By Ford McLiney
Most mornings, I do my hair, put on a crisp Nebraska polo, and drive to the pool with metal playing in the car. My tattoos show beneath my sleeves when I get to work. I’m 33, gay, and the head diving coach at the University of Nebraska.
I love the life I’m building. But it took me a long time to feel like I was the one choosing it.
Growing up, the message was pretty clear: “We don’t have tattoos where we come from.” I wore the polos and Sperrys my parents bought me, but I loved punk rock and admired people who seemed comfortable looking different. I started to believe there was a right way to be a boy—how to dress, how to act, what to like—and I got pretty good at figuring out which parts of myself fit inside those rules.
I also knew how quickly being different could turn into a target. When I started gymnastics, kids at school called me “Tumblina.” My music and my shoes were always fair game for a joke. I remember hearing gay people described as “a shame.” I learned to think about how a choice would be received before I thought about whether it felt right to me.
At a diving meet on the West Coast, I saw that it didn’t have to be that way. I met a diver from Portland with band patches sewn onto his pants with dental floss. I thought he was the coolest person I’d ever seen. We looked like opposites, but we loved the same sport. He seemed comfortable being himself, while I was still trying to figure out who people would let me be.
Coming out didn’t immediately answer that question. I just found new boxes. I heard I was “too straight to be gay” and “too gay to be straight.” Even within the LGBTQ community, I felt there were expectations about how I should look and behave. I had spent so long trying to fit into one idea of masculinity that I didn’t know what it meant to define it for myself.
Living in Italy and Los Angeles helped me see possibilities I hadn’t known growing up. For the first time, I started trusting my own gut—and accepting that I would have to own the decisions I made.
Tattoos became a way of taking ownership of my life. I love the spiderweb on my kneecap and the eagle fighting the snake on my leg. I love sitting with an artist and watching an idea take shape. But I also still love a sharp polo, combing my hair, and wearing a suit. For a long time, I thought those things had to exist on opposite sides of who I was. Eventually, I realized they could all be me.
Confidence didn’t arrive in a day. It grew every time I chose the art, wore it, and realized I was still okay.
Coaching was another choice I had to make for myself. My father was a banker, and I heard that coaching would be a tough road—that I should chase the money in sales instead. I had a sales
job I enjoyed, but diving was the work I loved. Choosing coaching meant trusting my instincts about the kind of life I wanted.
Sharing my story through Outsports and on The Jennifer Hudson Show helped me commit to that direction. I wanted anyone who felt alone to know they weren’t. That became part of what I wanted to offer as a coach: help young people feel seen, challenge themselves, and grow.
Now, at Nebraska, I spend my days teaching the sport I love. There’s the technical side—the timing of a takeoff or the shape of a flip. Then there are the moments when an athlete knows how to do a dive but struggles to believe she can do it.
Jordyn, one of our divers, has been working through a mental block on certain dives. She has the skill, but fear can make something familiar feel impossible. When that happens, she can get frustrated with herself quickly. I can see it on her face, so I call her over.
“You gotta see the wins here, sister,” I tell her.
We go through them. Three months ago, she hadn’t dived in a year. Now she’s back on the board, working through things that challenge her. The attempt that just frustrated her is only one part of a much bigger picture. Sometimes I get her to say, “I’m a bad ass who does hard things.
”It’s playful, but I mean it. She does difficult things every day. She deserves to recognize that.
One day, Jordyn looked at me and said, “I need to make the decision to go for myself. If I step, I go.”
That stayed with me. I can help her prepare, but the decision belongs to her. I know what it feels like to spend too much time looking to other people for permission. I want my athletes to develop trust in their own judgment and recognize the progress they’re making. If she doesn’t go on an attempt, I’m still there. I have to work at being consistent in that support. I was yelled at growing up, and I’ve caught myself responding that way as a coach. I’ve felt that flash of anger.
But encouragement was what actually helped me move forward. I have to check my own frustration before I ask an athlete to work through theirs. When I ask Jordyn to come
back to the present moment, I have to meet her there, too.
Jordyn told me recently that even when she’s scared, she knows I’m there to support her. That matters to me. We navigate the mental block together, but she gets to own the progress. My job is to help her see what she’s capable of and know that one difficult moment or score doesn’t define her.
I ask my athletes to try to get one percent better each day. Sometimes that’s a better dive. Sometimes it’s asking a useful question or showing up after a difficult practice. One hard day doesn’t take away the work they’ve already done. Sometimes progress is finding the courage to try again.
I used to think bravery would feel like certainty. It hasn’t. I worried about being judged when I came out, when I chose coaching, and when I chose the art on my body. Sometimes I still do. Trust grew as I made those choices and learned to stand by them.
Growing up, I needed someone who believed in me while I was figuring myself out. Today, when Jordyn comes over after a difficult attempt, I have a chance to offer that belief. We look at the wins, work out the next step, and keep going. She owns the decision. She doesn’t have to face it alone.
I still drive to the pool in my Nebraska polo, with my tattoos showing beneath the sleeves and my music playing. Those parts of myself all belong. I hope the way I live—and the way I coach—helps my athletes feel that they belong, too, with room to discover who they are and the bravery to trust themselves.
That’s the coach I needed when I was young.
Ford McLiney serves as the Head Diving Coach at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and Director of the Nebraska Diving Club. A former Division I SEC Champion diver at Texas A&M and 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials qualifier, Ford brings elite competitive insight and technical coaching to collegiate and club athletes alike. Beyond athletics, Ford is a passionate advocate for authenticity, athlete mental wellness, and LGBTQ+ inclusion in sports, having shared his story on The Jennifer Hudson Show and across national media.