Michael Sam on The Herd with Colin Cowherd
Nov 20, 2015 -Youtube
I don’t know whether this is a story about a man with a severe case of the “poor me’s” or if there is a validity to the claim that the LGBTQ community is a fickle one that will move on to the next rallying point very quickly, abandoning those they once celebrated.
In any event, a few years ago, NFL player Michael Sam became the darling of the LGBTQ community after coming out and kissing his male partner during the 2014 televised football draft pics.
That kiss and admission of homosexuality made Sam a new icon of inspiration in the global gay community. He became a media star overnight, doing primetime press, interviews, and countless magazine features. However, he was also equally scorned by those in our society who are against homosexuality – and especially if it infiltrates one of America’s most “manly” games, football.
After the media blitz that followed Sam’s big gay NFL kiss with his partner, he went on to have a moderate career with the Saint Louis Rams, but then he was traded to the Dallas Cowboys where he ultimately was released without ever playing one game. There is not much information available as to why the Cowboys sidelined him, but that’s when the hard partying and cocaine addiction took front and center in Sam’s life as he explained in an emotional interview with Yahoo News.
Sam’s NFL career unexpectedly came to a screeching halt after the Cowboy’s release, and it seems he was ill-prepared for existing in the “real world” as a former NFL player who never reached the expected level of success. Then add to it the celebrity component; he went from being the famed “poster boy” as the first openly gay player in the NFL, to a life that had spiraled out of control. That demise he claims was further facilitated by a lack of help or support from the same LGBTQ community that once propped him up as a hero.
According to Sam, LGBTQ support all but vanished. He claims to have placed calls to everyone he knew for career help or support, but “no one would give me a job,” he said.
In his further assessment on the matter, Sam emotionally posed a question regarding the alleged LGBTQ abandonment, “Where was the support that I got for coming out? I felt like I was used by everyone.”
I don’t understand what Sam means by this sentiment though. Was he expecting to be “taken care of” by the world indefinitely just because he came out? That’s either naiive or the haze of a drug-fueled existence, or both. Life doesn’t work that way for any of us.
I’m happy to report that Michael Sam today is working on his road to recovery. He is living in a treatment center in Peru and focusing on healing with his family. That said, at the end of the day, none of that will matter if Sam doesn’t come to terms with the fact that life is about choices, and to truly heal we must first own up to the ones we’ve made; good, bad or otherwise, without shifting the blame elsewhere.
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This piece is an opinion piece by one Contributing Writer for Instinct Magazine and may not reflect the opinion of the magazine or other Contributing Writers.
Gay or straight, he just wasn’t a major league caliber football player, period. He’s right, he shouldn’t have come out first before joining the NFL.
Pre-ligious Right come to gay websites to Jack-off with their Left Hands. Self hating Daddy got my A*s when I was Little B.S.
I often wondered why it didn’t work out in the majors for him. Now I know. Drugs and alcohol. They destroy lives, gay and straight alike. I hope things turn out better for him. He did make a difference at the time. when he reaches the point of owning his behavior, then he’ll be able to see that the one abandoned him. He abandoned himself. It’s tough to play under that kind of pressure. It’s broken many men. The NFL is known for using men up and spitting them out. The owners get really rich. The players often black and uneducated end up with broken bodies and in poverty. Only a few players make millions. 12 steps, Sam, 12 steps.
I am not sure what the LGBTQ community was supposed to do? Make up his salary loss?
I just wanted ask Tony where this “Lake of fire” is, I need to work on my tan anyhow and I figured it would make for a fabuloussssss backdrop for a party.
Living in Peru? I just ran into him at a bar in Dallas singing karaoke ?
A bar? Oh well I guess it’s safe to assume he’s relapsed.
No one offered him a job?? He was recruited by the CFL’s Montreal Alouettes to a ton of fanfare north of the border, and then promptly declined the offer and fucked off. No sympathy here. This guy got drunk off his own pseudo-celebrity and screwed up his chances of being a real professional athlete, just not an NFL one.
Sam was not that good as a football player and to put on that side show on draft day did not help his cause. He is a Sodomite a freaking scumbag an abomination in the nostrils of God and Man who if he does not repent has a place in the lake of fire
Lol, that’s some funny shit. Have another shot, and go to bed.
I will never be able to understand why homophobic nutjobs spend time on a gay website.
Oh, I think you can figure it out, Wayne 🙂
Dude, if you’re a cocaine addict and in need of rehab … just throwing this out there … that’s probably why gays and non-gays weren’t offing to much job help.
You are no where near the first person who was “famous” and “forgotten,” esp since your story wasn’t exactly trending up.