Michael Sam, Missouri DE, Is Gay

[Spartacavolus]

they all look alike

 

[volprof]

I have spent time researching this. I assumed someone would try to argue that the depression is caused by the reasons you listed. Since you are gay, I am surprised that I have researched this more than you.

There are studies where they have evaluated the very thing that you claim. They evaluated homosexuals in countries where it is more readiliy accepted, and in countries where homosexuality is a stigma. The results of the study showed that it didn't matter if you lived in a society that was socially accepting of homosexuals or in a "bigoted" society, the rates of depression were not significantly different.

It may be a minority of gay people who live extremely promiscuous lifestyles. The problem is, that that minority still represents a significant portion of the homosexual community. I do not vouch for all of the studies done on this subject, but with only a little bit of research, it becomes obvious that a large portion of homosexual men have many sexual partners in a given year, many times meeting a partner just once.

If you want to see how many gay men are living promiscuously, please just get on craigslist chattanooga. There are hundreds of posts daily just on that one site where men are looking for complete strangers to satisfy a desire. No, I am not saying that there aren't people such as yourself, and I have gay friends in committed relationships.
But because the lifestyle is unhealthy, in my opinion, it is immoral.

The vast majority of heterosexual men would live just like this (at least in their younger years) if not for the limits of chastity we place on our female population. Males, even gay males, don't have the sexual limitations placed upon them like females do. There's a reason why (reportedly) gay men have more sex and more partners than any other demographic (including heterosexual men and gay women). It's because there men. Has nothing to do with their sexuality. Heterosexual men just wished they could get laid that much.

 

[omghulkhands]

The vast majority of heterosexual men would live just like this (at least in their younger years) if not for the limits of chastity we place on our female population. Males, even gay males, don't have the sexual limitations placed upon them like females do. There's a reason why (reportedly) gay men have more sex and more partners than any other demographic (including heterosexual men and gay women). It's because there men. Has nothing to do with their sexuality. Heterosexual men just wished they could get laid that much.

Even without research, this seems pretty accurate.

 

[gcbvol]

I will freely admit that sexual desire is not a choice. I will admit that many homosexual, and even hetersexual people, had little choice as to who they would be attracted to.

From my own experience, like many men, I was exposed to pornography at a very young age. I did not choose to see these explicit images of women. I hardly had an understanding of what the images were. But, without being told, I was immediatley infatuated with these pictures of naked women. So from my experience, I had no choice in the matter, but it did impact my sexual development.

Also, I was molested by a close family member of the opposite sex. I was very young, but do remember this experience. Is it possible that this had no impact on the development of my sexuality? Sure. But it seems much more likely that an experience that I did not choose had some impact on how my thoughts on sexuality developed.

Now, research tells us that about 25% of girls are molested at some point. Do you really think that this has no impact on how they develop psychologically? Did they have a choice, no. Please do not interpret this as me saying that homosexuals must have been molested or are molesters. But the way people are exposed to sexual content does impact their development.

First, I appreciate your openness and civility. I absolutely agree that experiences can have an impact on psychological development. I also believe that some people do choose their sexuality because of those experiences or other external factors. I have difficulty when some folks project sexual choice onto all people who are gay. I think that diminishes the pain and struggle many of us experienced fighting our innate sexuality. Yes, I experienced depression, deep depression and self-hate. This went on for several years. When I ultimately accepted who I was happiness followed. Today is different, for sure, but back then we were conditioned to believe that what we felt was evil, disgusting and sending us straight to hell. Of course that is going to have an impact. Being different from our parents while desperately wanting to be like them was painful and depressing. It is very difficult for so many. I'm sure a lot of these experiences combine to drive development and behavior.

 

[volprof]

Even without research, this seems pretty accurate.

Yep. And if you're a man who's making the "well, what if they eye me up in the locker room" argument I've been seeing around here, then welcome to the world of being a woman in male-dominated society! These men are scared of being objectified by another man, but how's that any different from what we constantly do to women? Basically, these men are simply afraid of being feminized and apparently aren't very comfortable with their sexuality or gender identity. Gives a whole new meaning to their lamentations of the social acceptance of gay males.

 

[Regulator]

I have spent time researching this. I assumed someone would try to argue that the depression is caused by the reasons you listed. Since you are gay, I am surprised that I have researched this more than you.

