First Openly Gay Athlete in Football: The "Sam" Effect

By Peter Lannon on February 11, 2014

When Mizzou linebacker Michael Sam opened up to the world that he was gay he turned sports as we know them upside down. Assuming he gets drafted and makes a team this spring he will be the first openly gay athlete to play in the country’s most popular sport. So far Sam’s decision has been met with mostly positive and supportive actions.

The University of Missouri has been very supportive of him, some fans even took the time to etch out “Sam” in snow at the football stadium. Only future time will tell if this posivity continues for the courageuos Sam.

My question stands: is The University of Dayton, or any proud Catholic school for that matter, ready for one of it’s athletes to publicly come out as gay?  The Catholic Church is notoriously closed minded when it comes to people being gay, they believe it is against what the bible teaches.  Definitely makes you think.

I asked fellow University of Dayton student Paul Schulz what his thoughts would be if one of our athletes came out as gay.

“I would be fine with it,” Schulz said. “I would be a little skeptical at first but then I would realize it’s not really a big deal and it wouldn’t change my outlook of the university or the team.”

Personally, I would be fine with it. I think it would take a lot of courage and bravery. I would commend that person for coming out and would back them up and still root for my team. Essentially it wouldn’t change a thing, but that’s just my opinion, I’m one kid who’s singular opinion carries no weight. I’m not in the locker room with the players, therefore I don’t know how it would affect the team and team chemistry. To answer that question I asked sophomore football player Chris Hagan what he thinks the team’s response would be if one of their players publicly came out as gay.

“I think our locker room would be very supportive” Hagan said. “Our team is so tight and close-knit that we wouldn’t alienate anybody if they came out, we’d accept them for who they were. On the field that would be a different story. The other team is going to do anything they can to get an edge and calling a gay person names would definitely be one of those tactics, so that would be hard for the player to deal with.”

Hagan brought up a very insightful point that I think a lot of people are overlooking. Sam has yet to play a game since announcing his sexuality to the public, so right not it’s all love and support, but what happens when he plays his first NFL game? The NFL is a dog-eat-dog world and I don’t think players would hold back from usuing gay slurs towards Sam, it’s something he is going to have to learn to deal with.

USA today bought up a good point when they acknowledged that Sam might have to deal with some abuse from his future team mates. They noted that it is NFL custom to haze rookies and give them the “business”, but sometimes it can be taken a bit too far, USA today cited the Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin incident as evidence. USA Today said at somepoint it’s bound to happen that one of Sam’s teammates will inevitably make a joke about his sexual orientation and that its up to Sam to chose how he responds. The way Sam responds will weigh majorly on other closet athletes who have thought about coming out, in a way Sam is testing the waters for them

Sam is in uncharted territory right now and who knows what will come with the future, hopefully he opened the door for other closet athletes to follow suit, but only time will tell what will come of Michael Sam and the effect he has on sports.

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