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The top two stories listed on ESPN.com today were . . .
Union prez: Sam will ‘positively’ impact NFL
Pinkel: Mizzou openly accepted Sam | Maisel
Get used to it.
This story is going to dominate the sports media for the unforeseeable future.
It’s going to be a feeding frenzy.
Let me make this perfectly clear, I have no issue with Missouri OLB/ DE Michael Sam, who came out yesterday.
And I think his announcement took a lot of guts.
But I do have a problem when the media obsesses on an issue.
Get used to it. This story is going to be covered to the nth degree between now and the draft and beyond.
And here is the bigger issue.
I think Sam will handle himself fine.
But now you are going to have reporters bombard players and coaches with questions about this topic, hoping a player or coach says something controversial, and then they have a big story that will sell papers or drive traffic to their website.
Honestly, I’m surprised these comments from DeMario Davis to the Daily News last spring didn’t cause more of a stir. Maybe because he wasn’t a starter yet, it wasn’t viewed as a big deal. Or maybe it just fell through the cracks.
“According to the scriptures, and God’s law, homosexuality is wrong. The act is wrong,” Davis said.
“I’ve got homosexuals in my family who I love to death. I’ve got drunks in my family. I’ve got people who have premarital sex in my family. And I don’t agree with any of those things, but I still love and respect those people.
“If you have a problem with someone being against homosexuality your problem isn’t with me, your problem is against God.”
Davis feels ESPN NBA analyst Chris Brossard took too much criticism when he had made some statements against the gays last year, following Jason Collins coming out.
“What really made me upset was when people began to attack Chris Broussard,” Davis said. “It’s important for me to do interviews of this nature, to talk about faith and political views and religious views because, it’s very important that the entire scope of the thinking is understood, versus just one set of views on a particular act.”
But it’s only fair to point out the rest of Davis’ comments to the Daily News.
“If someone was to come out on our team, we’re a team that’s about winning,” Davis said. “When it comes to the (Jets), I put my personal beliefs separate from the team.
“I want people to understand how DeMario Davis feels versus how the Jets feel. How we feel as an entire organization? We’re about winning. It’s a business of winning,” the presumed starter at inside linebacker added. “Anybody that can help our team, we’re more than happy to have them. It’s that same open-arms approach: we respect all in our locker room. We love all in our locker room.”
Honestly, I think the way the media handles this issues, actually hurts the case of the gay athlete.
Why?
Because they make the issue into a distraction with the players and coaches because of their disproportionate attention paid to it, much like when Tim Tebow is on the Jets, and it becomes a sideshow teams don’t want to deal with.
And because teams don’t like distractions, they might avoid Sam, even if they like him as a player.
The Jets could use an edge pass rusher like Sam.
But they might not want the distraction.
Not so much that Sam would cause.
But the media.
February 10, 2014
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