That's laughable. You expect us to believe that you've researched a subject that you have no personal connection to, nor even a full understanding of, more that gcb who has demonstrated repeatedly that he's done plenty of research about himself in an effort to understand himself more completely.

There are studies where they have evaluated the very thing that you claim. They evaluated homosexuals in countries where it is more readiliy accepted, and in countries where homosexuality is a stigma. The results of the study showed that it didn't matter if you lived in a society that was socially accepting of homosexuals or in a "bigoted" society, the rates of depression were not significantly different.

I don't know. Perhaps because regardless of where they live, they still feel like outcasts or less equal than society? Personally conflicted about why they like the same sex, as opposed to the vast majority of their peers that are heterosexual?

It may be a minority of gay people who live extremely promiscuous lifestyles. The problem is, that that minority still represents a significant portion of the homosexual community.

By definition, a minority cannot represent a significant portion. This doesn't change, regardless of subject.

I do not vouch for all of the studies done on this subject, but with only a little bit of research, it becomes obvious that a large portion of homosexual men have many sexual partners in a given year, many times meeting a partner just once.

Meanwhile, hookers around the world are starving.

If you want to see how many gay men are living promiscuously, please just get on craigslist chattanooga.

There's a source of accuracy.

 

[Ohio Vol]

I know with certainty that in my playing days, I lined up next to and showered alongside at least one gay teammate. I'm aware of the fact that I've coached multiple gay players. And I'm fortunate to have played under and coached alongside a lot of people who have had the mentality that if a kid can play the game at a high level, then he's going to play.

I can't believe people are still trying to say that people are "born that way." :lol:

I also grew up in a Catholic home with a brother who is gay. From the time that he was young, it was pretty clear that there was something a bit different about him. My older brother and I would be arguing and fighting about something, and my younger brother would tell us to shut up because he was playing with a toy pony he'd gotten from a neighbor girl.

I don't know if he was born that way or simply developed that way; frankly, I don't care. We're a tight-knit family. Even when all of us had passed age 18 and begun to scatter, my parents would still try to have a family dinner once a week if possible. I have a fair amount of gray hair now, and the family still gets together as often as possible. If anyone wants to say that we didn't or don't embrace "family values" because I have a brother with different preferences in the bedroom than the rest of us, then I believe it's safe to say that person is a dumbass, plain and simple.

 

[Ohio Vol]

Yep. And if you're a man who's making the "well, what if they eye me up in the locker room" argument I've been seeing around here, then welcome to the world of being a woman in male-dominated society! These men are scared of being objectified by another man, but how's that any different from what we constantly do to women? Basically, these men are simply afraid of being feminized and apparently aren't very comfortable with their sexuality or gender identity. Gives a whole new meaning to their lamentations of the social acceptance of gay males.

It reminds me of the paranoia of people during segregation. Defend a black friend, classmate, or teammate, and the racist would close with "You're just like them". One can only imagine what that actually meant.

 

[TrueOrange]

SI put up this article:

As Missouri supports Michael Sam, will rivals negatively recruit? - College Football - SI.com

The football team at the University of Missouri, the one that Michael Sam came out to last summer, expressed its support for its former star the day after Sam announced he was gay in a series of national interviews. Amid all the speculation about how Sam will be received in the NFL, it's important to remember that Mizzou not only embraced him, but also allowed him to make his announcement on his own terms.

Late on Monday afternoon, the school held a press conference in which six officials answered questions for 30 minutes. They became spokespeople, and those who stood in the middle of the scrum could hear the familiar phrases: "core values," "his choice" and "so proud."

Sam also received praise from the First Lady on Twitter, with Michelle Obama just one of the thousands who voiced their support. "You're an inspiration to all of us," she wrote. On Missouri's campus, where Sam was named the SEC Defensive Player of the Year and starred for a 12-2 team that went on to win the Cotton Bowl, the letters S-A were carved in the snow next to the iconic rock "M" in one end zone at Faurot Field.

The outpouring of support is what makes the following news so disheartening. Multiple SEC assistants say that Sam's coming out will be used by rival schools to negatively recruit against Missouri. "Coaches are going to be all over this," said one assistant at another school.

If that sounds like backward thinking, that's because it is. It also provides insight into the way football coaches operate. Some are tactful in how they approach things. Others, not so much.

