Opinions
Sean James: From NFL running back to elite model
Career transition opened my world to new people, ideas
By SEAN JAMES
Sean James (Photo courtesy of Sean James)
So what makes a small town boy turned professional athlete who has spent the first 20 odd years of his life steeped in football culture ready to enter the New York fashion and modeling scene? Absolutely nothing!
Being in a country as large as ours can still be very isolating. Outside the big city streets are many small towns where diversity is still not a norm. Unfortunately from big cities like New York where we have a little bit of everything (and I do mean everything), to the small farm towns of Middle America, prejudice still exists. Much of it however, is rooted in ignorance. People are afraid of what they do not know, and what they do not understand.
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Moreover, others are so unaware of their own ignorance that their prejudice is truly unintentional. Growing up in a small town in Kansas, even I fell victim to my ignorance. It was not until I moved to New York that I knowingly had any contact with a many minorities. Jewish people and gays (who now comprise a large portion of my peers) were completely foreign to me. Not only had I never met any, but I didn’t know anything about them either. That disassociation made it easy for me to throw around words like “faggot” with my friends.
I wasn’t intentionally making an anti-gay remark, in my mind I was simply calling out an insult to a friend or teammate no different than calling him an idiot. I never stopped to think about what the word “faggot” actually meant, or why it was used derogatorily. There was no one in my circle of peers or adults to guide me, talk to me, or educate me about what lay outside the borders of our town and our own experiences. By remaining ignorant about the diverse groups that comprise our nation, I was guilty, as are so many others of allowing myself to remain prejudiced.
Becoming a professional athlete was my end goal for as long as I could remember, and it was something that I strived to achieve through hard work and discipline for the majority of my life. Becoming a Ford model for one of the top agencies in the world on the other hand, kind of fell into my lap when I moved to New York. I had no experience with the modeling world, and no knowledge of how it worked or whom I would encounter. Spending time in the fashion world of New York introduced me to a world of new people, including photographers, designers and stylists, not to mention other models. Suddenly, I was immersed in a game that had new rules and new players.
In the NFL, the players were predictable (at least off the field), and so were the rules. It was a game of strength, machismo and competition. Every player knew their role in a locker room as much as they knew their role in a game. Be tough, talk shit, joke around — but get shit done. Some of that joking around came at the expense of the LGBT community. It didn’t occur to us that we were being offensive, let alone that there may have been a gay man on our team, in that locker room with us, or worse yet, laughing at those jokes out of fear. That was my conditioning, my everyday. Then I became a Ford model, and let’s just say the locker room looked very different. I was the minority in almost every sense of the word. I was a minority as a black man, I was a minority as a muscular man with an 18-inch neck, and I was a minority as a straight man.
Everything that made me one of the boys in football now made me an outsider. So I had a choice: I could stride into this new world as the same running back who strode into stadiums, or I could do what my daddy taught me and put my head down, stay in my lane and listen. I chose to do the latter. I listened and I watched. I paid attention to how people spoke, how they interacted with each other. I also began to see how gay men responded to me, especially the gay men who were in a position to advance my career.
I am not suggesting that every gay man in the industry hit on me, or that every gay agent, designer, etc. had a casting couch. What I am saying, however, is that there were some, and that was a reality that I had never seen before, and one to which I had to quickly acclimate. The more people I met, the more I gained a window into the gay world, and as my window widened, the stereotypes I had grown up listening to began to break down. The most significant example of this for me was the introduction I was given to the New York Times best-selling author, and my friend, E. Lynn Harris.
I was introduced to E. Lynn through Lloyd Boston who thought I’d be the perfect choice for one of E. Lynn’s book covers. The result of that introduction was much more than a booking, it was the beginning of one of the closest and most significant friendships of my life. From the time I met him until his death, E. Lynn taught me many valuable lessons. As a gay man himself, E. Lynn shattered whatever stereotypes of gay men that I may have had lingering from my adolescence. From the way he lived his life, to the way he spoke to me, to the way he crafted his novels, E. Lynn turned the “typical” idea of a gay man on its head.
