More cracks in the closet door of pro sports: retired top German soccer player Thomas Hitzlsperger comes out...

This is a big story in Europe, especially Germany, where soccer is king.  For years, there have been rumors of several gay players on the German National Team, which this announcement tends to corroborate.  A far superior player to Robbie Rogers, Thomas will be role model for countless gay youth around the world.  And he is a handsome guy, in that German way, to boot!

From the Guardian:

Thomas Hitzlsperger has become the most high-profile footballer to come out, announcing on Wednesday that he is gay. The former Aston Villa, West Ham and Everton player has given a long interview to the German paper Die Zeit, in which he says that he is talking about his sexuality because he wants "to further the debate about homosexuality among sports professionals". 

Hitzlsperger represented Germany 52 times, played in a World Cup and a European Championship and won the Bundesliga with Stuttgart. He retired in September last year, having also played for Lazio in Italy and Wolfsburg. "It's been a long and difficult process" [of becoming aware of being gay]. Only in the last few years have I realised that I preferred living together with a man," Hitzlsperger added.

Thomas was a tough but humble player who was nicknamed "Der Hammner":

Thomas Hitzlsperger has never shirked a challenge. In 2000, as an 18-year-old, he decided to leave his parents and six siblings in Germany to move to England. He had just been released by Bayern Munich, where he had been for eight years, but did not want to join another Bundesligaclub. 

He wanted a challenge – and in Aston Villa's manager he found one. John Gregory ignored Hitzlsperger for a year and a half, sending him on loan to Chesterfield towards the end of his reign, and it was not until Graham Taylor took over that the German midfielder was given his chance. 

Recalled from that loan spell, Taylor immediately thrust Hitzlsperger into first-team action and he never looked back. "At that point [with only six months left on my contract] I was frustrated because I had not played," he said at the time. "I was approached by [Bayern's rivals] 1860 Munich and wouldn't have had a problem joining them but then I decided to knuckle down and make it in England." He then added, with a smile: "Now it is going so well that even the announcer can pronounce my name every now and then. That has almost been my biggest success so far." 

And there you have Hitzlsperger in a nutshell. Competitive, yet self-deprecating. On Wednesday he became the most high-profile footballer to announce he is gay. It will have taken courage and it will have taken time. In the end he decided the time had come. "It's been a long and difficult process [of becoming aware of being gay]. Only in the last few years have I realised that I preferred living together with a man,"Hitzlsperger said in the interview with Die Zeit.

Thomas' coming out will surely encourage other athletes to do so.  This story makes my day.