My Life On The Line: How the NFL Damn Near Killed Me, and Ended Up Saving My Life

Written by Cyd Zeigler and Ryan O’Callaghan

Narrated by Graham Halstead

Growing up in a red-state corner of California, the not-so-subtle messages he heard as a young man routinely equated being gay with disease and death. Letting people in on the darkest secret he kept buried inside was not an option, and it never would be.



Ryan never envisioned just how far his football career would take him. He was recruited by the University of California, Berkeley. Then it was on to the NFL for stints with the New England Patriots and the Kansas City Chiefs.



Bubbling under the surface of Ryan's entire NFL career was a collision course between his secret sexuality and his hidden drug use. As injuries mounted and his daily intake of opioids reached a near-lethal level, he wrote his suicide note to his parents and plotted his death.



Yet someone had been watching. A member of the Chiefs organization stepped in, recognizing the signs of drug addiction. Ryan reluctantly sought psychological help, and it was there that he revealed his lifelong secret for the very first time. Nearing the twilight of his career, Ryan faced the ultimate decision: end it all, or find out if his family and football friends could ever accept a gay man in their lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Sep 3, 2019
• ISBN: 9781977368607

Cyd Zeigler

Cyd Zeigler is one of the world's foremost experts on LGBT issues in sports. Along with his Outsports cofounder Jim Buzinski, Zeigler has written more coming-out stories of LGBT people--in sports or any other arena--than any journalist in America. These stories have included former NBA player John Amaechi, former NFL prospect Wade Davis, NFL hopeful Michael Sam, and NCAA basketball player Derrick Gordon, in addition to countless other athletes and coaches in high school, college, and pro sports. Zeigler also cofounded the Sports Equality Foundation, which helps fund the cycle of LGBT people coming out and being out in sports. He appears regularly on ESPN, and in the New York Times and USA Today, and provides expertise on LGBT sports issues for countless other media outlets including Sports Illustrated, CNN, the Los Angeles Times, and NPR. He is a former high school athlete, still holding school track-and-field records twenty-five years later. A graduate of Stanford University, Zeigler lives in Los Angeles with his husband and two cats.

Reviews for My Life On The Line

[patsaintsfan · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Oh, Ryan! I love you for writing this book. I admire you for coming out, as I personally know what it entails. I can't imagine being gay in the NFL. But think about how much you have impacted people! I loved this book... It's not the best written book, but it is honest and heartfelt! I'm SO GLAD I won this through a Librarything giveaway!

[ollie1976 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One really doesn't know what others struggle through. Even though this reviewer finds the thoughts of Ryan's unbelieveable at times, I'm not him. I didn't grow up like he did. I didn't play football. I give him a lot of credit for surviving what he felt, what he's gone through. I thank Ryan for putting a voice out there and show what a person goes through-their inner struggles

[seriousgrace · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

When I requested My Life on the Line I was not prepared to have my heart broken. This is the simple story of an NFL football player trying to conceal his true self throughout his sports career. For twenty eight long years he had a secret. Hiding behind anything and everything to make himself look "manly" Ryan O'Callahan was in constant fear of being outted as a homosexual. No one could find out. No one. Tough language, big trucks, country music, guzzling beer, deer hunting, drugs, and bullying were all part of the smoke and mirrors game; all tactics O'Callaghan used so no one could accuse him of even a hint of being gay. His perception was a homosexual man wouldn't use foul language. A gay man wouldn't drive a big truck or take drugs and he certainly wouldn't listen to Garth Brooks! At the center of it all was being a professional football player. For as long as O'Callaghan was playing this manly game he reasoned he could stay alive. Without football he was convinced he couldn't hide; being exposed meant certain death at his own hand. Even when people close to him started to suspect, O'Callaghan would emphatically deny it, thinking the NFL was his perfect cover.
Then came the injuries and the surgeries and the pain, one after another like unrelenting sea surge. The more O'Callaghan damaged his body the faster his addiction to pain killers grew. He had easy access to prescriptions and at one point was using from nine different doctors. The prospect of playing football professionally hung in the balance as his drug use spiraled out of control and like all dangerous games, it had to come to an end sooner or later.

[bvelto-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was not what I expected. The title and cover image made me think it was about concussions and football and the dangers of playing the sport at a high level. It was about that - not concussions specifically, but the brutal damage to players' bodies and how the NFL discards them - but it is more than that. The author, a former 330 pound offensive lineman for the Patriots and Chiefs, is gay. The book is about grappling with that, and the injuries, and how they led to addiction to pain-killers and contemplation of suicide if anyone found out his secret. You see, O'Callaghan knew he was gay from an early age, but raised in a culture of toxic masculinity, he feared being open about his life. Football was his straight card. As long as he could play, no one asked questions... An amazing book, that I devoured in one reading.