He explained to me the way he grew up in the South and how he was taught that being gay was a choice and was wrong, and how that mentality led him to perceive himself as a sinner. He explained that he was in the closet through high school, but becoming a writer freed him and allowed him to be himself. Being himself meant many things to E. Lynn. It meant being a huge football fan, being the first black male cheerleader at the University of Arkansas, being masculine and liking men who were masculine too (“If I liked girls, I’d fuck girls”, he would always say). It meant being a best-selling author who could engage and captivate readers whether they were male or female, gay or straight.
Still in all, for E. Lynn being himself also meant that even though he was “out”, he was still afraid of being perceived as a queen. This was a sentiment that was surprisingly easy for me to understand. As a professional athlete, I was always well aware of the perceptions people had of me. I was always conscience of avoiding the “dumb jock” presumption when meeting new people. The fear of how others would perceive me had absolutely no baring on the pride I took in being an athlete, just as E. Lynn’s fears had no bearing in the pride that he took in being gay. However, our pride was never able to mask the realities we knew existed all around us.
Looking back at my experiences both as an NFL player and a Ford model, I see how impactful perceptions can be, but more importantly how inaccurate perceptions can affect a person or a group of people. Over the past 50 years, this country has made great strides toward breaking down the stereotypes and negative perceptions many of us held about various minority groups. President Barack Obama serves as a testament to those strides. Progress, however, does not exist in a vacuum, and the dream of equality has expanded to meet the ever-changing portrait of the American people. During the Civil Rights Movement, African Americans fought for their constitutional rights. The assertion that the color of skin with which you were born does not change your rights as a citizen of this nation stood at the foundation of that fight.
Today, sexual orientation, just like skin color, is something of which to be proud, and yet, something in which you have no hand. I am grateful that I was able to encounter strong, incredible individuals along my journey from professional athlete, to model, to the business man I am today that were able to positively mold my perception of the gay community. This is why I continue to support the LGBT community and those who are working to afford it the rights and perceptions that it deserves.
Sean James is a sports agent, Ford model and former running back for the Minnesota Vikings. Reach him via seanlewisjames.com.
Opinions
The felon in the White House must be stopped
Are there any decent Republican members of Congress left?
We are up shit’s creek if the felon in the White House actually thinks he has a Nobel Peace Prize. If he believes he deserves one, or Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado had any other reason to give him hers, than it was easier, and less degrading, than going on her knees to him, as a number of men already have. I don’t know if she understood how many millions the medal could be worth. Instead, she could have used it for her people, if she didn’t want to keep it.
Machado was awarded the Nobel Prize for her work for the Venezuelan people. She spoke up for them, and fought for them. The felon couldn’t care less about them. He proved that by invading, and then supported Maduro’s vice president as president. He said he, and his fascist cohorts, would run the country, and is now stealing their oil and personally deciding what to do with it. After U.S. troops captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Trump said, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado “doesn’t have the support within Venezuela to be its next leader, she was not consulted prior to the operation.” He went on to say, “I think it would be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country.” This is the slime bag she gave her Nobel Peace Prize medal to. I hope she is not naïve enough to believe he really cares about her, or her countrymen, and women.
Trump is vile, sick, and mentally deranged. He is threatening foes and allies alike. They see bending a knee to him only works for the moment, but has no long-term impact on his tiny brain. Today, he is threatening Greenland, and our NATO allies are moving their military to Greenland to protect it against the United States. Now he is threatening them with new tariffs. That would have once been unfathomable. He is saber rattling over Iran, Colombia, even Mexico. He is bombing Nigeria and Syria.
