Customer Reviews

Alone in the Trenches: My Life As a Gay Man in the NFL

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The intolerance of gays in high profile professional sports is brought to searing life by former NFL player Esera Tuaolo's revealing autobiography. On the field, he was the worst nightmare for opposing quarterbacks who had to face the six-foot-three, 260-pound defensive nose tackle. Tuaolo had nine successful years in the NFL, played for five different teams starting with the Green Bay Packers and hit his peak as an Atlanta Falcon at the 1999 Super Bowl (even though his team lost to the Denver Broncos). Co-written with sportswriter John Rosengren, the book reflects the ease of an athlete when it comes to the details of training camps, game plays and the often wild carousing that comes with being a football player. Starting with his days as a defensive lineman at Oregon State, Tuaolo's professional accomplishments are all the more impressive in light of his needful beginnings. These sections would please anyone with a love of the game.

However, what makes the book soar is the unblinking honesty of Tuaolo's personal agony in hiding his sexual orientation during the entirety of his football career. Having just read Kenji Yoshino's illuminating book, "Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights", I am even more convinced that Tuaolo's self-imposed stay in the closet was both necessary in an environment particularly hostile to gays and destructive for the torment it produced in his life. The painful covering manifested itself through the hard-drinking, pot-smoking phases in his life, all done to mask the fear and panic around living a lie. There was no unconditional success in his life, as each success produced a worry of equal stature in his mind. His defining moment came after the 1999 Super Bowl, as he describes how his life-partner, Mitchell Wherley, was able to be there, but neither could approach each other as more than friends after the game loss. Tuaolo's ebullient spirit makes his eventual coming out feel particularly triumphant, even though the moment came after his retirement when his disclosure was marginally safer, and the co-authors effectively paint a picture of the precarious crest of media attention that Tuaolo received.

The overriding theme of the book is how family and faith are paramount in his life. He describes his traditional Samoan childhood in Hawaii with loving detail, as well as his current family life with two adopted children. Tuaolo is also a devout Christian, and as a child, he describes how he would turn to prayer when he speculated how he was cursed by God to have such apparently unsavory feelings. Within that context, he gets especially passionate and articulate about what he sees as the religious hypocrisy of Christian athletic groups that vilify gay people. It remains telling that Tuaolo is only the third former NFL player to come out, and one hopes through Tuaolo's example that those gay men still in the game can find the strength to uncover themselves toward true acceptance. Through this unpretentious, often powerful book, I cannot help but admire Tuaolo for his detailed journey toward self-acceptance even more than the talent that originally brought him to prominence.

what i got from esera tuaolo's book was so much more than i ever expected. tuaolo's story tore at my heart, the pain of his self identity that drove him to the edge...that in the end became a source of his strength was very powerful. i feel that those, who are in a place where there orientation has to be kept hidden, will now find comfort in knowing that others have been there and that life can, and often is, a wonderful place outside the closet. i see this as a tool to help educate, and make those who feel gays don't have a place in our society, to rethink just how much pain and destruction that they have helped fuel by creating the environment where so many feel the need to hide in the shadows of fear. maybe this man's story will help to bring more people together. the book was a very quick read, the story pulled me in and i felt like esera was reading it to me. his amazing positive energy came through as i read. however, it did not make the darkest parts of the book easy to read.
i hoped this has helped someone considering this book to give it a read.

Esera's book reads very well. I really appreciate that he shares his life with us, he did not have to. I have met the man at Univ. of Hawaii, he does have a beautiful voice.. and a year later finally read the book. I read this book and Reichen Lehmkuhl's "Here's What We'll Say" at the same time. Each book has it's positive and negatives but this book is much better flowing, seems more genuine, and Esera has such a big heart. It really pains me to see all that he went through to make some money in the game of football. I related much to his story and it really helped me. I live here in Hawaii and I know how disjointed the community is here due to culture and social stigmas. I wish he would have talked more about his relationship, living with a stylist has it's own stories to tell! Hmmm, maybe I will write a book Esera?

