as a third and fourth. And if I were my mother that’s exactly what I would have wanted for my son, as well. My mother was old enough to have had the long view, to know that soccer wouldn’t always be a part of my life, that professional athletes have a short half-life and I’d have a lot of life to live once my soccer career was over. But try telling that to a nineteen-year-old boy who is having to make a choice between going back to play college soccer for another year or signing a very lucrative contract with a professional soccer team in Europe. (I don’t recall the money being a draw for me, but I can’t imagine that a six-figure salary that increased to nearly a half million dollars over five years didn’t impress me.)
My whole life I’d told myself I wanted to be a professional soccer player before I turned twenty, so my mother never stood a chance against the forces that were pulling me across the ocean and the people who were encouraging me to go. And that included my father, who took on the task of negotiating my contract. In fact, I didn’t even bother to include my mother in the discussions until the last minute, because I knew she’d be against it and I didn’t want to hear it. Looking back now, I can see that shutting out what I didn’t want to hear was something of a pattern for me. And that’s what I did to my mom.
Just as I never seriously considered how much I’d miss my friends, my teammates, and my coach in Maryland, I didn’t stop for a second to think about what it would be like to live in a rural part of the Netherlands where the weather was guaranteed to be awful. I might also have tried to imagine what it would be like to live in a small town where I didn’t speak the language. But I didn’t consider any of that. I’ve always been focused on going forward, forward, forward, and I’ve done that at my own peril.
At the start of the summer following my freshman year I had no idea that by summer’s end I’d be on my way to the Netherlands. I was still thinking I’d stay at Maryland for at least two years, which was what I’d told Sasho, my coach. But even before the summer I’d been getting calls from sports agents letting me know that there was interest from soccer clubs in Germany, Holland, and the UK. I knew enough to know that “interest” didn’t mean much, especially since in the past no one had come to me with actual offers.
With my first year at college behind me, I went back to California for two weeks and then returned to Maryland to do a summer class in science and to train with my team. I was also scheduled to spend time in Canada training with the U-20 national team in advance of the Milk Cup competition in Ireland, which is an annual youth soccer tournament. Not a typical summer for the average college freshman, but for me it seemed pretty normal.
Before we left for Canada I got a call from a soccer agent who used to come to my Blue Star trainings and who had a connection with SC Heerenveen, the Dutch club I’d played with briefly when I was younger. He asked if I was interested in going back to Heerenveen, just to train. I wasn’t stupid and figured they were scouting me, but no one ever said anything, and whether they were seriously interested in me or not I was happy to go. I was looking forward to testing myself against the Dutch players to see how my skills stacked up by comparison. It’s no secret that U.S. soccer had a long way to go to meet the standards of the rest of the world.
I went for ten days and it was a lot of fun. SC Heerenveen is an amazing club with a great system for building young players. The facilities were awesome and the people there were really friendly. The town itself is simple and . . . well, boring. About forty-three thousand people live there, but it’s quiet and there’s not much to do outside of playing soccer.
So then it was back to Maryland for a few days before going to Toronto, Canada, to train with the U-20 national team before we all headed to Northern Ireland. I didn’t know it, but SC Heerenveen sent scouts to the Milk Cup to watch me play and fortunately I played really well. In an online article that I read later, a reporter who was there said that the Dutch scout watched me score the goal of the tournament, “volleying a ball over a defender and then striking it on the fly, sending a laser beam into the back of the net to cement the good impression he had made on the training ground in Holland.”
After the tournament, my national team coach got a call from a representative from Heerenveen telling him to let me know they wanted me to move to Holland to play for their team. I loved the idea because it was a great club and I liked the players and coaches I’d just met. At that point I brought my dad into the conversation so he could deal with the contract negotiations, and then I headed back to Maryland to talk to my coach, pack my stuff, and return to Holland.
By now I’d told my mom what was going on and she insisted on meeting me in Maryland and also insisted on paying for my flight from Holland back to the United States. (My mother had paid previously for all of my travel to play with professional teams in the Netherlands so I could maintain my amateur status. If I’d allowed any of the professional teams to pay for my travel I would have lost my amateur status and wouldn’t have been allowed to play college soccer or play for the U.S. national team.) Mom insisted on paying because she still held out hope that she could persuade me (with Sasho’s help) to say no to Heerenveen and return to playing for Maryland. I didn’t see any point in arguing with my mother and let her pay for my ticket, but my mind was made up.
When I arrived in Maryland I sat down with my mom and dad and Sasho. I explained to Sasho that I’d had no intention of leaving Maryland, but that “this is an offer that I can’t turn down.” Sasho asked if I was sure that I didn’t want to play for the MLS (Major League Soccer) in the United States instead. By this point MLS said they’d match my contract at Heerenveen. I said, “I don’t want to hear what they have to offer because whatever they offer they can’t give me the same kind of development and experience that I’ll get in Holland.” I envisioned going to Holland and working my ass off for a year learning from the best, and then working my way up from Heerenveen’s Reserves division to the first team and building a name for myself in Europe. Sasho was disappointed, but he understood. In an interview with socceramerica.com he said, “Although losing Robbie at this point in time is significant for us because of his special qualities as a player and a person, I am extremely happy to see him fulfill his boyhood dream.”
At the meeting, my dad said he thought that going to Holland would be a great thing for my development as a soccer player and a huge opportunity. I’d get to learn better technique, train with better players, and play competitive games. I didn’t need convincing, so I think my dad was just trying to persuade my mother that it was the right choice for me. My mom could see there was no hope of changing my mind and gave up. I could tell she was really angry with my dad and I’m sure that didn’t help with their already tense relationship. But to tell you the truth, I wasn’t paying much attention to what was going on between my parents because I was so focused on how excited I was about going back to Holland to be a professional soccer player.
