“In December 1988 baseball found out I was gay and they fired me,” after 18 years of being an umpire in the major leagues.

When David Pallone was a child he was told that it was “sick and evil” to be gay. He was told he would never be part of the game he loved, so Pallone decided to put his personal life aside as a trade-off for realizing his dream.

This mentality followed him later in life, when he was afraid to tell anyone about his partner out of fear that someone would discover his secret.

Pallone, author of the New York Times best selling autobiography Behind the Mask, spoke to a group of about 300 DU students, mostly athletes, about sexual orientation and treating people equally.

Palone has been on many talk shows including Larry King Live and was one of the first people along with Martina Navratilova to speak out about homosexuality.

Pallone was only 11 years old when his father took him to his first baseball game at Fenway Park; it was there that he decided he wanted to be a part of the game. Since Pallone wasn’t the best player growing up, he decided to be an umpire, a dream that would come to a crashing end.

In 1988, Pallone stepped off a plane at LaGuardia Airport to see a surprising story, one about him being gay, and shortly thereafter, Pallone was fired.

“My whole dream came crashing to an end, but at the same time it felt like a 2000 pound weight had been lifted from my shoulders,” Pallone said. “I then decided to write an autobiography. For me, it was a lethargic experience.”

Pallone spoke about how in our society people are crammed into a box.

I lied to my friends, my family and myself, said Pallone. I bet someone in the audience is looking at the box wondering how to get out.

Everyone in the audience knows someone who is in that position, we just don’t know it yet, Pallone said.

Today, 37 states including Colorado still have the right to fire a person based on their sexual orientation, although the chances of being fired for being heterosexual are slim.

Pallone dared the students to ask questions, which ranged from “Is sexual orientation genetic or learned?” to how often players cheat in baseball? Pallone said that sexual orientaion is genetic, not a choice.

Pallone ended with this: 500,000 people between the ages 18-22 attempt suicide every year, 40 percent attempt it because they can’t take the pressure of their sexual orientation.