The NFL combine, held before the annual draft, is typically the kind of event that only really appeals to the football get-a-lifers who need to know how fast a prospective draft choice can run a 40-yard dash, or how high a player can jump.
But thanks to a defensive end from the University of Missouri named Michael Sam, this year’s combine, scheduled to begin a week from Saturday, just got a whole lot more interesting.
Sam, who was the Southeastern Conference’s Defensive Player of the Year, announced Sunday that he is gay. If Sam is drafted in May and makes an NFL roster, he will almost certainly become the first openly gay professional football player in this country, assuming no currently active player comes out.
With all due respect to the bravery displayed by Jason Collins, an NBA center, who last spring became the first American man to play in a major team sport to announce he’s gay while active, Michael Sam’s declaration is more courageous. Simply put, football in this country has become a crucible by which many measure manliness. The gridiron is the place where real men are made, or so the macho mythology goes.
In the current reality series, “Friday Night Tykes,” which examines Texas youth league football, eight-year-old boys are repeatedly told that football players don’t cry, even when they’re hurt.
In December, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers addressed rumors that he was gay by affirming quote “I really, really like women unquote.
So, it’s against that backdrop that Sam, a first-team All American, made his declaration to the New York Times and to ESPN. Sam said he came out now to hold on to the ability to tell his story in his own way. Indeed, the Times reported that several NFL scouts asked Sam’s agent if the player had a girlfriend or if the agent had ever seen him around women. The 6-foot-2 inch, 260-pound Sam said he told his Missouri teammates about his sexual orientation last year, only to find that they already knew or suspected. And while such a revelation is thought to possibly split locker rooms, Missouri posted a 12-2 record this past season.
The NFL issued a statement of support for Sam Sunday night, but while this may be a public relations win for the league office, Sam’s statement is going to bring a ton of scrutiny upon the front office of the team that drafts him. And his new teammates will be under a serious microscope as well. They’ll constantly be asked if they’re OK showering and working out with and playing with a gay guy. It won’t be comfortable for anyone, least of all for Michael Sam.
In a perfect world, who a person sleeps with and how they live their lives wouldn’t be fodder for newspaper stories and sports talk radio. We’d let folks live out their days as they choose, so long as they don’t hurt anyone else.
In his own small way, Michael Sam may have inched us a little closer to that perfect world.