Now 72, former University of Washington running back Dave Kopay was the first professional athlete to openly declare, after his playing days, that he was homosexual. That was 1975, when the media world was different, and though he later wrote a bestseller about his struggles and went on to a productive life running his family’s business in L.A., his coming-out wasn’t as noisy and controversial as the Internet/social-media response to Michael Sam’s drafting by the Cardinals last year. Kopay, who plans to donate $1 million to the UW to support a LGBT center upon his death, offered Sam—the NFL’s first openly gay player—this advice in a letter: “I count the day I came out publicly, Dec. 9, 1975, as my real birthday, so that makes me 38. I love what you are doing in making yourself available as a real, down-to-earth man, who is open to the world, and is ready for the struggles ahead and that life will bring… just stay that way!”

Read all of our picks for Sports & Adventure, and explore the rest of this year’s edition of Best of Seattle.