December 4, 2014
Gay Rights
Sam would rather be known for his talents on the football field. Instead, most of the world only knows him for openly kissing his boyfriend on national TV after being drafted by the NFL. If he ever believed he was invincible and capable of being a rookie and openly gay all at once, the reality of now being completely out of a professional NFL job with no prospects of ever getting another one again has certainly hit him hard.
“If I had it my way, I never would have done it the way I did, never would have told it the way I did,” Sam told GQ Magazine in their latest issue. “I would have done the same thing I did at Mizzou (University of Missouri) — which was to tell my team and my coaches and leave it at that. But the recruiters knew, and reporters knew, and they talked to each other, and it got out. If I didn’t have the year I did, nobody would have cared. But I have no regrets. Some people can argue that I had the potential to go higher in the draft. But I think everything happens for a reason.”
With football season well underway, Michael Sam has watched his big break of playing in the NFL slip through his hands like a fumbled pass. Sam was originally drafted but later cut by the St. Louis Rams. He was then picked up by the Dallas Cowboys for their practice squad, only to be cut once again after just 7 weeks.
Sam was also tapped for a brand new reality TV show on Oprah Winfrey’s OWN Network, that has since been canceled. “I’m out of a job because I’m openly gay,” Sam told TMZ Sports.
Gay Rights
“In St. Louis, they welcomed me, but I felt they were just putting smiles on their faces. It was because they didn’t know my future. It was almost like the situation with a stray dog — you don’t want to get too close.”
Life lessons can be hard and hindsight is always 20/20. Michael Sam clearly bit off more than he could chew, but he also seems to have been the wrong messenger at the wrong time. Now let’s see if the boyfriend sticks around now that there’s no lucrative football contract for them to look forward to.
