How does a college football star go from playing in the Superbowl with the Washington Redskins to becoming a peep show prostitute? Can the explanation be as simple as a crack cocaine addiction or does the answer lie in a complicated personal history beginning with childhood rape and the hidden secret of being gay?
Out of Bounds details the anguished account of the second NFL player ever to come out as gay — and the first ever to come out publicly as being HIV-positive. From the playing field to the locker room, Simmons uncovers a no-holds-barred, behind-the-scenes look at the hypersexual NFL world. Yet Simmons’s story, which opens in rural Georgia, where his rape at age ten by the local postman leaves a scar that Simmons carries into his drug and alcohol-fueled adulthood, is compelling for its off-the-field exploits as well. Without his girlfriend’s knowledge, he carries on countless sexual affairs with numerous men. Not even the birth of his first and only child deters his encounters with male lovers.

A last chance with the Washington Redskins is made but Simmons’s rebound is short-lived. His addiction overcomes his football career, and when he finds himself friendless and penniless, reduced to selling sex for drugs, he is faced with serious thoughts of suicide. Finally, Simmons tapped the courage to come out as gay on national TV — then coming out as HIV-positive 10 years later — leading him to a long and difficult journey to self-acceptance. Take the journey with him — read his story.
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A former offensive lineman for the Giants and Redskins, Roy Simmons is only one of three NFL plays to disclose publicly his homosexuality. Today he works as a supervisor in a Long Island drug halfway house. Damon DiMarco is the author of Tower Stories: The Autobiography of September 11, 2001. He’s currently on the faculty of Drew University and lives in New York.

Reprinted with permission from Avalon Publishing Group – Blanca Oliviery, Publicist