Posted on 02/08/2017 7:26:04 PM PST by IMTOFT
lbany Former NFL player Michael Sam said he always felt like an outsider — the deaths of two older brothers, the bullying he endured by other family members and even his mother's religion, Jehovah's Witness, made him feel apart from his peers. But nothing made him feel more like an outsider than being gay in the NFL. "I had to prove myself, to show that I was one of the guys," said Sam, who spoke Tuesday night as part of Sexuality Month at the University at Albany. "I was cut from the Rams, even though I was in the top five in sacks. Then I went to the Cowboys and had to do it all over again. And then I was cut there. I always felt like an outsider looking in." Sam assured the few hundred students who came to hear him in the Campus Center that "everything happens for a reason." The difficult childhood and NFL disappointment led him to become a motivational speaker urging others to be true to themselves. "When I came out to the world on Feb. 9, 2014, I got tons of emails from people telling me how they were condemned for their sexuality," said Sam. "It made me sad and angry. I spoke to one girl who told me that because I came out, she didn't commit suicide. I was speechless." After high school in Hitchcock, Texas, Sam, a defensive end, was recruited to play for the University of Missouri. Named an All-American and Southeastern Conference Defensive Player of the Year as a senior, he expected to be drafted in the second or third round of the 2014 draft. But his prospects plummeted the day after he announced he was gay. He wasn't drafted until the seventh round for the St. Louis Rams. "When I was drafted I thought the headline would be 'NFL has first openly gay player,' but instead it was 'Sam kisses boyfriend.' Should I have kissed a girl? The media made it a distraction." He said it was also difficult that he, as a rookie, garnered constant media attention. "I'm still baffled," said Sam. "I thought it would be a story for two weeks and then it would go away." Sam remains wary of the media. He refused interviews with the local press and stopped his talk to ask the television crews to turn off their cameras. The attention and what he believes is the sports' discomfort with homosexuality ultimately destroyed his career. After being cut from the Rams and then waived by the Dallas Cowboys, he joined the Montreal Alouettes in the Canadian Football League. That stint didn't last either. He said he left preseason camp for personal reasons. "I tried to earn their trust, make them believe I belonged," said Sam. "Now I speak from the heart." wliberatore@timesunion.com • 518-454-5445 • @wendyliberatore
And couldn’t even make it with them. Calling him an NFL player is a stretch.
Quid pro quo for the Rams to move back to LA.
And Mike Sam is a huge attention whore, he even posted pics of him and his “bride” at the Vatican, IIRC.
All the US pro sports are simply dying to have the first openly gay player that is even half decent. To the point NBA and NFL both actually jumped the gun and MLB appointed Billy Bean, a player that came out as gay after he was out the first ‘ambassador of inclusion.’
Imagine predicting this stuff in 1980. If you would have told this stuff in a bar you would be lucky to leave with all your teeth.
Freegards
He better not try to speak at UC Berkeley. The homophobe democrats there will riot when a homosexual comes to speak on campus.
These days I would be more surprised by the Headline “ Openly straight athlete discusses lifestyle
Get help
My neighbor joked about having a try out for a local semi pro hockey team. He said of course he leaves out the part that it was an open try out. He didn’t make the team. I corrected him. If Sam can declare that he was a former NFL player and most buy it then he could say he was a former semi pro hockey player.
You can’t sell his football cards. Nobody will buy them. You have to pay people to take them.
I understood that he wasn’t that good. Simple as that, and no Center was going to let him anywhere’s near the ball or their balls. /sarc
Basically I don’t give a darn.
Sad family life...which I am certain including sexual abuse by an uncle or someone else. It so often does with men who end up in that destructive lifestyle.
Maybe he should have kept his big mouth shut for once and just played football. Getting in America’s face does have its consequences.
Proof of that was Charles Haley, who was on 5 SB winning teams. I can’t really say what he did to himself while teammates nervously looked away, but it is documented in a book by Troy Aikman.
He sucked.
Its simple...this man did not perform to the level of player they needed. He knows this, his stats bear this out. Playing gay-wounded-dove is just a lie to cover it up.
All he had left to make money was writing a book maybe. This is part of his material for an excuse regarding in uneventful career.
Watch that in two months his new book called,”My Butt Is Sore” comes out.
Nope, and the only reason he was drafted at all was due to political correctness.
The reality he and his boosters can’t seem to grapple with is that nobody has any interest in what he does with his private parts in his private time, yet that is his only claim to relevance.
In totally unrelated news, with no connection to Michael Sam or to Colin Kaepernick, NFL ratings are way down. The networks and League management are still trying to understand why.
He was drafted because he was gay,iirc. They didn’t care about his performance. I assume it was distracting for the team and he had some great plays. Football is not about great plays, it’s about a winning team. He clearly isn’t a team player, instead focusing his every moment on how whom he sleeps with defines him. Being gay is his passion, football is not. The great players have passion for football oozing from them.
That’s a little harsh saying he was a ‘bust at football’. Every year there are a lot of good college players who can’t make it at the pro level, or never even get serious consideration in the Draft of Free Agency. Michael Sam probably should not have been drafted, but was. I suspect that was because today’s NFL is all about supporting progressive politics. If Sam had been an undrafted free agent that was brought in by a team with a real need at his position, he might have hung around on the practice squad. Instead he got a lot of Press, a draft status he didn’t earn. Set up to fail.
Just as every popular TV series needs it’s openly-gay characters today (whether they fit the storyline or not) somebody in the NFL front office (Goddell) decided that the NFL needed it’s Gay Player. I’ve always suspected the league jammed the Philadelphia Eagles into giving Michael Vick a contract. I’m certain that they pressured the Rams to take Michael Sam in the draft.
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