Xavier Colvin thought his appearance in the 2015 International Bowl was going to be his final football game. Colleges told him he wasn’t big enough. So he thought maybe he’d go to Central Michigan or some other school as a student. Study Sports Administration. Come back to Indianapolis, get an MBA and figure things out from there.

Then Butler University Coach Jeff Voris called. He came to North Central High School, and sat down with Colvin and his parents.

“Suddenly,” Colvin said, “football started to become a thing again. I felt like I was wanted here and I felt like there was a reason for me to be here.”

The reason, it turned out, went far deeper than football. In August 2017, Colvin came out as gay in an interview with outsports.com. What he found at Butler, he said, was that he could be himself here. Everyone around him—teammates, coaches, professors, friends—supported him.

He’s been sharing his story ever since, and he shared it with the Butler community on September 28 at the State of the University address.

“There are seven of us in NCAA football who are out,” Colvin said. “Statistics show there’s more than seven. So I would hope someone could see my story and see my situation and know that everything is going to be OK, everything can be OK. You don’t have to continue to lie and not be yourself. I think that’s the main reason I’ve done what I’ve done—to help the next person, that kid who’s going into high school soon and trying to figure themselves out before the real world hits them.”

Colvin said he would like to get to a point where individuals in the LGBT community don’t have to come out; they can just be who they are.

And when he’s not sharing this part of his life with others, he’s busy being who he is—a Marketing major in the Lacy School of Business, a Sports and Recreational Studies minor in the College of Education. A linebacker on the football team. An operations intern at the Health and Recreation Center, his third internship (after working at the Indiana Sports Corp. and Hot Box Pizza). A senior set to graduate in May.

Down the road, he wants to work in an athletic department, maybe as an Athletic Director, or perhaps as a coach. Further down the road, he envisions himself as an NFL General Manager or Director of Operations.

But right now, he’s a student who’s happy he chose Butler and the Lacy School of Business. He tells his teammates who are unsure of what to major in to consider Marketing. Yes, he said, Business Calculus, Accounting, and Finance are tough courses. Internship class requires a lot of papers. And the School does require you to build a network of resources.

“But the individuals I’ve met through my internships who have been connected to Butler have been great,” he said. “It’s a small community, but once you find someone in it, it leads to positive impacts.”