"It's a powder keg just waiting to explode," the assistant said.

The assistant predicts that opposing coaches will pose a number of questions. "Why did [Missouri] cover this up?" the assistant said. "What else are they hiding? What were they trying to do? Keep a secret society?"
He added: "I can see it getting really ugly."

Another SEC assistant compared the prospect of coaches negatively recruiting against Missouri to when, according to the assistant, some tried to convince Virginia Tech commitments that the school was full of mass murderers in the aftermath of the campus massacre in 2007. The coach said he would never recruit with such tactics. But others?
Last season, in Missouri's locker room, Sam was not seen as a gay man. He was seen and treated like every other player. Knowledge about his sexual orientation trickled out over time, and when he made his official announcement, the vast majority of people already knew, according to someone within the football program who interacts with the players regularly. The announcement had little to no impact on how the team viewed Sam, the source said.

Sam's announcement came at one of coach Gary Pinkel's "Crossover Dinners" last August. The coaches open with their own introductions, give their names and hometowns and then talk about their wives and children. At this particular dinner, defensive line coach Craig Kuligowski did just that.

After the coaches finish, the players introduce themselves. Eventually, it was Sam's turn to speak. According to Kuligowski, he said, "My name is Michael Sam. I play defensive end. I'm gay." The introductions, Kuligowski said, moved on to the next person with hardly an eyebrow batted or raised.

Asked if the announcement was a distraction, Kuligowski laughed. "I got a lot of concerns," he said. "It was fine."

The source at Mizzou who interacts with the players regularly (he asked to remain anonymous) said that over the course of the season, he barely thought about Sam's sexual orientation. Because the team contained the news, there was no need to think or talk about it on a daily basis.
"He's very masculine, an over-the-top person," the source said of Sam. "If I could pick anyone to be in this situation, it would be Michael."

Pat Ivey, Missouri's assistant athletic director for athletic performance, said that the school attempted to foster an accepting environment before it knew that Sam is gay. Missouri held presentations about inclusiveness. Sam thanked Ivey after one, adding, "I know I can play," at the end.

Ivey said he knew other gay athletes at Missouri, and he knew former athletes who came out after they graduated. But he also noted that Sam's decision "wasn't 100 percent well received by all of our athletes." For some, conversations, meetings and explanations were required.
Sam was always singing, cheering and motivating his team. As a senior, he became the defense's most vocal leader, pulling teammates aside before games and at halftime. The locker room embraced Sam, and the person who works with the team said he never once heard a slur flippantly mentioned in his time with the team.

Even so, there were incidents. One, in particular, took place after training camp before the 2013 season. A freshman who had been redshirted used a derogatory term when addressing Sam. Sam, who stands at 6-foot-2 and 255 pounds, had to be restrained, and though the confrontation never became physical, it served as a reminder that not everyone was accepting.

Following Sam's national announcement on Sunday night, some intolerance surfaced, even though it has largely been pushed to the margins. Just take some of the callers on Randy Cross' radio show, for example. Cross, a three-time Pro Bowl offensive lineman and the co-host of The Morning Show in Atlanta, said that while some of his callers identified as Sam supporters, others did not. Some dropped Bible verses. Others labeled Sam's announcement as an "abomination."

Cross lauded Missouri for the way it respected Sam's privacy. In direct contrast to the assistants mentioned above, he saw Mizzou's support as a positive for recruiting. "But it's still a touchy subject for a lot of people," Cross noted. "[The team] would rather not discuss it."

On Sunday night and Monday morning, Sports Illustrated contacted 15 current and former Missouri football players, all of whom played with Sam at one point, and two former assistant coaches. Only two players, linebacker Donovan Bonner and quarterback James Franklin, would comment at any length. Players were encouraged not to address the media on the subject.

"It's his business," said Franklin. "It's none of my business."
Sam's story will soon turn to the NFL draft, something several league executives have already weighed in on. Yet former NFL tight end and Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe said on Monday that the most interesting aspect of Sam's story was its self-containment over the past six months. "For [Missouri] to know this in August, and no one caught it on the national level, for something of this magnitude to take five, six, seven months without hitting the national waves, that's a story in and of itself," he said.

Sharpe doesn't anticipate that Sam's sexual orientation will drastically affect his career -- if he can play, Sharpe said, that's all that matters -- but he said it could be an obstacle.

