From CBS Sports:
Ready yourself, America, for Michael Sam; because he's ready for you. by Gregg Doyel
This is your dream, America. Or this is your nightmare. Whatever the case, buckle up. Because Michael Sam just got here.
His first few days with St. Louis Rams have been fascinating and thought-provoking and criticism-generating, and the odds are it's going to keep happening. Because in Michael Sam, the NFL doesn't just have its first openly gay player. Its first openly gay player is openly gay.
Not trying to play word games here, but Michael Sam hasn't played an NFL game or attended an NFL practice -- hell, he was drafted just three days ago -- and already he has shown himself to be something much more confrontational, more formidable, for lack of a better word, than Jason Collins. A few months ago Collins became the first openly gay athlete in major U.S. team sports. He's openly gay, but hasn't been openly gay, and his tenure with the Nets has been quiet. If he's kissed anyone, we've not seen it. If he feels like his career path has been slowed, we've not heard it.
We've seen Michael Sam. We've heard him.
We saw him kiss his boyfriend to celebrate being drafted by the Rams. Lots of America loved that. Lots of America recoiled. Had the draftee been AJ McCarron and the kissee been Katherine Webb, lots of America would have shrugged.
But this is different, obviously, and America reacted differently. Don Jones of the Miami Dolphins got himself suspended. Marshall Henderson, formerly of Ole Miss, got himself castigated. Elsewhere, lots of America celebrated. Lots recoiled. All this, because of something Michael Sam did after being a member of the St. Louis Rams for all of 75 seconds.
Gay rights advocates were thrilled the Rams drafted Sam in the seventh round, maybe moreso than Sam, because after he had a few minutes to think about it ... wait a minute, Michael Sam wanted to know. Why did it take so long to get drafted?
Sam never came out and said his sexuality caused him to drop to the end of the seventh round, but he did tick off some of his accomplishments at Missouri and used them to say he should have been drafted much, much earlier.
Read the rest, including responses to his drafting, here.
And the video of the kiss (@ 1:20):