Pro Soccer Player Collin Martin on Playing with Pride

Collin Martin joins us on this week’s episode of the podcast. Collin played soccer at Wake Forest University for a year and then played professional soccer after that where he has played for DC United and Minnesota United FC. Soccer took Collin all over the country and in a sense, all over the world. Collin will talk about his transition into professional soccer, and the challenges of being in the business in sports. Collin also came out of the closet publicly in June of 2018, and is currently the only openly gay professional soccer player in the MLS. Collin is still a young guy at 24 years old, still figuring out professional soccer, and somebody who is at the beginning of his journey, but he is incredibly knowledgable. In this episode, we discuss what childhood was like for him (6:00), why soccer for their family (7:40), how his parents reacted when he would say he wanted to play pro soccer (9:40), what it was like going to boarding school (15:05), how he thinks about environment in relations to someone’s success (18:00), the values his parents/siblings passed down to him (18:45), what he loves about soccer (20:00), his mindset when performing vs. when he’s not between the lines (21:10), what it feels like for him to want to impress on the field (24:00), his thoughts on being arrogant in performance (25:30), the best leaders he’s been around and the qualities they have (26:40), what he does to set his mind before a game (32:05), what high school was like for him (35:30), what comes hard for him (37:05), his experience at Wake Forest (42:10), how he has grown a lot personally (46:20), how it felt to go through opening up a new side of himself (49:15), what the response was when he opened up to people about being gay (52:45), if he thinks the MLS is more open than other leagues (57:20), how times have changed with regard to how the world views gay people (1:02:00), and how he sees himself from an identity standpoint (1:07:05). Thank you to Collin for coming on the podcast. You can find Collin on Twitter @martcw12 and Instagram at @cm7md. Lastly, if you liked this episode and/or any others, please support us at Patreon or follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers. Thanks for listening. -Brian