"I think we've progressed a long way with women's rights, civil rights, gay and lesbian rights," Sharpe said. "But we still have a long way to go. I don't want people to think that because we have a gay athlete with the potential to be drafted by the NFL, that everything is okay. That's not the case."

 

[Burhead]

SI put up this article:

As Missouri supports Michael Sam, will rivals negatively recruit? - College Football - SI.com

Low class and ugly.

 

[Doyle Hargraves]

I know with certainty that in my playing days, I lined up next to and showered alongside at least one gay teammate. I'm aware of the fact that I've coached multiple gay players. And I'm fortunate to have played under and coached alongside a lot of people who have had the mentality that if a kid can play the game at a high level, then he's going to play.



I also grew up in a Catholic home with a brother who is gay. From the time that he was young, it was pretty clear that there was something a bit different about him. My older brother and I would be arguing and fighting about something, and my younger brother would tell us to shut up because he was playing with a toy pony he'd gotten from a neighbor girl.

I don't know if he was born that way or simply developed that way; frankly, I don't care. We're a tight-knit family. Even when all of us had passed age 18 and begun to scatter, my parents would still try to have a family dinner once a week if possible. I have a fair amount of gray hair now, and the family still gets together as often as possible. If anyone wants to say that we didn't or don't embrace "family values" because I have a brother with different preferences in the bedroom than the rest of us, then I believe it's safe to say that person is a dumbass, plain and simple.

Great post.
Don't let these backwards folk try to tell you that your family was somehow screwed up and that's why your brother was "messed up".

 

[Doyle Hargraves]

It reminds me of the paranoia of people during segregation. Defend a black friend, classmate, or teammate, and the racist would close with "You're just like them". One can only imagine what that actually meant.

I can tell you what they meant.
They meant n----- lover. Just like they mean today if you defend someone's right to be gay, you are gay also.

 

[TrueOrange]

Low class and ugly.

At the same time, I (sadly) could see some coaches trying it so soon into this story.

The article makes some reference to coaches in 2007 using the VT massacre as a point to try to dissuade recruits from VT.

 

[Ohio Vol]

Great post.
Don't let these backwards folk try to tell you that your family was somehow screwed up and that's why your brother was "messed up".

I always enjoy seeing someone make an ass out of themselves. It's better to experience it in person.

I can tell you what they meant.
They meant n----- lover. Just like they mean today if you defend someone's right to be gay, you are gay also.

One of my favorite stories involves someone who's not really a friend, but not really an acquaintance either. He's brilliant in mathematics, and is socially inept (he's autistic). He actually dated a girl for six months before realizing that she was his girlfriend, and that was only because someone pointed it out to him and explained how and why they would be considered to be a couple. They ended up getting married, and she's pretty attractive.

Anyway, she got into an argument one time with someone who was aggressively hitting on her. She points to her husband and says something like, "Back off or he'll get involved." The other guy called her "retard lover" or something like that, and she fired back with "all I know is that he's getting laid by me tonight and you're not."

 

[tim]

Has what Sam's father has stated been discussed?

 

[snake_anthony]

Has what Sam's father has stated been discussed?

It DOESN'T MATTER what he said, if you can smeeelllaalalalalalalalala, what THE ROCK is cookin!!

 

[gcbvol]

Has what Sam's father has stated been discussed?

That article was heartbreaking. We proabably should be focusing on the fact that he survived childhood and has achieved the success he has to this point.

 

[bamawriter]

Has what Sam's father has stated been discussed?

Should we expect a man who heads to Applebee's to drink away his sorrow to be thoughtful and open-minded?

I'm pretty sure Sam, Sr. posts on here as snake_anthony

 

[snake_anthony]

Should we expect a man who heads to Applebee's to drink away his sorrow to be thoughtful and open-minded?

I'm pretty sure Sam, Sr. posts on here as snake_anthony

^Lol!

 

[Burhead]

Should we expect a man who heads to Applebee's to drink away his sorrow to be thoughtful and open-minded?

I'm pretty sure Sam, Sr. posts on here as snake_anthony

I did find the Applebee part pretty hilarious.

 

[TrueOrange]

article on Sam Sr:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/s...challenge-than-coming-out-as-gay.html?hp&_r=1

But to get a sense of the challenges awaiting Sam, look no further than his father.

