"I came to tell the world I'm an openly proud gay man," he said in an interview with ESPN.
He said he told his Missouri teammates in August and suffered no repercussions. He said he was surprised to discover many people in the media already knew he was gay.
"I understand how big this is," Sam said in the ESPN interview. "It's a big deal. No one has done this before. And it's kind of a nervous process, but I know what I want to be ... I want to be a football player in the NFL."
Sam also spoke about his sexual orientation Sunday to The New York Times, saying: "I just want to make sure I could tell my story the way I want to tell it. I just want to own my truth."
Sam, at 6-foot-2 and 260 pounds, starred in college football last season. Besides being first team All-American, he was named the top defensive player in the Southeastern Conference, considered the nation's best league. Teammates named him the team's most valuable player.
Response;
Earlier I heard on a podcast that they were reconsidering giving Michael this MVP award due to his sexual orientation... That to me is absolutely ridiculous! Why should he be penalized for something he can't control! Michael worked so hard for this so why should it be taken away because of some innocuous reason? What does being gay have to do with football anyways? Never once has a quarterback of a team say, "Sorry guys, I can't throw this football because I'm a homosexual" granted I don't know anything about football, but to me it seems so dumb (for lack of a better term) that this personality trait could come up in conversation! There's nothing different between a straight quarterback throwing a spiral an a gay one doing the same! A spiral is a spiral, just like a man is a man
I think it's great that he decided to come out even though he will be entering the NFL Draft in a few months. I hope that Michael receives the same treatment as all of the other athletes and that teams don't pass on him just because of his sexual orientation.
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