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The Bellarion

The Bellarion

The Bellarion

Michael Sam Opens Up to the World

In an interview on ESPN’s “Outside the Lines,” NFL draft prospect Michael Sam of Missouri announced that he was gay. This announcement shook the sporting world; it appeared that the NFL would soon have its first openly gay player.

“I am an openly proud gay man. 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,” said Sam in the OTL interview.

In addition to proving his courage, Michael Sam has proved that he can play football at a high level by winning the Associated Press’ SEC Defensive Player of the Year Award. Last season, Sam had an SEC best 11.5 sacks and 19 tackles for losses. Sam is expected to transition from a defensive end to a linebacker and be drafted in the one of the middle rounds of the 2014 draft.

Sam has overcame much adversity in his life, adversity that he believes this announcement doesn’t even compare to, “I endured so much in my past: seeing my older brother killed from a gunshot wound, not knowing that my oldest sister died when she was a baby and I never got the chance to meet her. My second oldest brother went missing in 1998, and me and my little sister were the last ones to see him… my other two brothers have been in and out of jail since 8th grade, currently both in jail. Telling the world I’m gay is nothing compared to that.”

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Michael Sam will forever be remembered as a barrier breaker, similar to Jackie Robinson breaking the racial barrier in baseball and Danica Patrick breaking the gender barrier in NASCAR. In both of these instances, it only took one player to change the sport forever, to stir a revolution. Robinson has led the way for thousands of African-Americans to play in the MLB.

“Coaches just wanted to know a little about ourselves, our majors, where we’re from, and something that no one knows about you, and I used that opportunity just to tell them that I was gay. And their reaction was like, ‘Michael Sam finally told us,’” Sam expressed. “I’m not afraid to tell the world who I am. I’m Michael Sam. I’m a college graduate. I’m African American, and I’m gay. I’m comfortable in my skin.”