Alan Gendreau

Alan Scott Gendreau (born May 27, 1989) is an American former college football player for the Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders. The placekicker was openly gay to his teammates. He ended his college career as the leading scorer in Sun Belt Conference history.

Gendreau went to high school in Florida, where he was an all-state football player as well as an accomplished soccer player. He came out as gay at age 16. He attended college at Middle Tennessee State University, where he chose to play football over soccer. He began his career being named to the Sun Belt All-Freshman team, and was later named twice to the All-Sun Belt first team. He also made the second longest field goal in Sun Belt Conference history and set multiple school placekicking records.

Early life Gendreau grew up in Apopka, Florida in a deeply religious home. He ended his career as the school's all-time leading scorer. He also played soccer at Orangewood, twice earning Orlando Sentinel Player of the Year for soccer and setting the all area scoring record with 172 career goals.

College career Gendreau attended Middle Tennessee State University. He made the difficult decision to play football over soccer, and played for the Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders for four years. and publicly told his story in 2009. |group=lower-alpha

2008 season In 2008, Gendreau began his college career with Middle Tennessee, who was led by head coach Rick Stockstill. Gendreau came out to his peers in his freshman year. That year, he had a boyfriend, whom he met on Facebook, who had played baseball in college. On October 1 in a nationally televised home game on ESPN2, the team rallied to score a game-tying touchdown against Florida Atlantic as time expired. Florida Atlantic called two consecutive timeouts in an attempt to disrupt Gendreau's concentration, but he made the game-winning extra point for a 14–13 Blue Raiders, and the fans subsequently stormed the field. During the season, he made a then-school record eight consecutive field goals. The streak ended on a failed 46-yard attempt into the wind in the season finale at Louisiana. He was named to the Sun Belt All-Freshman team by both The Daily News Journal and Rivals.com. Gendreau's winning kick earned him the nickname, "Ice". In a 37–21 win over North Texas, he scored 13 points including field goals from 20, 31, and 48 yards.

Gendreau finished the season with school records for most field goals made (18), total points (104), and consecutive field goals made (12). He was again named to the league's All-Sun Belt first team. His holder Josh Davis said the blocks "weren't [Gendreau's] fault. It was a total breakdown in protection." Overall, Gendreau missed four out of five field goals to start the season. Despite his strong second half, interest from the NFL waned. He finished his college career with 295 points, the most in Sun Belt Conference history.

Post-college career Scouting reports leading up to the 2012 NFL draft rated Gendreau as an average kicker. With only 62 field goal attempts in college—just over one per game—he did not receive attention from many NFL teams. He also did not have an agent and he did not know how to obtain one. He went undrafted. Gendreau stayed in shape through 2013, hoping to become the first openly gay NFL football player. Outsports, a Web site specializing in gays and sports, released his story about being a gay football player on April 23, 2013. "I'm a kicker that happens to be gay," Gendreau said. "It's a part of who I am, and not everything I am. I just want to be known as a normal kicker."

"It's totally legit that he can get into the [NFL]," said Chris Kluwe, punter for the Minnesota Vikings. Kluwe believed that place-kicking, which is limited to one specific skill set, allowed proficient kickers to be successful even if they had taken a break from the game for years.

As of 2015, Gendreau is a flight attendant working for American Airlines.

He also has a YouTube channel created in 2012, with about 2,000 followers and a total viewership of about 140,000. The channel features his own renditions and covers of several famous songs, including Home by Michael Bublé.