Yesterday was sort of a shitty day for sports. My Wisconsin Badgers found a way to choke at the last minute to an SEC team (an art that Ohio State perfected years ago), Oklahoma State students demonstrated just how backwards their state can be to racial issues with tasteless jokes mocking the Trail of Tears, and the NFL announced their final cuts for the season (a day that is hard for any athlete regardless of sport). As a former college athlete myself I can say that there’s nothing good about cut day, whether you end up on the winning or losing end. The player that everyone has had their eyes on regardless of whether they support him or not has been former SEC Defensive Player of the Year, Michael Sam, who had been drafted by the St. Louis Rams. If he made the final roster Sam would have been the first openly gay player in the history of the NFL. Sadly when it came down to the wire, Sam did not survive the final cut. Speaking as someone who has had a number of gay teammates, and as someone who was an ally for LBGT athletes during my own college career I am disappointed by this news, but I am not outraged either. 

From the time that he was drafted Sam was already a bit of a longshot to make the Rams roster. The Rams have one of the toughest defensive lines in the league. There are back-ups in St. Louis that could be starters for less powerful franchises. Michael Sam was just another one of these guys that was fighting with larger, more seasoned veterans for a roster spot, a fight that everyone knew was gonna be competitive from the start. Many people would look at this scenario and back down without a fight. That wasn’t the route that Sam took. While the media buzz surrounded the Rams training camp and tried to pick at every pedantic detail regarding his relationship with the team, Sam kept his head down and put in work even as the world seemed to rage around him like some sort of firestorm. he certainly didn’t ignore the media and took recognition when it was offered up, but never sought openly to make a spectacle of himself. Jeff Fisher, the Rams coach, is noted for his stoic professionalism, and has won respect over his long career for such a quality, a quality that he expects his players to adhere to in St. Louis, a quality that Michael Sam embodied throughout his time with the Rams. You could call this courage, an ideal that Hemingway described as ‘grace under pressure.’

Throughout training camp and the pre-season Michael Sam demonstrated true grace under pressure. He worked hard, made plays, and even led the Rams in tackles for the pre-season, all while giving little regard to the hailstorm of criticism that the media and his homophobic detractors made about him. Making the roster wouldn’t be easy. He would have to compete with a strong set of veterans that also showed their worth during games. In the end, although Sam played well he did not survive the final cut.

His cut was lamented by those that supported him, and praised with sickening enthusiasm by his detractors, most of who have probably never played a sport at Sam’s level. I don’t fault the Rams for Sam’s cut. They are just trying to do what they believe is best for their team, should choose their players based on their ability, something that can be a tough call.

In my experiences as an athlete I’ve met plenty of guys that were dominant in sports in high school only being not able to hack it as a college athlete, and I’ve known guys that were good college athletes who weren’t able to make it a pros. Shit, most of Sam’s detractors probably brag about how they dominate their bar league softball games or about how they totally owned their collegiate intramural league, as if that’s something to gloat about. A man who takes on a greater challenge will always be higher than one who chooses to take a lower road. Michael Sam has taken the higher road, regardless of the risk of loss or adversity (cue Coach Werner voice), and he carried himself with true grace under pressure. For that I will always respect him. 

One other thing I’d like to address is the annoying little talking point that Sam’s homophobic detractors love to spout off. “Why does the media praise Michael Sam for being openly gay, while Tim Tebow faced hostility for his open Christian beliefs?” First things first, in recent years the Christian Right in the U.S. has found themselves on the losing end of the debate on many issues including gay rights, women’s rights, and contraception. Being in this position many of them have adopted this idea that conservative Christians have become a persecuted minority in America, a belief so utterly ludicrous that it makes the writer question their grasp on reality. Christians make up nearly 85% of the U.S. population, and most public officials, and athletes identify as Christians. Many of the pro athletes that I follow on Twitter acknowledge their Christian faith on their profiles, an act that really doesn’t matter to me as it’s their choice. What causes Tim Tebow though to get a particular bad rap is not his Christian faith, but rather the way that since gaining a following in the NFL he has used his faith to almost become a 'messiah’ in his own mind. That’s the part of the story that has turned people against Tebow. 

When my Broncos first drafted Tebow in 2010 I was willing to give him a fair chance to prove himself. I liked the fact that at Florida Tim Tebow was a very coachable players, and that seemed to have a knack for being a strong leader. I didn’t identify with his religious beliefs, but my godless left-wing sodomite ass still wanted to see him succeed anyway, because he seemed like an underdog, a position that I definitely have related to in the past. When I actually got to see him play on Sunday another thing arose. Tebow demonstrated how reckless and volatile his style of play was in the NFL. There was no way he was going to be a quarterback that a franchise banked on in the long run. He could make a twenty-five yard pass to Eric Decker on one play, only to get sacked for a loss of twenty on the next. That’s not something that you base a championship caliber team around. if you saw how Broncos owner John Elway, a conservative Christian himself, lost his shit every time Tebow stepped on the field and made a play for better or worse, you could tell that things weren’t gonna work out. Such volatility caused the Broncos to send Tebow to the Jets the following season where he did nothing, but ride the bench. 

Tim Tebow is a great example of a guy who may have been a successful college quarterback, but had skills that didn’t translate well to the pros. In all honesty I do believe that Tebow would’ve been better off if he opted to play tight end or fullback in the NFL. That’s an adjustment that Tebow was unwilling to make, a hubric decision that led to the demise of his career and reputation. Tebow’s ego, his sense of self-righteousness, and his unwillingness to play any position other than leader caused many people who once sympathized and cheered for him to turn against him. For being as upfront and enthusiastic about his Christian faith, it seemed as if Tim Tebow was starting to believe in himself as some sort of fucked-up football playing messiah. While Michael Sam mostly sought to avoid the limelight of his fame, Tim Tebow seemed a little overly eager to embrace it, and even sought to make a spectacle of himself from his TV commercials for the gay-bashing group Focus on the Family and his agreements to be a paid speaker at conservative Christian functions, to his egotistical over-willingness to accept endorsement deals and do television appearances. All this happened while Tebow rode the bench, unwilling to play any position other than starting quarterback, a position he was ill-fitted for from the start. This is not courage, this is megalomania. 

In short, Tim Tebow was not driven from the NFL because of his Christian faith. He was driven from the NFL because of his inflated self-righteousness of his corrupt ego. Michael Sam on the other hand still carries himself with respect and courage, not expecting to just be given a position on a team for being the first openly gay player in NFL history. That’s the difference. For that reason one of these two guys will have a promising future, while the other one will be crushed under the weight of their own ego, ripe with a misplaced persecution complex. Just something to think about this football season. I mean when you’re not guzzling bud Light and scarfing down buffalo wings.