If that weren’t enough, he threatens to use the Insurrection Act to send the military into cities here. He has already sent in thousands of ICE agents. ICE is classified as a federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security. They have authority to arrest, detain, and investigate immigration violations. However, the law is clear; ICE agents do not have unlimited power. They face significant constitutional restrictions that many people don’t realize, especially when it comes to entering homes and private spaces. But what is clear, in Minneapolis today, some of the agents are acting like the Gestapo. They are smashing car windows, pulling people out of their cars, invading homes, and workplaces, all without first having any proof the people they are going after are guilty of anything. I believe we need fair immigration laws, and they should be enforced. But this is clearly not what the felon is doing. The felon in the White House and his incompetent stooge at Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, who has no idea what the hell she is doing, are acting egregiously, and making a mockery of our democracy.
The president, Noem, Hegseth, Bondi, and the other incompetents in the felon’s Cabinet, simply pretend to forget the history of the United States. They don’t want to accept the truth; we are a nation of immigrants. It is immigrants who built our country, and are still building it. My parents were immigrants escaping from Hitler, and they came here and built a life, and in doing so, added to the greatness of our country. I want every person around the world who needs to escape from dictators, and despots, to be able to do the same as my parents did. We need to build an immigration system that allows them to do that. Instead, because of what this felon is doing, we are seeing American citizens thinking of leaving this country, and looking for asylum in others. That is really sick, but it’s happening.
Sitting in the Oval Office today we have a felon who is reveling in becoming the war president. He is taking the United States down an incredibly dangerous path, threatening our own citizens with violence here at home, and doing the same to our allies around the world. He, and the incompetents and fascists surrounding him, need to be stopped. If there are any decent Republican members of Congress left, they need to join with Democrats, and the voters, to stop him.
Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist.
January arrives with optimism. New year energy. Fresh possibilities. A belief that this could finally be the year things change. And every January, I watch people respond to that optimism the same way. By adding.
More workouts. More structure. More goals. More commitments. More pressure to transform. We add healthier meals. We add more family time. We add more career focus. We add more boundaries. We add more growth. Somewhere along the way, transformation becomes a list instead of a direction.
But what no one talks about enough is this: You can only receive what you actually have space for. You don’t have unlimited energy. You have 100 percent. That’s it. Not 120. Not 200. Not grind harder and magically find more.
Your body knows this even if your calendar ignores it. Your nervous system knows it even if your ambition doesn’t want to admit it. When you try to pour more into a cup that’s already full, something spills. Usually it’s your peace. Or your consistency. Or your health.
What I’ve learned over time is that most people don’t need more motivation. They need clarity. Not more goals, but priority. Not more opportunity, but discernment.
So this January, instead of asking what you’re going to add, I want to offer something different. What if this year becomes a season of no.
No to things that drain you. No to things that distract you. No to things that look good on paper but don’t feel right in your body. And to make this real, here’s how you actually do it.
Identify your one true priority and protect it
Most people struggle with saying no because they haven’t clearly said yes to anything first. When everything matters, nothing actually does. Pick one priority for this season. Not 10. One. Once you identify it, everything else gets filtered through that lens. Does this support my priority, or does it compete with it?
Earlier this year, I had two leases in my hands. One for Shaw and one for National Landing in Virginia. From the outside, the move felt obvious. Growth is celebrated. Expansion is rewarded. More locations look like success. But my gut and my nervous system told me I couldn’t do both.
Saying no felt like failure at first. It felt like I was slowing down when I was supposed to be speeding up. But what I was really doing was choosing alignment over optics.
I knew what I was capable of thriving in. I knew my limits. I knew my personal life mattered. My boyfriend mattered. My family mattered. My physical health mattered. My mental health mattered. Looking back now, saying no was one of the best decisions I could have made for myself and for my team.
If something feels forced, rushed, or misaligned, trust that signal. If it’s meant for you, it will come back when the timing is right.
Look inside before you look outside
So many of us are chasing who we think we’re supposed to be— who the city needs us to be. Who social media rewards. Who our resume says we should become next. But clarity doesn’t come from noise. It comes from stillness. Moments of silence. Moments of gratitude. Moments where your nervous system can settle. Your body already knows who you are long before your ego tries to upgrade you.
