Well, it’s September, and Michael Sam is still in the news. I said that the next time I would write about Sam would be when it was athletically warranted, and now it is.
He has officially been cut by the St. Louis Rams. Sam just didn’t make the final, 53-man roster. His athletic ability was not up to par. If the Rams didn’t want to risk having the attention of bringing on a gay athlete, they wouldn’t have signed him in the first place.
Sam was gracious in tweets about the situation, thanking both the Rams and the city of St. Louis. After the cut, other teams have since come calling for him.
“The Rams waived Michael Sam, the first openly gay player trying to make an NFL roster, he was unemployed for two days,” Peter King of NBC said to the Dallas Morning News.
48 hours later, Sam became a member of the Dallas Cowboys’ practice squad. Sam was back in the game, and back on everyone else’s radar.
“I think to most people it’s not a trending topic anymore. His dreams in the NFL aren’t done yet, but most will stay vigilant. As a gay man myself, people think my preference in men might be weird or taboo, but it’s not going to make me change who I am,” LC Pride President Brandon Everts said.
One of Sam’s goals was to become an accepted openly gay player drafted into the NFL, which he has done. His next goal is to make a regular roster, which brings me to my reason for writing this.
One minute Sam is saying that he wants to represent the gay community, which is perfectly fine, but the next minute he wants people to focus exclusively on his football ability.
Talks over the summer of Sam getting his own reality show on the Oprah Winfrey Network seemed to blur those lines even more.
I am a Sam supporter, but when he double-talks to the media, I think of stand-up comedian, Gabriel Iglesias, who has been asked what it’s like being a Latino comedian. On stage, Iglesias gave the following response,
“I don’t know, I’m a comedian who happens to be Latino.”
What do you want to be Michael? Do you want to be a gay football player, or a football player who happens to be gay?
It looks like it’s time for Sam to make a decision.
Contact Dane at ndmcguire@lc.edu
