When NFL safety Ryan Mundy retired from the game after the 2015 season, he didn’t enter a career with the cohort of former pros in sports broadcasting or coaching. Mundy, who was drafted to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the sixth round pick in 2008 and was a 2009 Super Bowl champion, was instead ready to challenge a culture that has shamed men in sports, particularly Black men, out of being emotionally vulnerable.
“I just got to a place where I couldn't hold it in anymore,” Mundy tells Fortune. “I came up in the era, particularly within sport, where we didn't have the agency to talk about our emotions. I knew something was wrong, but I didn't have the language or wherewithal or even the confidence or courage to speak to someone about it.”
