(Screenshot via YouTube.)

Kansas State offensive tackle Scott Frantz has come out as gay.

In an interview with ESPN, Frantz shared that he first came out to his teammates during a team building exercise in 2015. He says his teammates made him feel “so loved and so accepted.”

“I came out to my teammates, and I’ve never felt so loved and so accepted ever in my life than when I did that,” Frantz told ESPN. “And ever since then it’s been great. I’ve grown so much closer to my teammates since. So it’s been an amazing experience. So the very first time I said those words were in front of, you know, 110, 120 football guys. So you can imagine how scared I was, how nervous I was. This could go either really bad or could go really good. And thankfully my teammates embraced me with open arms, and it was great.”

Frantz told his family he was gay a week after sharing with the team. He says he first realized he was gay in the fifth grade but did not fully accept his sexual orientation until he was a junior in high school. Afraid that he would be blacklisted for college scholarships, he chose to not tell college recruiters he was gay.

This fall Frantz and Arizona freshman defensive end My-King Johnson will be the only two openly gay players in the FBS.