If Kevin Grayson had not torn a ligament and missed being drafted by the NFL, he might very well have become that US football league’s first openly gay player.

Instead, the former star wide receiver for the University of Richmond (2008-2011) played for the Parma Panthers in Italian Football League last season where he was MVP.

Either way, he is now out and proud.

Grayson says he wants other athletes to know ‘just because you’re gay doesn’t mean you can’t be the athlete you want to be. Doesn’t mean you can’t be a star.’

He tells the Virginia TV station WTVR that coming out to his teammates ‘like the biggest weight lifted off of your shoulders’ and that being closeted ‘eats at you … it’s like its own cancer.’

Despite the strain of being closeted, Grayson helped the University of Richmond win the national title during his years there and he was second all-time among receivers in receptions, yards and touchdowns.

Also a decorated high school player, Grayson never dealt with gay rumors.

‘People didn’t believe it because I was an athlete,’ he said of the reaction now. ‘They’re like "Kevin plays football, he plays basketball he runs track. No way you know?"’

‘Those are the types of things where if I could go back and say, "Why can’t I be an athlete? Why can’t I be a star player? Why can’t I be the guy making plays that helps my team win, and still on the flip side, be a gay male?"’

But he did take note of hearing things said like ‘stop being a princess, stop being a faggot’ and ‘Homo!’

‘A couple of times I laughed at it,’ he said. ‘I thought it was funny to think about whether or not if I told this coach, what would they say?’

Grayson said there is ‘no doubt’ gay players right now in the NFL and that he personally knows some of them.

But he’s not outing anyone but himself calling that information a ‘you take to your grave type thing.’