Friday night, Aug. 25, openly gay former NFL player Esera Tuaolo addressed a crowd of over 200 individuals in Balboa Park, as one of three grand marshals of this year’s Pride parade.

“This year, I’m going to do something that, when I was a little kid, I dreamt about,” Tuaolo began. “I would like to introduce my husband, Mitchell Wherley.

“We’d just like to thank everyone for their support and also thank San Diego Pride for having us and for giving me this prestigious honor.

“I would like to encourage everyone out there to tell their story. I want you to go out there and tell your story, because you never know who you’re going to touch with your story…. There are going to be over 150,000 people here and if we all tell somebody, just imagine how many people that will touch.”

Addressing this year’s theme of “Pride, Justice and Equality,” Tuaolo concluded by saying equality meant “to have what my straight friends have,” while freedom, he said, is “to walk down that street with my family, with my husband and our children, and have everyone know that we are a family.”