He eventually grew out of the Shawn Hunter phase, briefly transferring his affection to Justin Timberlake before settling on a slow-simmer crush on Jake Gyllenhaal, but his love for football was constant. He played varsity through junior high and high school, and was always aware that to the rest of the world, the fact that he loved football and the fact that he loved guys were irreconcilable contradictions. So he only ever openly admitted one love. Dale arrived at Crocker determined to change that. He was tired of hiding, lying, and pretending. No one knew him at Crocker. It was a brand new start. He could be anyone here, and the anyone he wanted to be was himself. He had decided to tell his roommates first because if it was going to be a problem, maybe there would be a way to reassign him to a different room. But when he moved into Hopkins Hall during freshman move-in week, he discovered that it was primarily an athletes’ dorm and about half the football team were living there. One of his roommates was a linebacker and the other was on the men’s soccer team.
