perhaps my favourite trope in sports rpf is when we have a younger athlete navigating hiding their queerness and a budding romance with a teammate or rival come head to head with an older, potentially even retired, athlete in a kind of mentorship position who finds out or suspects something about the younger one's queerness/relationship and confronts them about it and the younger one is getting worked up and maybe says something like "you have no idea what it's like for me" or accuses the older one of homophobia and the older one smiles tiredly and reveals his own queer romance with his biggest rival/teammate from his time and the younger one is so shocked and like "well there were these rumours but i never thought" but then finally feels connected to his idol and community and less isolated in his sport and finds that there is hope, afterall.
