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It’s lookback season in the media. Bryan Curtis, at Grantland, asks “Michael Sam got drafted, we all witnessed something special, and then … what happened?“:
… Remember your smile, because what came after wasn’t nearly as fun. A lot less fun, in some cases. A rearguard of bigots and the enablers of the NFL’s no-“distractions” policy had their own sultry kiss in front of the world. Players and reporters tried to say the right things, to give no offense — which is better than the alternative, but can have a certain narcotizing effect on journalism. Also, Sam got cut — twice. It’s either a credit or demerit to our society that two men kissing on television was the most uncomplicated part of Sam’s first season in the NFL…
Sam hoped that after the initial tsunami, interest in his story would subside. “I thought people would be just, ‘Okay, he came out,’” he told GQ this month, when the publication named him one of its Men of the Year. “And that would be that.” Sam said he wanted to be a “football player,” full stop. Jason Collins and Robbie Rogers could have told him that this wish was naive at best. Rogers said he gave so many interviews and attended so many events after signing with the Galaxy in 2013 that he wore himself down and eventually got injured. I asked Rogers what question he heard the most from writers. “Very standard,” Rogers said. “‘So you’re gay and you play soccer?’…
In the spring, a funny thing happened to Sam. His announcement, this moment of joy, became a line item on his CV. It had less to do with Sam being gay than the NFL’s wish to smother all “distractions” — distractions being a conflation of anything from human sexuality to business interests to crime. “The fact Michael Sam is gay is like another player abusing his wife or something,” said Chris Kluwe.
Sam’s trailblazer status was almost never written about as a potential benefit for the team that might draft him — the glow of happy publicity that attends nearly every other LGBT-friendly company on the planet. It was talked about as a burden to be overcome, something teams “wouldn’t want to deal with,” in the clucking of Tony Dungy. If you were inclined to believe there was a conspiracy against Sam, it wasn’t hard to find prima facie evidence. As the Daily Beast noted, CBSSports.com dropped Sam 70 spots on its draft board.“The NFL has a long history of taking guys like that in the third or fourth round and giving them two to three years while they figure out, ‘How do we use this guy?’” said Kluwe. “The fact is, Michael Sam fits all those criteria and then comes out as gay and drops to the very last round of the draft. Well, what’s the one thing that changed?”…
One of the lessons of 2014 is that any nasty rumor you hear about the NFL is at least partially true. There’s undoubtedly some percentage of teams whose owner or GM or coach muttered something that precluded signing Sam. But it’s hard to nail down the breadth of such a snub. Was it half the teams in the league? One quarter? “Unfortunately, it’s one of those things where unless you’re a superstar, a Jackie Robinson–type talent, there are so many plausible reasons they can use for getting rid of you,” said Chris Kluwe.
Michael Sam’s kiss remains unmoored from a happy ending, a free-agent image floating through cyberspace. But this is 2014 — images can be useful. Outsports has been churning out stories of college and high school athletes who are coming out to their teammates, inspired by Sam and Rogers and Jason Collins. That will eventually trickle up to the pro level…
Harish
Yes, gay people aren’t capable of sucking at football.
Mike E
@Harish: Thanks
a pantloadfor the reality check there, Chad!Corner Stone
I read that article a few days ago, and disagreed with much of the main aspects as laid out. Sam was an above average college football player with limited game film. In that film he outmatched his college opponents time and again. He completely tanked at the combine, both physically and IMO because he didn’t perform very well it showed a lack of mental preparation as well. I had thought he would go in the second half of the draft, and as it went deeper kind of hoped he would be an undrafted free agent, able to sign at a place that would give him a shot.
In any event, two NFL teams gave him an active chance, and I’m sure others watched tape of those efforts. I don’t know to what level the teams just said, “Ah, screw this. He’s good but not good enough for us to go down that road.” IMO, I disagree that it was the kiss or his being gay that is preventing him from being on an NFL roster. The media did what they do to every player with any kind of story they can make copy out of.
And I still haven’t figured out what a “gave triple exclusives” means.
srv
All this social experimentation has destroyed the militiary and will now destroy sports.
Mike E
Wow, speaking of teh suxxor… Browns v Panthers and ATL v NO on my teevee! Woof.
raven
“Sucking at football” and not being able to make it in the NFL are two totally different things. Sam’s was great in college but that often doesn’t translate to the elite of the elite. He knows that.
Amir Khalid
@Harish:
What I got from the story is not that Michael Sam sucked at football. More that he was good but not outstanding — so that a coach could on football grounds justify picking another player in a 50-50 situation, making an anti-gay bias against Sam easy to suspect but hard to prove.
Baud
@Mike E:
Hey. ATL-NO has playoff implications.
Doesn’t mean you’re wrong though.
RobertDSC-iPhone 4
I wish my Patriots could sign him. I’m sure Bill Belichick could find a use for him.
raven
@Baud: So does the Panther game.
