Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We will not go back.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

So many bastards, so little time.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

So fucking stupid, and still doing a tremendous amount of damage.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

This fight is for everything.

Let me file that under fuck it.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Long Read: “The Two Michael Sams”

Long Read: “The Two Michael Sams”

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There used to be a social-work theory that deeply dysfunctional families would unconsciously appoint one child as a “survivor”, the individual to be pushed away from the interconnected generational drama as a living side bet, or at least to write the obituaries. If Buzzfeed‘s Joel Anderson is correct, Michael Sam Jr. might be one of those survivors:

In a yellow-walled room in a Texas nursing home this July, a man in a wheelchair watched a flat-screen TV. He saw Michael Sam Jr. kiss his boyfriend and hug his small team of supporters — agents, coaches, and Pro Football Hall of Famer Jim Brown. The first out gay player drafted into the National Football League strode to the stage to receive ESPN’s Arthur Ashe Award, an honor previously bestowed on Muhammad Ali, Pat Tillman, and Nelson Mandela. It was the climax of a star-studded evening in Los Angeles meant to announce Michael Jr.’s arrival as a national icon.

Michael Jr. thanked his agents, his publicist, the couple who welcomed him into their home in high school, supporters from the University of Missouri, and top officials with the St. Louis Rams, the team that had drafted him only two months earlier.

Finally, he gave a brief nod to his roots. “To my mother, a single mother who somehow raised eight kids. I love you dearly.”

Back in his cramped room at the nursing home, Michael Sam Sr. picked up his battered, flip-style phone and found his son’s number. He left a message.

“So that’s what you’re going to do?” he recalled telling his son. “After all I’ve done for you?”

Since Michael Jr. publicly announced he was gay in February — just days after he let his father know by text message — Michael Sr. has been vilified in the press. In the New York Times, Michael Sr. came off as a callous homophobe when he said, “I don’t want my grandkids raised in that kind of environment. … I’m old school. I’m a man-and-a-woman type of guy.” When the ESPN documentary declared that Michael Sr. had “abandoned the family” and left his mother to raise Michael Jr. and his seven siblings on her own, Michael Sr. seemed the archetype of the intolerant and absent black father.

In none of these accounts did Michael Jr. come to his father’s defense. “I’m closer to my friends than I am to my family,” Michael Jr. told the Times.

But the father-son story of Michael Sr. and Michael Jr. is more than a conflict over whether Michael Sr. loved and supported his son. It’s the tale of man who’s been reduced to a caricature but whose actual life was shaped by the loss of child after child, some to death and some to crime. The rift between Michael Sr. and his youngest son started long before Michael Jr. came out and stems in no small part from those family tragedies…

Michael Sr. spends most of his days at the DeSoto Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, about 15 miles southwest of Dallas. His electric hospital-style bed and almost all of his few belongings — a mini-fridge and a rolling dinner tray, mostly — are crammed into a corner of the room he shares with another patient. He locks his drawers because someone has been stealing his snacks.

He gets around in a wheelchair, having lost his ability to walk almost three years ago. He wears a gold chain around his broad neck, which bears a deep and long surgical scar that runs from the bottom of his hairline to somewhere past the neckline of his white undershirt. It’s not clear he knows exactly what ailment has left him in a wheelchair. “I have a hole in my neck,” he said. “But I ain’t gonna die in this motherfucker. I’m getting out of here.”

At 55, he’s one of the youngest and most vibrant residents at the nursing home. He has a paunch and false teeth, but he still possesses the thickly muscled shoulders and arms of someone nicknamed “Hammer,” a handle he got on the football field and in the streets. His hands still make large fists; kicking ass was a family pastime.

“Maaaannnn, I used to hit hard,” he said. “I taught all my sons to play football.”…

Reader Interactions

91Comments

  1. 1.

    aimai

    What a tragic story. But you know its also a classic “immigrant” story–when the first generation born in a new country gets separated, emotionally, intellectually, culturally from the previous generation–the pioneer generation. Michael Sam Jr.’s family are dissapointed that they aren’t in “his story” or emotionally closer to him or part of his day to day life but what do they really share, after a chaotic childhood filled with disputes among siblings, estrangement between parents, long distances, failure to pay child support, death and loss? There’s a lot of privileging statuses over actual relationships. The parents and family friends keep saying that MS “should recognize” them because they are parents/family but he wants to recognize people who stood up for him and did for him not because they were family but because they were friends–who proved their devotion and love over and over again because they wanted to not because of an accidental genetic tie. But its a tragic story all around.

  2. 2.

    geg6

    @aimai:

    Yes, a tragedy is exactly right. It’s very sad, but I get where MS Jr. is coming from. Sounds like he spent his whole life running from what must have been a chaotic home. Very sad.

  3. 3.

    Tommy

    As a guy that gets his media from MO. All we asked is can the guy play linebacker? Of course there were stories about his sexuality. The bigger question was could he perform at this position. His sexuality was rarely called into question here.

  4. 4.

    Corner Stone

    Good sweet Christ. That is one depressing read from just about all angles and perspectives.
    That “dad” is about as clueless and tragic a figure as exists in the modern family.

  5. 5.

    JPL

    @Tommy: He hasn’t found a good fit yet, so his pro days are probably over. Fortunately or unfortunately his family will no longer be interested. Sometimes it’s all about the money.

  6. 6.

    Corner Stone

    I do have to say, on the Sr.’s behalf however, that the city of Hitchcock did not give one single solitary fuck about Michael jr.

