NFL hopeful Michael Sam has penned an open letter to his fellow University of Missouri students in which he thanks the Mizzou community for the strong support shown during his public coming out:
To my fellow University of Missouri students, athletes, faculty, alumni and supporters:
From my first recruiting trip to the University of Missouri, I felt something extraordinary and special — something I didn’t feel anyplace else. I didn’t have a name for it then; I do now. It’s called family. And to me that family is defined by unconditional love.
Certainly you cheered my successes, but you also picked me up when I fell. Maybe most importantly, you gave me a chance to live my truth without judgment, without hesitation and with great discretion and respect.
When I came out last month, I did it with the confidence that my Mizzou “family” would always be there for me. To put it mildly, the love and acceptance I felt was amazing. The day after the announcement, my name was spelled out in the stadium; fraternities hung #StandWithSam banners; then when I went to the basketball game to honor the football team’s Cotton Bowl victory, I worked hard not to cry because of the amazing reception.
I have a long journey ahead of me, a lot of hard work and many dreams I want to fulfill. But I do it with the confidence that my Mizzou family will be there for me every step of the way. I will continue to work my hardest; I will strive to make you all proud. And I will be a Tiger forever.
Via the Huffington Post, you can file this under “Never Gonna Happen.”
Republican lobbyist Jack Burkman wants to see Congress pass his “American Decency Act of 2014,” which would make it illegal for “self-declared homosexual football players” to join an NFL team unless it “provides facilities for homosexual players which are entirely separate and distinct from the facilities used by heterosexual players.”
Burkman proposes a fine starting at $3 million for any violations of the proposed “law.”
“I felt that if the NFL doesn’t have any morals, and people like [Commissioner] Roger Goodell, who are just go-along-get-along guys, just want to appease advertisers, appease corporate America and all that stuff,” Burkman said earlier this week, “I figured, well, it is time for conservatives in Congress to step in and define morality for them.”
Earlier this week, Burkman predicted that dozens of members of Congress would rally behind his proposal. I’m highly doubting that will happen.
Of course, this is never going to happen. So you have to wonder what kind of publicity Burkman is looking for here since it only serves to portray him as a jackass.
By the way, Burkman has an openly gay brother. Weigh that one out in your heads.
Deion Sanders sat down with Arsenio Hall to talk about out football player Michael Sam. Sanders mentions that every NFL team he played on had gay players.
Unfortunately, he drops alcoholism and drug use in the same sentence as gays which doesn’t sit well with me. But I think he’s trying to send a positive message somewhere in all this:
“I don’t nor do I condemn, but I’ve had a friend, family members… Everyone out there, you’ve had someone of homosexuality in your family — and someone whose on drugs and alcohol. How can I judge them? It’s up to me to give him love, to give him support, to just be there for him. So I don’t condone nor I condemn. But I’m gonna love him.
“Everybody in the NFL is always talking about football as a family but when you have the opportunity to really extend and show them that you’re a family member, this is the opportunity. He’s not the first gay guy in the NFL! He’s the first one to come out, let’s get that straight. Every team I’ve played on, there was someone…we always knew. But he was cool. That was our boy. We had to look out for him.
“Every team I’ve played on – five different teams – there was someone gay in the locker room.”
Missouri defensive end Michael Sam addressed the media at the combine about being the first openly gay draft prospect in NFL history.
I think he handles himself extremely well in his first big brush with the press. No question he handles this with class and star quality.
Talking to the media, Sam addressed the obvious issue in question – via USA Today:
“Oh, heck yeah, I wish you guys were just saying, ‘Hey, Michael Sam, how’s football going? How’s training going?’ I would love if you’d ask me that question,” he said, in his first public appearance since making his landmark announcement Feb. 9.
“But it is what it is. I just wish you guys would see me as Michael Sam the football player instead of Michael Sam the gay football player.”
An All-America selection as a senior with the Tigers in 2013, Sam told his college teammates he was gay before last season. Now he hopes to become the NFL’s first openly gay player, though he said he doesn’t feel like a trailblazer — “I feel like I’m Michael Sam.”
Former Dallas Cowboys defensive end Greg Ellis (on top)
Former Dallas Cowboys defensive end Greg Ellis spoke with ESPN radio on Tuesday and offered his opinions about recently out/SEC Defensive Player of the Year Michael Sam joining the NFL.
On what his team’s reaction would be to Michael Sam when he was playing:
“I think it would be totally different than what it is right now. I think those years made a lot of difference in the current day NFL. But still, a universal rule in my opinion is that it’s going to affect the football team. I don’t care how we look at this, it’s going to affect the football team. And one of the biggest reasons why it’s going to affect the football team, he’s not a proven player.
“Teams and guys have a lot of tendency to accept a lot of things if they feel like, ‘Nobody done like him, but nobody can do what he can do.’ If it’s your quarterback and he’s playing like Peyton Manning you’re going to have find a way to say, ‘We’re going to overlook that because we’re trying to win football games.’ But when you’re coming in as an unproven rookie, you won’t have that card to pull because you’re unproven. He has to be careful. He has to come in, close his mouth. It should’ve never came out. I know half the people will say, ‘Why not?’ Because it hurts his opportunity to be welcome into a football club.”