Reality didn’t set in until later that week when I started saying my goodbyes. One evening my teammates and I went to a bar and they all gave me hugs and wished me luck and were excited for me. No one else was turning pro from Maryland, and as far as I knew, I was one of the only college freshmen to sign with a foreign club during the off-season.
During that week between signing and leaving, I had the chance to think about what I was leaving behind. I’d just had the best year of my life—we’d won the national championship, I’d made some great friends on the team and at the university, and I was really close to the coaching staff. I didn’t have any worries (other than the gay stuff, and I wasn’t thinking about that). My college was being paid for. The whole thing was amazing and I loved it. But when I made my decision to sign with Heerenveen, I just thought, Oh, I have a great offer to play soccer in Europe, that’s my dream. Then, as I got ready to go, I found that I was really sad to be leaving Maryland and moving to a new country.
But the deal was done and I was flying back to Holland whether I was ready or not. So I packed all my stuff into two big Nike duffel bags, got on a plane, and flew to Holland. A member of the Heerenveen staff met me at the airport and he took me to the furnished apartment in Heerenveen’s city center where I was going to stay for the next three months, before I found a place of my own. I took my bags into the bedroom and started unpacking. I was excited about getting ready for training the next day, but I was sad, too, because I was already a bit homesick for Maryland, my friends, my dorm, and my teammates. I felt like, Okay, this is my new life. This is what I wanted, so I’d better figure it out and get used to it.
The first two weeks were rough because I was waiting for a work permit and without it I couldn’t play. (I was allowed to train, but not play in games.) I think I was also in shock, which might explain why my memory of those first couple of weeks isn’t really clear. But from a telephone conversation my mom recalls from that time it’s clear that I was really struggling and was having major second thoughts about my decision to leave Maryland. Here’s what my mom remembers:
He called and said, “I’m so homesick.” And then within five or six months he said that he was so miserable he wanted to come home. Remember, Robbie had just signed a multiyear contract, so he couldn’t just turn around and say, “I’m going home.” So when he first called to say he was homesick, I said, “I’m here for you. We’re going to work this out.” And this wasn’t just one call. Robbie would call frequently and we’d talk for two hours. He’d say, “Mom, please talk to me.” It reminded me of when Robbie was a little boy. He’d seen a scary TV movie called It, which was a Stephen King miniseries that Robbie should never have watched. But he did and afterwards he came to my room and said, “Please don’t let me go to sleep. If I go to sleep, he’ll come.” So I stayed up with him all night long until he finally crashed. Robbie’s calls from the Netherlands reminded me of that. I could tell that he was feeling terribly alone and was scared to death.
Looking back, it makes perfect sense to me that I was in shock and scared and homesick. Whatever problems I was having dealing with my sexuality in Maryland, I’d left a tight-knit and supportive community where I’d felt like I was part of a large family. Then overnight I’d arrived in a place where I didn’t speak the language, where the culture was different, where I was just another professional soccer player, and on top of that I was still a fearful and closeted nineteen-year-old.
Thankfully, once the permit came through I was able to play, and just getting into a routine helped take my mind off of being homesick. On a typical day I’d wake up at seven-thirty, have breakfast, and then drive over to the training ground around eight-thirty or nine, which was only five minutes away. Then, as a team—there were thirty of us—we’d spend a half hour together upstairs at the stadium having coffee or tea. After that, we’d all go downstairs and get our training kit and by ten we were on the pitch to train.
Training was different every day, but we’d run and do ball work, like passing, playing with goals, and possession, where you keep the ball away from each other. Sometimes we’d do fitness training, and then we’d finish with shooting at the goal. Then we’d come back to the stadium and have lunch as a team. After lunch we might have a second training session, which would be more technical, where, for example, we’d work with the wingers on crossing balls.
The training really helped me as a soccer player, but it was a challenge getting used to a different style of play, and I was under a lot of pressure to learn quickly because they’d paid a lot of money for me and expected me to learn the ropes and move up to the first team during my first season. The team’s coach, Gertjan Verbeek, said as much to a reporter from the website yanks-abroad.com, which covers U.S. soccer players who play for teams around the world. When asked whether they expected me to move up to the first team, he said flatly, “Of course, because otherwise we wouldn’t give him a contract. He’s an expensive player for this team because he is not a European.”
The challenge for me in the Netherlands was never about improving my skills and learning how to play like a professional. I didn’t have a problem learning the ropes. In my few games—we had a game once a week at the small stadium for the Reserve team—I scored three goals and loved every minute of play. The problem was the homesickness, which never really went away. And as the weeks passed and the homesickness got worse, I got more and more depressed, and the more depressed I got, the less confidence I had, so by the fourth month it really hurt my ability to play.
The thing about homesickness, as I’ve come to understand it, is that if you’re able to make connections—get to know people, make friends—you’re able to establish yourself in a new community and the homesickness fades. In Maryland, I had a built-in community. The soccer team was like its own fraternity, Sasho was a father figure, and the rest of the coaching staff were like big brothers to us.
It was totally different in the Netherlands. I was living on my own, far from friends and family. I didn’t speak the language. (I was taking Dutch classes, but it was slow going.) I came from another culture. And the fact that I was gay and closeted made it all the more difficult to have a real relationship with anyone, because it wasn’t like I could have an honest emotional conversation with anyone where I talked about how I’d get a cramp in my stomach every time I went into the locker room. The Netherlands is a really liberal place, but my teammates still used the word “fag” and I’d get drawn into conversations where I had to pretend to talk about girls as if I were straight. It wasn’t like I was even very good at it, but I thought if I didn’t participate my teammates might start to wonder about me.
