On Saturday, the St. Louis Rams selected University of Missouri Defensive End Michael Sam in the 7th and final round of the 2014 NFL draft.
Sam, of course, is hardly the first gay man to be drafted by or play for an NFL team. However, he is the first to be out at any point in his career, much less at the outset.
How many gay professional male athletes have their been in this country historically? It is of course impossible to know. “Hundreds” would be far too low a guess. If something like the frequently accepted 10% figure of the total population is accepted, then it would have to be in the thousands. Indeed, many thousands over the last 130 or so years
However, American professional sports has long been a font of dumb machismo, and homophobia has been part and parcel of that.
During the 20th century, that meant U.S. professional sports were simply an amped up version of the rabid homophobia that plagued American society at large. And so gay professional athletes were closeted because almost every gay man in America was closeted.
But the LGBT civil rights movement has made tremendous strides since the late 20th century. The last two decades in particular have seen levels of public acceptance that would have been unthinkable when I was child in the 1970s, when verbal and even physical hostility towards LGBT people were commonplace and rarely questioned, when most LGBT people were not out, and when the nation’s first open communities were only just emerging in large cities.
But we’ve come along way since the first Pride Parades shocked the nation in 1970. And so whereas the homophobia of professional sports culture was once in line with the larger American culture, it has since been left behind.
The homophobia so rampant in modern professional sports culture is now closer to the hatred and small mindedness associated with xenophobic provincialism or religious fundamentalism than it is with modern mainstream American culture.
Anyone with half a brain and a modicum of honesty can see where the issue of LGBT rights is headed, and it’s not back to the Dark Ages of violent gay bashing and government repression. Sadly, both are still with us, but though greatly diminished from half a century ago, and the remaining vestiges are being challenged and torn down a steady pace.
This puts U.S. professional sports leagues in an uncomfortable position. Long unwilling to root out homophobia from its dumb macho subculture, they also do not want to alienate consumers and advertisers by allowing it to appear in public.
The result has been a cl
oseted culture that is staggering. Think about it: How many multi-billion dollar conglomerates (the 32 NFL teams are worth on average over a billion dollars each) can you think of where the main labor force has never, ever had one openly gay worker?
And I mean not a motherfuckin’ one.
Every year, NFL teams maintain nearly 1,700 roster spots, with about 2,000 individual men floating through those spots. From stragglers to stars, the average NFL career is only about 3 years, which means that just since the 21st century, nearly 15,000 men have played professional football.
But not one of them has ever been out of the closet. Until now.
How the NFL will deal with this remains to be seen. There has already been speculation that Sam was one of the very last players selected, despite his stellar college career, because he is gay. That’s not entirely fair.
In February, Sam graded very poorly at the NFL’s annual talent evaluation fair, called The Combine. He looked slow and stiff. And truthfully, it’s not unusual for successful college players to be scoffed at by the NFL; the level of competition is so much higher at the professional level that collegiate success does not automatically translate.
However, it’s probably also näive to think that teams weren’t reticent to “upset” their locker room culture by bringing in a marginal player. If Sam had 1st round talent, no doubt he would have been drafted much higher. But most teams probably don’t want to rock their boats for the sake of an underwhelming prospect. To understand why, look no further than the case of Miami Dolphins Safety Don Jones.
Jones tweeted that the image Sam kissing his boyfriend on TV was “horrible.”
The NFL and the Dolphins reacted swiftly. For while player and coaching culture may be a backwater of retrograde homophobia, the corporate overlords, mindful of their profits, can see which way society’s winds are blowing on this one.
Jones has already been fined, suspended, ordered into educational training, and forced to issue the rote apology that one expects, and which was probably penned for him by a professional PR firm.
But remember, professional athletes, including bench warmers like Don Jones, are frequently prepped and coached about handling themselves in the media. It’s been drilled into them over and over again: Just recite platitudes when someone sticks a mic in your face; never say anything controversial on TV or in social media.
In other words, if player homophobia has already creeped out into public, you can only imagine what players are saying in the locker rooms. And what the Rams organization is going to have to do to whip is own locker room into shape.
As a 7th round pick, Michael Sam may or may catch on with St. Louis or some other team. Overall, his chances of making it in the NFL are iffy.
But either way, this is the beginning. Whether or not Michael Sam can build an NFL career, there’s no turning back.
Some worry that if Sam fails on the field, other gay players will be reticent to come out. I don’t agree. Now that Sam is out and drafted, I think the mainstream culture will rightly start to wonder where all the other gay athletes are.
Michael Sam may be the first football player to come out. But now we’re looking forward to the day when the last one no longer feels the need to remain in the closet.