Last Tuesday, Michael Sam Sr. was at a Denny’s near his home outside Dallas to celebrate his birthday when his son sent him a text message.

Dad, I’m gay, he wrote.

The party stopped cold. “I couldn’t eat no more, so I went to Applebee’s to have drinks,” Sam Sr. said. “I don’t want my grandkids raised in that kind of environment.

“I’m old school,” he added. “I’m a man-and-a-woman type of guy.” As evidence, he pointed out that he had taken an older son to Mexico to lose his virginity.

On Sunday night, just after Michael Sam announced his intention to make sports history, his father was still struggling with the news.

Sam Sr. loves his son, and he said he hoped his son made it to the N.F.L. “As a black man, we have so many hurdles to cross,” he said. “This is just one he has to cross.”

But he expressed discomfort at the very idea of a gay N.F.L. player, even if the player was his son. He grumbled that Deacon Jones, the Hall of Fame defensive end renowned for his toughness, “is turning over in his grave.”

Michael Sam had anticipated his family’s uneasiness. In an interview Sunday in North Hollywood, Calif., he spoke about his tough upbringing, which he said was more challenging than the decision to come out publicly.

“I’m closer to my friends than I am to my family,” Sam said.

He declined to speak beyond the initial interview Sunday.

The article doesn't bring him up again after that.


tough life though

(from right before in the article)

But Sam has never had it easy. He grew up about 40 miles southeast of Houston near Galveston Bay in Texas, the seventh of eight children. Three of his siblings have died and two brothers are in prison. He lived briefly in the back seat of his mother’s car, and his relationship with his family remains complicated: When he visits home, he usually stays with friends.

 

[TrueOrange]

Article's part on his family:

As a boy growing up in Hitchcock, Michael Sam may not yet have known exactly who he was, but he did know what he needed. He needed to play sports. He needed to be part of a team.


Life had hardly been kind to him or his family. Michael Sr. and his mother, JoAnn Sam, were separated after having eight children. He went to North Texas to work as a trucker. She tried to keep what was left of her family together.

A sister drowned when she was 2, before Michael was born, when another child accidentally knocked her off a fishing pier. Another brother, Russell, was 15 when he was shot and killed trying to break into a home, in what his father said was part of a gang initiation. Another brother, Julian, has not been heard from since he left for work one day in 1998; his family believes he is dead. Two others are in jail.

“It was very hard growing up in that environment,” Sam said. “My family was very notorious in the town that we lived in. Everyone would say, ‘There goes those damn Sams.’ I didn’t want to paint that ill picture of me. I knew the good in my family. They didn’t know our background and the adversity we had to endure. I wanted to succeed and be a beacon of hope in my family.”

If trouble runs deep in the Sam family, so does religion. And it, too, was a source of conflict. JoAnn is a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who do not celebrate holidays or believe in most birth control and generally shun participation in organized sports. Michael Sr. comes from a large Baptist family, and his father was a long-serving deacon at a church in nearby Texas City, Tex.

But it was Sam’s desire to play football that caused a rift with his mother — she believed that sports distracted from the mission of service. Sam simply saw football as salvation.

“There were confrontations,” Michael said. “I love my mother dearly. But I needed sports. I needed sports to make sure I can’t get in trouble, to make sure I didn’t do anything bad.”

Efforts to reach JoAnn Sam through her son, friends and at listed phone numbers and addresses failed.

Nobody in Sam’s family had attended college, and Sam did not believe he would be the first. But as he coped with a disjointed family and wrestled with his sexuality, one certainty emerged in his life: He needed to get out of Hitchcock. He knew his best chance was through football.

A Second Home

Hitchcock High School sits on a long, quiet road, between a general store and the First Baptist Church. Freight trains rumble nearby. On fall nights, many of the town’s 7,000 residents gather at the stadium to watch their Bulldogs play.

It was there that Sam developed a controlled fury that helped him sack quarterbacks and collar running backs. It was there that he found an extended family that includes a prominent banker, an old football coach and a 3-year-old goddaughter named Peighton, who sees him adoringly as a giant.

Sam began his football career as a water boy. In junior high school, Craig Smith, the football coach, saw that Sam was athletically blessed and, even better, hungry for guidance and camaraderie. The coaches drafted him to carry equipment and hang around the squad.

