Ryan K. Russell, also known as R.K. Russell, is an American writer and former NFL football player.
Born in 1992 in Carrollton, Texas, Russell was raised mostly in a single-parent household by his mother. With a stepfather who passed away when he was seven, and a mother who worked long hours to make ends meet, young Ryan spent most of the time he wasn’t in school by himself. School, and more specifically extracurricular activities like team sports, became a kind of extended family for him.
Though he took an interest in poetry as a boy, as a natural athlete with a hulking physique growing up in Texas, Ryan was pulled almost magnetically toward football. Russell attended Creekview High School, where he played as a defensive lineman. In his senior year, he was named second-team All-District, and his performance on the field attracted the notice of major football schools. He played NCAA division one football at Purdue University on an athletic scholarship and was selected in the fifth round of the 2015 NFL draft by the Dallas Cowboys. Over his three-year professional playing career, Russell was a member of three different organizations — the Cowboys, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the Buffalo Bills — playing 22 games, all for Tampa Bay. He played his final game in 2017, and ultimately retired due to a shoulder injury.
In 2019, Russell made history when he came out in an ESPN article as the first openly bi NFL player. His announcement was also covered in major media publications including the New York Times. Russell has gone on to write about his bisexuality in outlets including The Guardian, Men’s Health, and Queer Majority, and has become an ambassador to young bi men navigating hypermasculine subcultures such as athletics who may feel unable to be open about their sexual orientation. The Human Rights Campaign put out a message in 2019 praising Russell for “creating more space and opportunity for young LGBTQ people to dream big and to pursue their goals.”
In 2023, he penned a memoir, The Yards Between Us: A Memoir of Life, Love, and Football, which Bi.org has reviewed. In the book, Russell discusses his fears that coming out of the closet would destroy his career, the double life he had to live, and the close friends he made along the way who helped him feel comfortable enough to come out to the world. In an interview with Bi.org, Russell said:
So to be the first [bi NFL player] — yeah, it’s definitely an honor. But also it’s brought me to my calling, just to not be the last. […] We have to also remember that football doesn’t start at 21 when you’re drafted. Homophobia in any sports league does not just pop up once you start getting paid a lot of money. It happens when you’re a little kid at the playground. You pick up a football for the first time, and another kid or a young coach or whoever tells you what that means, the type of people that can pick up that football and play, and the type of people that can’t; that aren’t welcome. The locker rooms that you walk into in high school, in middle school that either feel warm and inviting like a family, or feel divisive and scary; a place where you need to change or assimilate to be valued. […] My first initial goal is to have LGBT youth stick with sports, find community, love, and acceptance in sports; [to have] out players go into the drafts, and out players become draft picks and free agents. And you don’t have to wait ‘til you are set up financially or you’re a professional or achieved that dream or are retired to come out.
Since its release, The Yards Between Us has been optioned by Sony Pictures TV for a television adaptation. He has also published a book of poetry, Prison or Passion. Russell is in a relationship with comedian Corey O’Brien.