Baud
@raven:
True. I expect the Panthers to lose, however. I really don’t have a clue who will win the Atlanta-New Orleans game.
Tree With Water
@raven: Bingo. If Tom Brady was gay, NFL teams would be scouting Freedom parades across the country.
Corner Stone
@Tree With Water:
If Tom Brady of the *last decade* had come out then maybe. But over a decade ago, and for a 6th round backup QB out of Michigan?
Corner Stone
I don’t know who spiked Bill O’Brien’s wheaties this morning, but I’m liking this aggressive play calling!
Corner Stone
Well then, Case Keenum. I see you enjoy sailing as that pass sailed about 15 yards passed your WR.
Tree With Water
@Corner Stone: Andrew Luck would have been a better example. Brady was the proverbial diamond in the rough who needed to Wally Pipp pretty good QB to begin his career. And while it’s true he likely would not have been drafted at all back then, still, and as you noted, times do change. Brady may not have been drafted in the first place, but once he won his first Super Bowl? As preposterous as it sounds, advance of civil rights in America would have been accelerated considerably, and Brady would today be celebrated as the NFL’s Jackie Robinson.
Corner Stone
@Tree With Water:
I’m not so sure. In 2001-2002? A gay QB in the NFL would have still been a really big deal. (And yes, I think a gay QB would still be a big deal in 2014-15. Other positions not so much, but a Captain or Team Leader?)
Don’t forget, the GOP used gay baiting ballot initiatives in OH and other states in 2004 to gin up the vote and beat back John Kerry in his presidential run.
Whether his ability to make a team money by winning games would have surpassed the evident anti-homosexual current still existent at the time? I’m not sure an owner would have made that calculus at the time.
People give Bill Clinton a lot of shit on the LGBT issue, and rightly so in some respects, but I think they gloss over what the fucked up mindset of the country was up to about 2006-2008 or so. We’d all been Will & Grace’d for almost a decade by then.
Corner Stone
Well, our defense is taking it to James Franco and the Ravens…I mean, Joe Flacco, that is.
Still can’t punch it in for a TD but getting points is good.
Tree With Water
Will & Grace’d? Then you’ve suffered enough. It’s a generational thing at this point, and today’s young folk are hipper. Things will improve even more once dinosaurs my age start kicking in large numbers.
Corner Stone
@Tree With Water:
Sure. Point being, there were admittedly gay people on in your living room one night every week for about 10 years.
They were professional, successful and just as fucked up as a lot of the people watching knew. I honestly think W&G had a big anchor in the shift of mindset that America has had over the last 6+ years.
Corner Stone
Andre Johnson 2nd fastest to 1000 receptions, and only the 10th player to ever catch that many.
Julia Grey
@Tree With Water:
Problem is, large numbers of dinosaurs like us will probably live into our nineties or more because of improvements to health care technology and Medicare coverage. Given our generation’s demographic bump and a declining birth rate, a nice competitive lump of 60-year-olds today will still be around for elections in 2026, when we’ll probably also have better systems in place for getting people to the polls or allowing them to vote by mail, etc.
MikeJake
Given his tweener size and skillset, Sam would tear it up as an edge rusher in the CFL. He needs to be getting playing time somewhere if he’s serious about a football career.
Corner Stone
YES!! INT Texans!
Corner Stone
You’ve got Arian Foster, for fuck’s sake. Run the G-D ball a few times in the red zone.
Corner Stone
INT Texans!!
Corner Stone
Can we please hand the ball off to Foster a few times now?
Corner Stone
That was just a nasty ass halfback pass by the Texans.
Randy P
@Tree With Water:
As a teenager in the early 70s, I used to think this about the bigots of the time.
But they seem to keep breeding new bigots. Today’s 65-year-old dittohead was 21 in 1970.
Tree With Water
@Randy P: Good, and maybe even great point. I definitely know what you mean.
Tree With Water
@Julia Grey: “Problem is, large numbers of dinosaurs like us will probably live into our nineties or more because of improvements to health care technology and Medicare coverage”.
[dripping with sarcasm:] Oh yeah, that’s a big bummer.
Truth be told, I’ve already got my fingers crossed a cure is found for macula degeneration and the sooner the better. The damn thing runs in my family.
Corner Stone
Clearly a forward pass by Case.
Corner Stone
Yes! Yes! YES!!
Corner Stone
Give me a fucking break.
Corner Stone
Dialed up The D, Big Baby!!
Tree With Water
The rest of the country gets to watch the Colts-Cowboys game. The Bay Area gets stuck with Oakland vs. Buffalo. Life indeed is not fair..
Corner Stone
SIT DOWN, FRANCO!
drkrick
As I remember it, the 65-year-olds of 1970 were even more hopeless than the ditttoheads of today. It’s slow, but it’s progress.