College football has an openly gay kicker in its roster, the first in its history, but Middle Tennessee never went public about it. He was in the team from 2008-2011 and according to reports, nobody treated the football player differently.

The openly gay kicker’s name is Alan Grendreau who came right out of high-school and joined Middle Tennessee as a freshman in 2008. Grendreau had no problem sharing his sexual orientation with teammates, friends and his coaches.

In an interview with the New York Times, Grendreau said, “My whole thing in this is just to help anybody who is struggling with coming out. I want people to know that I didn’t have a problem with it, and they shouldn’t, either."

Outsports.com first chronicled Gendreau’s story of being an openly gay college football player. He was a four-year starter for the Blue Raiders and was the all-time leading scorer in Sun Belt Conference history. His records show 259 points and he owns the record for the second-longest field goal in conference history at 55 yards.

Although his teammates, coaches, classmates and friends knew he was gay, no one discussed about it in the media and thus his story was never released until now.

According to MTSU punter Josh Davis, speaking to Outsports.com, said "Everyone just saw him as a football player. He was just one of the guys. The fact that he proved himself on the field, there was a respect for him. He's a good guy. He's a lot of fun to be around. With all the coaches and players, he had a good relationship."

After college, Gendreau walked away from the game because his season numbers weren’t sufficient to earn him a spot on an NFL team. A year later, he wants to attempt to be part of the league and in turn become the first openly gay male player in major athletics.

“I’m a kicker that happens to be gay,” said Gendreau to the New York Times. He also said, “It’s part of who I am, and not everything I am. I just want to be known as a normal kicker.”

The former MTSU kicker has been staying fit during the past year and has a renewed drive to try it out for to the NFL roster. He knows that the road ahead is challenging and difficult, but if he can get into a camp, he thinks his talent will do the rest of the work to convince his worthy of a spot in the world of professional sports.