On what Sam first needs to do when he goes to a team:
“If he can make it through that first initial wave. If he can get out there — he doesn’t need to say anything. He needs go in there, close his mouth and play football to let the guys know that, ‘Hey if you guys give me a chance to welcome me into this fraternity of this football team, I can contribute and help us win football games.’ That’s going to be his best approach in my opinion.
“Because the little things you have to look at. If he pats somebody on the butt — I hope ESPN don’t get mad and never have me back — but if he pats somebody on the butt, how is that to be received? If he does that how is that to be received? If he said, ‘Come on baby’? I called guys baby all the time on the football field, but when you have taken a stand and went and go public and say that, ‘I am gay,’ how is that going to be received? I’ve seen guys, I had guys on the Dallas Cowboys football team — I won’t mention names — who did not want you to pat them on their butt. So God forbid if you pat one of those guys on the butt it’s going to be a major problem.”
On if he would’ve been uncomfortable with playing with a gay player:
“I would. I would. People who’ve never been in an NFL shower room, not just locker room, it’s a open room. We don’t have private curtains. It’s just an open-form shower, so everybody sees each in the nude.
“Well if you’re looking at men as if you’re looking at women or vice versa, how are those guys to receive that? I don’t know. I don’t know how they will receive that. But I do know it would be a situation where I would go to the coach and try to work something out to say, ‘Obviously this is going to be a problem. What can we do? The kid can help us play, can help us win football games. We need him on the team. But this situation right here, we need to do something.’ ”
ESPN Sunday Converation featured 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick and Panthers QB Cam Newton sitting down with Michele Steele to discuss their off-the-field friendship, the atmosphere in their respective locker rooms and how Michael Sam will fit in the NFL. Via Queerty:
Cam Newton said:
“His job is a linebacker. Colin said it best when he said we don’t worry about each other when we’re outside of football. Of course we have, ‘Are you OK? Is there anything I can help you with?’ But the main focus is, we’re football players. We’re here in this organization for one reason and one reason only. And if you’re able to help us attain that winning success, your personal life is your personal life.”
Colin Kaepernick added:
“No one cares if you’re black, white, straight gay, Christian, Jewish, whatever it may be. When you step on that field you’re a member of, in my case the 49ers, or the Carolina Panthers, that’s your job. That’s your occupation.”
Yesterday, the results of an informal survey of players in the NFL showed roughly 86% of players aren’t interested in other players sexual orientation.
ESPN conducted an anonymous survey last week of 51 active NFL players asking four questions regarding the possibility of an openly gay player being drafted and playing in the league.
Fifty-one players, almost an entire team roster, responded to four true-false questions. Although the survey showed that most players aren’t concerned with another’s sexual orientation, it also made clear the concerns that players would have with learning how to relate to an openly gay teammate.
Forty-four players said a teammate’s sexual orientation didn’t matter to them, and 39 said they would be comfortable showering around a gay teammate. But 32 players said they had teammates or coaches who used homophobic slurs last season, and when asked whether an openly gay player would be comfortable in a NFL locker room, just 25 players said yes; 21 said no, while five declined to answer.
University of Missouri’s Michael Sam came out last week amid much fanfare as he’s expected to be drafted in the third to fifth rounds this coming May. He was SEC co-Defensive Player of the Year and led his conference in tackles and sacks.
In an interview with ESPN, New York Giants corner back Terrell Thomas said that he was “unsure” about the prospects of an openly gay player in the NFL:
“I think society is ready for it and America’s ready for it, but I don’t think the NFL is,” Thomas said. “As a player, all you want to know is if he can play. That’s on the field. But in the locker room, it’s different. There’s a lot of talk and joking around, and some guys walk around completely naked all the time, and they might not want to do that anymore. When you add that situation to the mix, I think it’s going to make some people uncomfortable.”
Thomas told ESPN that because of his “personal views as a Christian,” he was uncertain about how he felt on the issue personally.
When asked why an NFL locker room environment might find it difficult to cope with an openly gay player when the University of Missouri team accepted Michael Sam, Thomas said it was “different”:
“I just think it’s different when you put him in an NFL locker room with a bunch of grown men, the way we are around each other, and with people who don’t already know him.
“Their locker room accepted him, but at the same time, their locker room knew him before he came out. If he would have said it after his second year in the league, things might be different. But to come in as a rookie who nobody knows and have this be the big story, that could make it tough for some people to handle.
As this video as gone uber-viral across the interwebs, I wanted to post this response from Texas sports anchor Dale Hansen over his surprise that the video and message has become a “big deal.”
In an email to The Huffington Post, Hansen said he’s surprised at the response his segment unleashed. “Some people don’t seem to believe this — I honestly didn’t think it was going to be that big a deal,” he said, adding he’s received more than 700 “overwhelmingly positive” emails from around the U.S. and one from a young high school boy in Canada.
When asked for his thought process on taking such a firm stance and then broadcasting it, Hansen responded thus: “I write only what I believe — and I simply believe what I wrote. Seems like common sense to me — nothing more or less.”
I’ve had at least a dozen people email it to me and I’ve seen Hansen’s on-air opinion piece all over Facebook.