At the start of high school, Smith put him in the starting lineup on the varsity team. Sam was already so much bigger than his teammates that he stood in the back row of the team’s yearbook photograph.

Sam was a natural peacemaker, but he was not afraid to use his size when needed. When he saw Robert Dohman, a friend since elementary school, with a busted lip outside a local mall, he waded into a crowd of two dozen and lifted the offender into the air.

“What do you know about jumping the white boy in the parking lot?” Sam shouted, according to Dohman.

The crowd scattered.

“He was trying to protect me,” Dohman said.

By his sophomore year, Sam played on the offensive and defensive lines. How good was he? Coach Smith did not know: Hitchcock, with only 300 students, was hardly a football powerhouse.

But Smith had a hint of his potential in Sam’s senior year when the Bulldogs played Chavez High School, a much bigger school in Houston. It was the team’s first game after Hurricane Ike devastated the region and closed the school for several weeks.

Chavez’s star was an all-American defensive tackle named Michael Brockers, who was bound for Louisiana State University. In 2012, the St. Louis Rams drafted him in the first round. Sam more than kept up with Brockers.

“We knew right then and there that Michael could really play with anybody,” Smith said.

Sam found a comfortable place off the field as well, in large part because of Ethan Purl, a classmate and the son of Ron Purl, the president of the local branch of Prosperity Bank.

Ron’s wife, Candy, made sure their house was part recreation center and part counseling hub for their children and their friends. By Sam’s senior year, he had his own bedroom in the Purls’ house, along with chores like cleaning the pool and carrying the grocery bags.

“I look at our house as a kind of safe haven,” said Ron Purl, who keeps a photograph of Sam in his Missouri football uniform in his office. “He is just another son. If he did something wrong, he got yelled at just like the others did.”

It was the Purls who drove Sam from Texas to middle Missouri. It seemed like an improbable trip at the time.

“I didn’t even dream of going to college,” Sam said. “College was not in my definition. If somebody told me I was going to play for the Missouri Tigers in 2009, I would laugh at them.”

Casual Disclosures

Sam may have been big for Hitchcock, but he was small on Missouri’s defensive line. The coaches did not know what to make of their undersize freshman.

“He was a two-star recruit,” said Pat Ivey, an associate athletic director who oversees the strength department. “I didn’t really see him being an all-American.”

At first, Sam’s teammates intimidated him. His affinity for Harry Potter books made him stand out. He was noisy and could not sit still. But he won the group over with improvised songs that ribbed teammates or described their grueling practices.

“He’s got a motor that never stops,” defensive lineman Derrion Thomas said. “He is a big personality, and when he started with the songs, you just knew that mind never stopped.”

The same went for his mouth.

“He drove me crazy,” Coach Gary Pinkel said. “He never shut up. I knew when he was in my office talking to the secretary. I’d get up and shut the door.”

Before his senior year, Sam had begun telling those closest to him who he really was. He skipped the dramatic pronouncements in favor of casual disclosures. In a phone call to a high school friend, Tyler Sander, Sam confided that he was having romantic troubles. If Sander had been around more during the Christmas break, Sam said, “You would have met him.”

“There was a pause and I was like, ‘Him?’ ” Sander said.

“He was like, ‘Yeah, I’m gay.’ ”

Sander and Sam had a long conversation that night that made them even closer. “Now there’s nothing to hide,” Sander said. “We can literally talk to each other about anything.”

Two years ago during Christmas break, Sam brought home a friend from the swimming team, a man. His second family, the Purls, did not ask any questions. When Sam called Ron Purl later to say that he was gay, Purl assured him that he was perfectly fine with it — and already knew.

His teammates had similar reactions.

“I practiced across from him three years, and it was just war,” said Elvis Fisher, an offensive lineman and captain of the 2012 Missouri team. “You don’t set out wanting to know each other’s life, but you spend so much time with each other you can’t help but know them. I knew, and I love the guy.”

A Singular Season

By last August, Sam’s sexuality was an open secret here. He had told a professor he was gay and had become a genial presence at the SoCo Club in Columbia, a nightclub and cabaret that hosts regular drag shows, among other events.

Marty Newman, SoCo’s owner and general manager, said Sam was open about who he was: a gay man and a football star. He was happy to talk sports with the bartenders and anyone else.

