Ryan “R.K.” Russell is an American professional football player and writer.
Russell’s football career began to attract notice as a defensive lineman for Creekview High School in Texas. From there, he played NCAA division one football at Purdue University on an athletic scholarship, and was drafted in 2015 by the Dallas Cowboys of the NFL. Over his three-year professional career, Russell played 21 games for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, retiring 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. He has gone on to write about his bisexuality in outlets including The Guardian, Men’s Health, and Queer Majority, and become an ambassador to young bi men in hypermasculine subcultures such as athletics who may feel unable to be their true selves.
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 how he feared 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 announce himself 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 (2019). Russell is in a relationship with comedian Corey O’Brien.