Millions of Americans openly identify themselves as homosexual. Comparatively, only a handful of people are ever pegged as an All-American athlete and the Defensive Player of the Year in a major football conference.
For months now, we’ve known Missouri defensive end Michael Sam is among the latter, but his story only became the center of national attention when he said he is gay in interviews with ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” and The New York Times on Sunday.
Sam, a senior projected to be an early-to-mid round selection in May’s NFL Draft, could become the first openly gay player in the league’s history.
Other American athletes have come out as gay, but Sam’s announcement is the most significant thus far. Longtime NBA reserve Jason Collins came out in a Sports Illustrated article at the end of last season, but he hasn’t played for a team since.
Midfielder Robbie Rogers became the first openly gay athlete to play professionally in America, when he took the field for the Los Angeles Galaxy last May, but the popularity and significance of the NFL dwarfs that of the MLS.
Sam’s decision to come out is commendable. He told Missouri teammates and coaches during the summer, and the reaction from reporters who cover the team indicates it wasn’t a well-kept secret, but going on television and announcing it to the world requires a completely different level of courage.
The initial wave of reaction to Sam’s announcement was overwhelmingly positive. Members of the national media, current and former NFL players and some of Sam’s teammates at Missouri took to Twitter offering support and encouragement.
The NFL released a statement commending Sam’s honesty and courage, stating the league looks forward to welcoming and supporting him.
That’s a great sentiment, and Sam’s entrance into the NFL could become a groundbreaking moment for a league that’s currently stuck way behind the times in terms of promoting equality and the integration of homosexuals into the workforce.
However, until Sam is actually on an NFL roster, I’ll keep my reservations about how genuine the NFL’s statement is. Professional sports have historically been hard-headed when it comes to social issues, and the NFL’s support will ring incredibly hollow if Sam goes undrafted.
If Sam never makes his way onto an NFL roster, then the league’s Anti-Discrimination Policy clearly isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.
Every SEC Defensive Player of the Year winner except the first, LSU’s Chad Lavalais in 2003, has been selected within the first 33 picks when they entered the NFL Draft.
As an undersized defensive end, Sam wasn’t going to crack the top 33 anyway, but if he drops beyond the first three or four rounds, then factors beyond his abilities as a football player are clearly at play.
That’s what makes his decision to come out publicly not just brave, but strategically prudent.
ESPN’s Chris Mortensen tweeted Sunday that NFL general managers told him they were either aware of Sam’s sexual orientation or at least had heard scouts discussing it.
Since the scouts and team executives knew anyway, it makes sense for Sam to inform the general public on his own terms. This way all the pressure is focused squarely on the 32 franchises. And if Sam goes undrafted, it will be a public relations nightmare for the NFL because everyone will know why.
But now that everything is out in the open, that’s not likely to happen.
Equality for homosexuals is a quickly progressing movement, and there is at least one NFL general manager or owner who wants to be remembered for doing for homosexual athletes what Branch Rickey did for African Americans when he signed Jackie Robinson and broke the MLB color barrier.
That’s beneficial for Sam. The team that brings him in will know full well what it’s getting itself into and do everything possible to make sure he’s accepted in the locker room from day one.
More problems would arise if he ended up on a team that wasn’t aware he was gay, because tension could arise if he was outed in a way that made the whole thing seem secretive. I’m not saying that’s right, but it is what it is.
Here’s the bottom line: if Sam felt that coming out was the right decision for him, then it was.
Now all that’s left for the rest of us to do is wait and see if his story is one of a breakthrough toward equality or a disastrous step backward.
James Moran is a 21-year-old mass communication senior from Beacon, N.Y.