  7. 7.

    Corner Stone

    @JPL: He’ll be selling used cars to pay the bills, pretty shortly. Contra some here who thought he was some kind of gay multimillionaire evil genius or some shit.

  8. 8.

    Corner Stone

    What does one do with a parks and recreation degree? Didn’t the fed govt pretty much choke to death every one employed in that field over the last 4 years?

  11. 11.

    J R in WV

    I think it’s a good thing the main question about Sams is “Can he play his position?!”

    I don’t care about his intimate friends, what they do if they do anything. But if he can’t play the position at the NFL level with success, then he shouldn’t be on the sports page under the NFL banner.

    Unless he does something else remarkable and worth national attention, anything else, really!

  17. 17.

    JPL

    @Corner Stone: Just because you are cheering for someone certainly, doesn’t mean what you are implying. Good for him for giving it a shot because most can’t achieve that status. I have no problem if he decides to sell used cars or whatever.

  19. 19.

    aimai

    Contra Anne Laurie’s point its pretty clear that in this highly dysfunctional, doomed, family Michael Sams is one of the sole survivors–not pushed out to survive or preserved by the action of the family but simply one that got away.

  23. 23.

    Corner Stone

    @Steeplejack: Is this “Little Boots” person someone you have previously committed to tracking down if they don’t comment here for some set period of time?

  25. 25.

    Corner Stone

    This woman on House Crashers keeps doing some kind of hand gestures and saying things like “OMG Hashtag cute!”

  33. 33.

    Morzer

    On the subject of dysfunctional individuals:

    talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/monica-wehby-obamacare-oregon-health-authority

    On Election Day, Republican Monica Wehby lost her bid to represent Oregon in the U.S. Senate. The very next day, according to The Oregonian, she called the state’s governor to ask about the open job to lead the state agency responsible for implementing the Affordable Care Act.

    The newspaper reported that Wehby, who like most Republican candidates campaigned against Obamacare, called Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber and inquired about the unfilled position of director of the Oregon Health Authority.

    As The Oregonian put it, that position is “the state’s top official in charge of implementing Obamacare.” It cited “multiple sources” for its depiction of the call.

  44. 44.

    Morzer

    @efgoldman:

    True – but how many of them begged for a job running Obamacare the day after the frickin’ election in which they vehemently opposed Obamacare?

  51. 51.

    Morzer

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    Hell no! I am just amused by the shamelessness – and I do see it as a somewhat promising sign for the GOP ultimately giving up its lunatic hatred of Obamacare over time. Sullen acceptance would work for me.

  53. 53.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Morzer: Oh, you’ve seen me then.

    ETA: Though we usually didn’t have slop buckets around the house. We kept them in the barn.

  56. 56.

    PsiFighter37

    Saw Interstellar today. A few questions about the plot, particularly towards the end of the movie, but very well-done overall, especially the visuals of the wormhole.

  73. 73.

    Steeplejack

    @Morzer:

    I think a lot of people still have election fatigue. Evening prime-time commenting in particular has been a bit off lately, I think.

  84. 84.

    Betty Cracker

    @Raven: Jawja is kicking the shit out of Auburn! On TV, they keep showing Uga 10, who is snoozing away. Miami is all over the Criminoles so far, but I’m not getting my hopes up again only to have them dashed when Jame-ass wakes up.

  86. 86.

    Corner Stone

    @ruemara: No, dumb ass. I was, and am, in his camp and hoped he did well.
    Others here on BJ repeatedly said he was monetizing his gayness.
    Which I, and other individuals, thought was stupid and fucking bigoted.
    I thought, pre-combine, that he should go in the later rounds of the draft. But honestly, he had a brutal fucking combine performance.
    That’s not anything but the truth. His NCAA game film was good but he tanked the combine.
    IMO, he had a good pre-season but he’s done now. He’ll never play a down in the NFL. That’s just the way it is. I can wish all I want that he had a better experience but that is simply not going to happen now.
    My comment was about others here saying his coming out pre-draft was about endorsements and other bullshit.

  87. 87.

    JPL

    @Corner Stone: I had to step away for awhile, but I wanted to mention that I didn’t take your comment that way. I missed the comments expressed about his endorsements. I only wish Sims luck. He was a great football player for Missouri and he appears to be a stand up guy. Thanks for the comment.

  88. 88.

    Corner Stone

    @JPL: I don’t know him, but I also wish him luck.
    In this instance, he had to be ready to run faster, jump farther, and lift more than any other possible draft pick. And he simply did not.
    And no, that’s not right but right here and now it is what it is. Until someone burns that all down.
    He had limited utility on an NFL roster and he’s just done.

  89. 89.

    Betty Cracker

    @Corner Stone: I wonder if Sam has any interest in or aptitude for coaching. I know of several high-profile college athletes who didn’t make it in the NFL but became excellent high school coaches.

  90. 90.

    Anne Laurie

    @Corner Stone: My family was considerably less chaotic than Sam’s, and yet: There’s times when “not yet dead or in jail” is enough of an accomplishment to be satisfied, even happy (ifyouknowwhatImeanandIthinkyoudo).

  91. 91.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Corner Stone:

    In this instance, he had to be ready to run faster, jump farther, and lift more than any other possible draft pick. And he simply did not.

    Consider the NFL career of Heisman winner Gino Torretta. Great in college doesn’t always translate to great in the NFL.

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