Alex Ukkelberg said he has been living his best life as an out gay man in Los Angeles for years, having come out to family, friends and in the pro beach volleyball community. But beyond that, it wasn’t until Wednesday that he said anything about it publicly.
“There’s no way I could be gay,” the 32-year-old from tiny Battle Lake, Minnesota said in his coming out video. “Is there?”
“When you grow up in a town of less than 800 people, being different is almost always a bad thing — and it’s definitely something you want to hide,” Ukkelberg wrote in the caption. “I knew I was different from a young age.. but I didn’t know what that meant.”
“I’ve been out for a long time to family and friends and as I shared more on social media it just felt like a good thing to say. Visibility matters,” Ukkelberg told the LGBTQ+ sports site Outsports in an interview following his social media post.
In his video, the former women’s volleyball coach for the St. Cloud State Huskies talked about the various sports he played growing up: He ran track and competed in basketball, baseball, and football. Ukkelberg said while he knew he wanted to be an athlete, he said he thought that meant “there’s no way I could be gay.”
That’s the message he said the world reinforced, as he showed a flurry of images of him as both a student-athlete and as a guy dating women.
Ukkelberg confessed that he actually didn’t even think of himself as gay for many years. “Up until my sophomore year of college, I genuinely thought I was straight,” he said, adding that he intensely felt the weight of finally admitting his identity for the first time. “Saying the words ‘I’m gay’ out loud for the first time was really hard for me,” said Ukkelberg.
He added that he struggled with his sexuality so much that for a long time, he contemplated staying in the closet. But the toll of hiding who he was while pursuing sports was too much, he said.
“After quite a few years of very bad mental health, I decided I wasn’t able to give up either identity. I was just going to have to figure out how to be both, and honestly, I’m thankful that I’m gay. It’s made me a better, more empathetic person,” said Ukkelberg.
“I think I’ve always found it easier to let people get to know me first before I come out to them, rather than having to break through stereotypes just to be seen for who I am,” he wrote in the caption to the video. “I’ve gotten it from both directions — too gay, not gay enough.. Nobody wants to be put in a box — especially not the young gay kid from a small town in rural Minnesota.”
Ukkelberg revealed in the video that his decision to come out publicly has taken him more than a decade to figure out, and he’s still at it.
“Despite being out for over 10 years, I’ve conveniently left that part of my story off social media because I’m still figuring out how to talk about it. I’ve gone back and forth on how or what to say or if I should just say nothing at all. I don’t want to say the wrong thing, but I also want to be honest about my experience and how I feel,” he said in the Instagram video he posted Wednesday, which — despite some misgivings — he hasn’t taken down.
“Honestly, even after making this reel, part of me wants to just delete it. I never really wanted to be vocal about my sexuality, especially not on social media. But being vocal is exactly what the young version of myself needed. So, here I am talking about it.”
According to Outsports, Ukkelberg is one of many out men’s volleyball players who play the sport both indoors and on the beach: He’s friends on the tour with fellow out beach volleyball pro Charlie Siragusa, and they are part of a chat group of gay players called GayVP. In addition to Siragusa, there’s also Kyle Friend and Tim Brewster (who are now engaged), Olympic hopeful Leo Dillier, Japanese pro volleyball player Rui Takahashi, Olympian Justin Lui, Team USA player Merrick McHenry, U.S. Olympian Erik Shoji, and four members of Brazil’s national team.
“I never really wanted to be a spokesperson,” wrote Ukkelberg. “But I also feel like it’s important for me to talk about it.”
This article originally appeared on Out: Beach volleyball pro Alex Ukkelberg comes out: ‘Thankful that I’m gay’
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