By now, even if you aren’t a sports fan, you’ve probably heard that Missouri’s All-American defensive end Michael Sam, a candidate for this year’s NFL draft, has announced that he is gay. A gutsy move for a young man with professional football aspirations. It’s a sport that takes great pride in its toughness, its manliness. Negative comments have already come from various NFL personnel. It will hurt his draft chances, they say. He’d be a “distraction” in the locker room, they say; he’d make people “uncomfortable.”
Well, “they” may be proven wrong. In Sam’s home state of Texas, a bastion of conservatism like no other, Dallas sportscaster Dale Hansen spoke up powerfully and unforgettably in Sam’s defense. If that can happen, anything is possible.