“No one felt the need to out him,” Newman said. “He was respected here and was allowed to be himself.”

In Sam’s senior season, Missouri finished 12-2 and won the Cotton Bowl. He made first-team all-American and was voted by his teammates as Missouri’s most valuable player.

On Monday, Pinkel tried to put in words a singular season that began with his noisiest player’s startling announcement, and ended with dozens of men standing by their teammate in the national spotlight.

“Pretty cool,” was the best he could do.

On Saturday night, over Chinese food at the home of his publicist, Howard Bragman, Sam was joined by an exclusive group: the fraternity of publicly gay athletes and their peers who have made a cause of supporting them.

Dave Kopay and Wade Davis, who came out as gay after retiring from professional football, and Bill Bean, who did so after retiring from professional baseball, were there, along with Brendon Ayanbadejo and Chris Kluwe, two former N.F.L. players who have been outspoken in their support of gay rights.

It was a chance to celebrate Sam on his last night of relative anonymity, but it was also a way to tell him about the world he was diving into.

Kopay, a 71-year-old former running back, playfully punched Sam a couple of times to emphasize just how intensely he would have to work. He also reminded Sam that if they had been freshmen together in 1960, Sam, as a black man, would not have been entirely welcome. (Norris Stevenson broke the color barrier for Missouri in 1957.)

“Well, you’re just taking another step forward now,” Kopay said.

Kluwe told him he would not have many problems with players. “They’re there to play football,” he said.


The men in charge will pose problems, Kluwe said. “It’s the general managers and coaches who are going to say it’s a distraction.”

Then there’s the public at large, the millions of sports fans who will soon see a publicly gay player standing tall on an N.F.L. team’s defensive line. It is too early to know how they will react, but perhaps the evolution in Sam’s own family offers a clue.

“I believe in a person’s destiny,” his aunt Geraldine Sam said. “If that’s the way he is, I’m not trying to put my religious beliefs on anyone. I respect people for who they are, not who we want them to be.”

 

[TrueOrange]

I'm surprised no one had commented on the

“I’m old school,” he added. “I’m a man-and-a-woman type of guy.” As evidence, he pointed out that he had taken an older son to Mexico to lose his virginity.

 

[snake_anthony]

I did find the Applebee part pretty hilarious.

^ LOL. Y'ALL are hilarious tonight!

 

[rocky top buzz]

Has what Sam's father has stated been discussed?

What a mess this thread is.

Ok let me start by saying I had a colleague once who was gay. She asked me my feelings on it, and I said it like this - If we had to pick side of the street to picket our views, she and I would be on opposite sides of the street. But I would rather not picket, I would rather just be friends and agree to disagree.

My opinion - You cannot tell me being gay is ok because it is clearly unnatural. You cannot convince me that men were designed to be in bed with other men and women with other women. No one ever wants to talk about this.

That said, if someone wants to exercise their right to be gay I am ok with that but don't expect me to support or expand that lifestyle anymore than I would support or expand prostitution or drug use.

As a Christian - There is no debate that the bible calls sexual immorality a sin. The problem is too often we want to stop at homosexuality and ignore the sins or pornography, adultery, sex outside of marriage, etc.. Many of you talk about how we don't criticize men for their relationships with women? Well, I DO! Guys like Steve McNair and Tiger Woods would openly cheat on their spouses? That is wrong and I tell my kids that is wrong. People say you have to sleep with someone before you marry them because you wouldn't buy a car without test driving it? Ridiculous. The equivalent would be saying you wouldn't buy a car without first driving it across the country because if you think marriage is just about the 10 minute "test drive" in the sack you will have a short marriage; too many people do.

People say "well Jesus was tougher on the religious people than the sinners." That's because the "religious people" were not religious at all. The were taking advantage of people and cheating on their wives but felt blameless because they were men of God, they waned to impose the law on others while finding avoiding it themselves. The religious people, the pharisees, were not religous and that was Jesus point!

So to wrap it up, as a Christian no I cannot support the idea that homosexuality is ok and I'm not saying people "choose" to be gay anymore than people "choose" to be attracted to little children. Both are welcome in my church and both are loved by my savior. We all have our own demons. But to have a problem with what someone does, does not mean you have to have a problem with that person. It doesn't mean that you cannot support them or care about their well-being. But I don't understand why we celebrate this lifestyle.