One of the most powerful phrases I ever practiced was simple: You are enough.
I said it for years before I believed it. And when I finally did, everything shifted. I stopped chasing growth just to prove something. I stopped adding just to feel worthy. I could maintain. I could breathe. I could be OK where I was.
Gerard from Baltimore was enough. Anything else I added became extra.
Turning 40 made this clearer than ever. My twenties were about finding myself. My thirties were about proving myself. My forties are about being myself.
I wish I knew then what I know now. I hope the 20 year olds catch it early. I hope the 30 year olds don’t wait as long as I did.
Because the only way to truly say yes to yourself is by saying no first.
Remove more than you add
Before you write your resolutions, try this. If you plan to add three things this year, identify six things you’re willing to remove. Habits. Distractions. Commitments. Energy leaks.
Maybe growth doesn’t look like expansion for you this year. Maybe it looks like focus. Maybe it looks like honoring your limits. January isn’t asking you to become superhuman. It’s asking you to become intentional. And sometimes the most powerful word you can say for your future is no.
With love always, Coach G.
Gerard Burley, also known as Coach G, is founder and CEO of Sweat DC.
Greenland
The Greenland lesson for LGBTQ people
Playbook is the same for our community and Europeans
I understand my own geopolitical limits and don’t pretend to know how Europeans should respond to U.S. threats to seize Greenland or retaliate against anyone who opposes them. However, as I mentioned in March, it’s clear that for Europeans and LGBTQ+ people alike, hug-and-kiss diplomacy is over.
In practice, that means responding to the U.S. administration’s provocations with dialogue, human‑rights rhetoric, and reasoning may now be counterproductive. It looks weak. At some point, Europeans will have to draw a line and show how bullying allies and breaking international agreements carry a cost — and that the cost is unpredictable. On the surface, they have few options; like LGBTQ+ communities, they are very behind in raw power and took too long to wake up. But they still have leverage, and they can still inflict harm.
Maybe it is time for them to call the bluff. America has a great deal to lose, not least its reputation and credibility on the world stage. Stephen Miller and Pete Hegseth, with all their bravado, obviously underestimate both the short‑ and long‑term geopolitical price of ridicule. Force the United States to contemplate sending troops into an ally’s territory, and let the consequences play out in international opinion, institutions, and markets.
In the United States, LGBTQ+ communities have already endured a cascade of humiliations and live under constant threat of more. In 2025 our symbols and heroes were systematically erased or defaced: the USNS Harvey Milk was quietly renamed after a straight war hero, Admiral Rachel Levine’s title and image were scrubbed from official materials, Pride flags were banned from public buildings, World AIDS Day events were defunded or stripped of queer content, the Orlando memorial and other sites of mourning were targeted, the U.S. lead a campaign against LGBTQ+ language at the U.N., and rainbow crosswalks were literally ripped up or painted over. We cannot simply register our distress; we must articulate a response.
In practice, that means being intentional and focused. We should select a few unmistakable examples: a company that visibly broke faith with us, a vulnerable political figure whose actions demand consequences, and an institution that depends on constituencies that still need us. The tools matter less than the concentration of force — boycotts, shaming, targeted campaigning all qualify — so long as crossing certain lines produces visible, memorable costs.
A friend suggested we create what he called a “c***t committee.” I liked the discipline it implies: a deliberate, collective decision to carefully select a few targets and follow through. We need a win badly in 2026.
These thoughts are part of a broader reflection on the character of our movement I’d like to explore in the coming months. My friends know that anger and sarcasm carried me for a long time, but eventually delivered diminishing returns. I am incrementally changing these aspects of my character that stand in the way of my goals. The movement is in a similar place: the tactics that served us best are losing effectiveness because the terrain has shifted. The Greenland moment clarifies that we must have a two-pronged approach: building long-term power and, in the short term, punching a few people in the nose.
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