Kevin Maxen

NFL history isn’t always made on the field. Case in point? Kevin Maxen, the assistant strength coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Just before the 2023-2024 season, Maxen publicly came out, making him the first male coach in a U.S. professional league to proudly declare himself as part of the LGBTQ+ community.

A coach for a few years now, having already worked with college teams including the Baylor Bears and the Vanderbilt Commodores, Maxen started to question his sexuality in college while he was still a football player and team captain. Then in 2022, he contacted fellow out NFL history maker Carl Nassib to ask for advice on how to navigate coming out in sports.

It was still not an easy process. As Maxen admits, some of the people he thought he had in his corner suddenly didn’t have faith in him. But he says being able to live in his truth, especially in a field of work as visible as his, was his biggest accomplishment this year. “I put my trust in the wrong people until I found the ones who were telling me to ignore them and listen to myself,” he says. “When I did that, I realized that the people I was being told to fear were the ones who were truly going to support me and love me no matter what.”

“People are good,” Maxen says about the message he wants to send to LGBTQ+ folks. “As a community that is asking for acceptance, love and understanding, we shouldn’t perpetuate the idea that we have to live in fear of how people react or live up to other people’s standards, [but focus on] only our own. The most important thing about equality should be seeing everyone as an individual — what their character as a person is and what they can contribute is more important than what or who or how they identify.” @kmax3824