Post-football, Ayanbadejo is reshaping LGBT advocacy in sports world

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Post-football, Ayanbadejo is reshaping LGBT advocacy in sports world
Former Baltimore Ravens linebacker says he is just a 'concerned citizen'
By Kevin Rector, The Baltimore Sun
9:53 p.m. EDT, October 25, 2013

Growing up as a mixed-race kid in Chicago and in his father's native Nigeria, where he really stood out, Brendon Ayanbadejo became attuned to issues of identity from a very young age.

By his midteens, while living with his family in a dorm for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students at the University of California, Santa Cruz — his step-father was the dorm's headmaster — he thought no differently about LGBT people than he did straight people.

"I learned people are just people," the former Baltimore Ravens linebacker said.

Ayanbadejo, now 37, has turned those early lessons into an expanding role as a gay-rights activist. After first announcing his public support for same-sex marriage in 2009 — rare and groundbreaking for a sports star at the time — he has continued his advocacy through the Ravens Super Bowl victory last season and beyond....

Read more: http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/gay-in-maryland/gay-matters/bs-md-ayanbadejo-talk-20131025,0,1602526.story#ixzz2inMY6XDt