The majority of the time, I know what the blog is
going to be about. And there are those times, when there are so many topics
that I want to tackle, that I struggle to make the choice of what I chose. And
then there are times like these, where I feel like I know what I’m going to
talk about, but where is it going to take me is what I don’t know.
Last week at this time, I was rooting for Michael
Sam to be drafted. Not just because he’d be the first openly gay player drafted
into the NFL, but because the kid does possesses the talent to play in the
league. He’s not going to be a starter at the point, but he’ll make a great
special teams player, and he should do well it plays against teams in pass
mode. He’s lacking that burst of speed that the starting pass rushes in the NFL
usually have. It took up to the final round of the final day before he was
selected. He celebrated with his boyfriend, a former swimmer, and planted on
him a celebratory kiss, just as many other players had done with their
girlfriends and mothers. While ESPN pretty shrugged it off, and didn’t make a
big deal about it, other did. On Fox and Friends, they assumed that ESPN had “motives”
for broadcasting the kiss. Miami Dolphins’ player Don Jones, an average player
known for sitting on the bench more than his play in the field, tweeted his
disgust. He was suspended by the Dolphins, a team still in recovery mode over “Haze-Gate”.
Then there was Marshall Henderson’s ill-conceived attempt to give the world a psychology
lesson. He has since tweeted that his comments were to just get a reaction from
the public, but all and all, his experiment could have been done a lot better.
Needless to say, his timing was horrible.
I’m happy that Michael Sam was drafted, and I wish
it had been by Tampa Bay. I’m annoyed at the amount of negative reaction he got
for a simple kiss. I saw nothing wrong with what happened. But then again, my
life isn’t dictated by an old book of fairy tales either. And if you ask people
why they are against same sex relationships, they will point to that big book
of myth, commonly called the bible. Ask them to state another reason they won’t
be able to find a valid one.
And then I began to think about a former NFL player,
Jerry Smith. Smith was a star tight end for the Washington Redskins in the 1960’s
and 70’s. If he played today, he’d be in the mold of an Eric Decker type. Smith
was a star player who set many records, and by the time he retired, he held
just about every receiving record for the position. Smith was a handsome man
who attracted the attention of the ladies. However, many of the players,
including their wives, began to suspect Smith was gay when he spurred all of
their advances. No one of the team spoke a word. Perhaps Smith confided in
former teammate Dave Kopay, who acknowledged he was gay well after his career
was over. The public wouldn’t know about Smith’s sexuality until nearly a
decade after he retired. Sadly, Jerry Smith became the first athlete to
contract the disease known as AIDS. Smith’s jersey number 87 and the Redskins
logo appeared on the AIDS quilt.
Smith had faded into history until the NFL Network
presented a special on him under their “A Football Life” banner. Former
teammates Calvin Hill and Brig Owens were interviewed on set, and viewers
tweeted in questions. Owens, in no uncertain terms, said it was his belief that
if Smith was a heterosexual man, that he’d be in the hall of fame by now. Owens
stated he felt Smith’s sexuality was the sole reason that Smith was never going
to be enshrined in the hall of fame.
Flash forward several years and now we have Michael
Sam. We don’t know how Sam’s career is going to turn out. He could play one or two years, he could play
eight or nine. And then there is the slight chance he could play zero games. If
he gets released before the regular season starts, you will have voices that
say “it’s because he’s gay” that was the reason he was released. He could very
well get released by the Rams, and snatched up by another team that feels he’s
a get fit for their defensive scheme.
For right now, that’s neither here nor there. We are living through
history. Michael Sam will forever be linked to being the first openly gay man
playing an American sport. And so far, we’ve had two college athletes come out
and admit their homosexuality and bisexuality respectively. There could be more
down the line.
Maybe that could be a victory. None of us really
knows how this is going to turn out, and that is partly what is so interesting
about this. We’re on a train ride my friends, much like they were 60 plus years
ago with Jackie Robinson ending the 50 year color barrio in major league
baseball. And who knows, maybe the argument to electing Jerry Smith to his rightful
place in the pro football hall of fame will follow. Sexuality of an athlete won’t
matter, just like their skin color doesn’t matter anymore. And the naysayers of
today will just as foolish as those generations before.
I’ll be rooting for a long career for Michael Sam.
And I’ll be rooting for the culture change that is currently taking place to
take shape.
