User:GRuban/Rob Kearney (strongman)

Rob Kearney is an American professional strongman, known as "The World's Strongest Gay".

Education and early life
Kearney started strongman competition encouraged by a substitute teacher in his high school in Norwich, Connecticut; his first competition was in June 2009, when he was 17 years old. He says he was the youngest in the contest, and came in 14th out of 28.

Kearney came to Springfield College for his undergraduate degree, and stayed for his Master's. In 2014, Kearney was studying for a Master's Degree in athletic training with a concentration in athletic rehabilitation.

By March 2015, Kerney had only won a total of $2000 in prize money, despite holding a world record in the log lift.

Coming out
In October 2014, Kearney came out of the closet by revealing himself as gay on his Facebook page. His motivation was to acknowledge his boyfriend, Joey Aleixo, whom he had been dating for two months at that time. The announcement made him the first openly homosexual competitor at a professional or international level of strongman competition; media sources called him "the World's Second Strongest Man", based on a second place at the World's Strongest Man 105 kg middleweight category. He says immediate response was overwhelmingly positive: while a few responses were negative, within a week he received more than 500 Facebook friend requests, 400 personal messages, many text messages and telephone calls, including numerous World's Strongest Man competitors expressing support.