[fastforward-46127 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

By the time I finished reading this book, I had tears in my eyes. Let me be clear, you do not need to be a sports fan to read this book. There is so much more to Ryan than his career as a football player. This is the story of someone who didn't feel like he could live his life as an openly gay man. He thought death was the better option. Let that sink in. He was willing to kill himself because he didn't think people would ever accept the real Ryan O'Callaghan. Absolutely heartbreaking but thankfully he has realized his life is worth living and by sharing his story he will no doubt help countless others.

This book is full of just raw honesty which was very refreshing. One of the things I found fascinating was Ryan was never passionate about football. He had fun playing but he wasn't the type of athlete who lived and breathed the sport. He also didn't hesitate in calling out former coaches who he didn't get along with, but he was also generous with praise for the people who helped him along the way. His friendship with Aaron Rodgers is also discussed in the book as well as some of the rumors surrounding Aaron. I'm sure there's two sides to the story and all that, but Aaron's ability to just cut people out of his life with no explanation is so strange to me.

As the injuries mounted up, Ryan spiraled into addiction. He makes a valid point that the NFL needs to do a better job in taking care of its players. When you have players like Ryan who turn to large quantities of prescription pain pills because the league is okay with that but doles out suspensions for marijuana use, well, that's a problem. His journey into addiction is just another compelling story he has to tell.

I beg anyone who thinks athletes or other public figures should keep quiet about their sexuality, to read this book. I honestly don't see how anyone could listen to Ryan's story and see the damage "staying in the closet" caused and still have that opinion. Thousands and thousands of professional athletes in sports like football, basketball, and baseball, and yet only a few have ever come out. That's not right. We need to make it right so people aren't afraid to be who they are, and I think this book is a big step in helping accomplish that goal.

[redsox9175 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is my first review for the LTER program. This book is outside of what I would say is my comfort zone as it is about a closeted gay man's struggles to fit in with the straight world of the NFL. If you are not familiar with the term "closeted" means the person has not revealed themselves to be gay to the world.
Ryan O'Callaghan was from conservative northern California. He writes how he knew he was gay from a young age but never acted on it. As a boy, he heard many disparaging comments from family members so he assumed he would not be accepted by his family or the world at large. His plan was to play football and then after that he would kill himself, not believing he could live his life and be accepted as a gay man.

Wanting to hide being gay, Ryan tried to act as straight as possible. One good way to do that was to become a football player. He turned himself, through hard work, into a star offensive lineman. He was a pro prospect in college at the University of California (Cal) where he was a teammate of future Green Bay Packers star quarterback Aaron Rodgers (who has been rumored to be gay, though O'Callaghan says Rodgers is not). O'Callaghan spent his career with the New England Patriots where he played on their team that had an undefeated regular season. O'Callaghan later was cut, mainly due to injuries, but a Patriot coach helped him to play also with the Kansas City Chiefs. In Kansas City, he started to develop dependence on the opiods he was taking for the pain from his injuries. He started to make final plans to end his life when a coach helped him change his life.

Analysis

O'Callaghan and Ziegler use a conversational style in the narrative in which f words are used regularly. There was even a use of the not so polite term f-tard. This is not a book I would recommend for a younger person or anyone sensitive to such language.

O'Callaghan's career ended due to the injuries he received on the field so he has a lifetime disability income from the NFL. He complains in one part of the book that it is not enough for what he suffered and he tries to get by on it and in another part of the book he says how it is a six-figure income. He is very critical of the system that required him to prove this permanent disability as if he should not have to offer a huge amount of proof that he is disabled. O'Callaghan is also quite critical of the Patriots and how Tom Brady went into the starting lineup because of an injury (to veteran Drew Bledsoe) then kept the position when Bledsoe was healthy again, but he wasn't accorded the same privilege and that most people are not. After he comes out, O'Callaghan is feted by the Patriots and their owner Robert Kraft. I can't imagine that Kraft will enjoy what O'Callaghan has to say about his team in this book.

This book seemed to be a way for O'Callaghan to make amends with the people he treated poorly while he was masquerading as straight. He admits that he acted like a privileged jock to seem more straight and so he wouldn't blow his cover. He says he hated much of what he was doing.

His descriptions of his love for nature, his rustic home in Missouri and his dogs seemed quite sincere and well done.

If you are seeking to understand the LGBTQ lifestyle how it relates to being a professional athlete this would be a good book for you. It has a lot to say about issues related to the NFL in terms of injuries and for that it has some value as well.