CLOSET IGNORANCE

Michael Sam has caused quite the little brouhaha by coming out of the proverbial closet, which now sets him up to become the first “openly” gay player in the NFL. He's never, however, really been IN the closet. His family always knew he was gay as did his teammates at Missouri, the team he helped to a 12 and 2 season. His job is to play football. He does his job well. In fact, he does his job better than most. That's why he is on the football field in the first place. He's not there to score a date, he's there to prevent the other team from scoring a touchdown. He does his job well. There have been a number of comments from the world of professional football, a sport that has more than it's fair share of gay players that nobody knows about, so Sam would only be a “first” in a sense. In reality, the only difference between him and, easily, a dozen other players is that they do their jobs without talking about their personal lives. Michael Sam chose to “come out” months before the NFL draft, in plenty of time to diffuse all the negative and, ideally, be picked on his merit as the really good football player that he is. I have known gay people in radio, some who have done their job well and others who haven't. Those who did – achieved some semblance of success. Those who didn't – didn't. That's kinda how it works for anyone in any job. Of course, there are those who fear he will “look at them” while in the locker room or the shower. That, in itself, seems a bit egotistical on their part. Do they really think they are so attractive that anyone would even want to look at them in a locker room? Little do they know but they have been showering with gay men for quite a while. Everyone who has ever played a sport has showered somebody who is gay and never knew it because it was always as irrelevant as showering with a guy with a birthmark. You won't catch the birthmark and you won't catch the gay. It was never a problem for Sam in the Mizzou locker room as the team tallied up win after win after win. An anonymous (there's a surprise) player personnel assistant even had the gall to chime in with: "It'd chemically imbalance an NFL locker room." I was never aware that a football locker room was so important to the earth's ecosystem. You'd think the likes of anabolic steroids, Aderall and a plethora of pain killers had taken care of that environmental issue a long time ago. Sam is, most assuredly, not the first professional NFL player to identify as “gay.” David Kopay, running back for 5 different teams between 1964 and 1972 was the first NFL player to “come out of the closet,” albeit after he retired. He even revealed, in his post football career book, that he had an affair with another NFL player, who played for the Washington Redskins from 1965 – 1977. He remained unnamed in Kopay's book but everyone knew it was tight end (his position on the field, not a favorable review from Kopay) Jerry Smith. After Kopay, four others made themselves known after the fact – Roy Simmons in 1992, Esera Tuaolo in 2002, Wade Davis in 2012 and, in 2013 (after he left the game) offensive tackle Kwame Harris who played six seasons with the NFL as an Oakland Raider and a San Francisco 49er. His family had known he was gay ever since he discovered it as a young boy. His NFL teammates didn't have a clue. I'm not sure it would have been much of a problem for him, though, if they did. At 6'7” and weighing in at 320lbs, would YOU have been the one to tell him he couldn't take a shower? Try googling “LGBT Sports People” and then give yourself some time to read because the list is extensive. And it permeates every professional sport from baseball to basketball to football to hockey to soccer to tennis to swimming to handball to water polo.....and beyond. The difference? Most of them (depending on the sport) “came out” after they had finished with their careers, not before beginning them like Mr. Sam. Remember when Jackie Robinson became the first Black player in major league baseball? Well, of course you don't. That was in 1947 and, according to many, it was the end of our national pasttime as we knew it. Well, of course it wasn't. Baseball got progressively better as a result of opening it up all of the great players who, until that time, were forced to watch from the stands. That's when it truly became our national pasttime. When everyone had a right to play, if they were good enough, the bar was raised and the game got better. Part of Michael Sam's problem, as I see it, will be the front office personnel who are around my age and who still live ensconced in their little worlds of out dated morality and judgement. When they leave and the younger guys (and gals) take over, we will see a much more tolerant system where things like race, religion and sexual preference become as valid as hair and eye color or length of fingernails when it comes to finding players so the team can win games. What about Michael Sam? The NFL seems to be much more tolerant of domestic abusers, murderers and animal torturers like Michael Vick than it is of a guy who chooses to show his affection, in private, to someone outside the perceived norm. Will he still be at the top of the NFL draft? Will his fortunes fade and drop him to a much lower number? Will he even be drafted at all? That remains to be seen. It would be smart for a team to snap him up as soon as they can because if the archaic attitudes of some prevail, as a fierce defensive end, the players on the other team will stay away from him so they won't catch his disease and his team can win every game. Of course, if they did catch what he's got, would it be so bad? Openness and honesty are diseases we could all stand to suffer a little more from.