The whole book is great. As a gay parent myself, I love to see more gay people telling their stories. But aside from that, the most interesting part of the book was the influence of religious conservatives on NFL players. As a sports fan, I found those sections alarming. Not because I think players should not express their faith, but because of the strong-arm tactics that may be in use to influence people's careers.
Read the book, it's a quick read.

I could not put this book down! There are many stories in this book--stories about family bonds, personal acceptance, religious tolerance, ethnic diversity and overcoming despair in the world of professional sports, which is more often hostile and physically threatening to those deemed unworthy. Football is probably the last vestige of an institutionalized homophobic, misogynistic, violent, good-ole-boy mentality. Having grown up in Green Bay myself, I was often put off by the poor judgment, arrested development and low standards of professional football players. However, as Esera points out, the NFL is also fueled by exploitation of players and a cut-throat, gladiator mentality, even amongst the players themselves. Living in the shadows with his secret took a toll on his psyche, his relationships and his happiness. I highly recommend this book, not only for its rich stories, but also because it's a story of leaving behind the dead end road of fear and moving toward the open path of acceptance. That's not an easy journey.

The book was better than I imagined it would be. Esera is a good man with a good heart. His honesty comes through loud and clear. He explains how he navigated the world of sports and how he finally learned how to be a gay man in a relationship. He was lucky in that he found the right guy who loved him unconditionally. Really enjoyed this book.

Another in a growing list of coming out stories buy men in sports. The book movingly shows the internal struggles to fit in to the macho world of professional sports while trying to be true to oneself.

Alone in the Trenches is a powerful story about Esera's struggles to be true to himself while also conforming to societal expectations for NFL players.

I can relate to Esera's experiences on a personal level, as I'm sure many will be able to, but what really pushes this book over the top is the blatant honesty and courage of Esera in publishing this material. By sharing his soul, Esera truly becomes a role model for all people.

The book is well-written and a very enjoyable read. Once I began, I could hardly put the book down. The praises of Alone in the Trenches cannot be sung enough. Everyone needs to read this book.

Esera Tuaolo has written an inspiring account of his coming out process as a gay man. Within the formidably macho environs of the NFL he concealed his sexuality for years, at great pains to his own psyche and emotional well-being.
He then(with great courage and dignity)acknowledged to the world that he is a man proud of himself, his family and his sexuality. A complete human being at last.
Good on you Esera. I am sure that many gay people will take heart from your fine example and live their lives as themselves, not what they think society wants them to be.

Esera has been through a long struggle and come out on top. Now he is "Big Daddy" and Mitchell, his life partner, is "Little Daddy," to a pair of Samoan-American twins, Mitchell Junior and Michelle, and the two of them live quite, contented lives and travel frequently on Rosie O'Donnell's family cruises with their brood. Having twins has opened Esera's willingness to talk about his sexual preference, and he insists that he is doing it for them, so they will know how painful his life has been, in all its aspects.



He had it pretty bleak growing up, sort of like a Hawaiian version of Betty Smith's popular novel A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN, with a hardworking, sometimes impatient mother, and a charming, weak father who took away all of the fun with him when he died unexpectedly and far too young. And he had a gay older brother who died of AIDS, and a wicked uncle who began molesting little Esera when he was six, and who, in a melodramatic finish, got himself killed in a terrible accident and they had to identify his little pieces by his tattoos and dental work! It made me wonder, is the monster really dead? Or might he have faked his own death to avoid paying the consequences of messing with Esera--molestors, after all, know how to play the game and how to fool the rest of us who aren't sociopaths, and I thought, he's probably living the Gary Glitter lifestyle in Thailand or somewhere by now.



However, Esera seems quite certain he is dead. He has nothing good to say about Garrison Hearst either, which amused me! Don't invite those two to the same dinner party--Hearst would bolt like a scared jackrabbit!



Like other reviewers, I could have used a bit more detail about what sex is like when you're a closeted NFL star, for Esera is one of the view who has been through the neon inside and escaped to tell the story. And although he seems frank about his addictions to alcohol and grass (or whatever), I wonder if there isn't anything he's not telling us. In the meantime, I look forward to Esera's forthcoming CD of modern pop music, for the descriptions he gives of his haunting, majestic voice make him seem like a modern day Perry Como, only with more "ufis" (balls).