Carl Nassib, NFL's 1st openly gay active player and West Chester native, has jersey added to Smithsonian
The jersey of West Chester native Carl Nassib is now on display at the , honoring his achievement as the first openly gay player to appear in an NFL regular-season game.
The Malvern Prep alum made the announcement while appearing on , hosted by former NFL stars Ryan Clark, Fred Taylor and Channing Crowder on May 6.
The jersey on display is from the team's 2021 season opener against the Baltimore Ravens — the first game he played after publicly coming out as gay in a
In that game, he made a critical strip sack on Lamar Jackson in overtime that helped lead the Raiders to a 33-27 victory. The jersey has been on display since May 21.
"They reached out to me last year and said they wanted to add it to the collection. I said, absolutely. This is huge," Nassib said on the podcast. "I love museums. I love history. I love football. I love the gays."
During the podcast, Nassib credited his late uncle, who was also gay and passed away from cancer, for inspiring him to share his truth.
"When I came out to him, he said, 'This is the biggest weight off my chest. I'm not the only one,'" Nassib recalled. "That really charged me. I felt like I had to do this."
Nassib walked on to in 2011 but it wasn't until his last two years at Happy Valley that he started rewriting the Nittany Lions record books. In 2015, he set the Penn State single-season sack record with 15.5 sacks, was named a unanimous All-American, and received both the Lombardi Award and Nagurski-Woodson Award as the Big Ten's Defensive Player of the Year.
Nassib played seven seasons in the NFL with the Cleveland Browns, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Las Vegas Raiders before retiring in 2023.
During the podcast, Nassib also shared that he grew up an Eagles fan and is a big Taylor Swift fan.
