Michael Alan Sam, Jr. (born January 7, 1990) is an American football player who was drafted in the 2014 NFL (National Football League) Draft to the St. Louis Rams on Sunday. Even though Sam was drafted in the 7th round of the draft (which is the last round of the draft) he is still making headlines because he was the first openly gay football player to be drafted into the NFL. There have been a few openly gay football players before Michael Sam. However, Sam is the first player to have ever entered the NFL being openly gay. This is something that some people considered to affect his draft placement. Regardless, Michael Sam was still drafted into the NFL.
The reason why this story made headlines is because ESPN (America’s largest sports television station) showed a video of Sam kissing his boyfriend after receiving the call from the St. Louis Rams. Some people were outrage by the fact that ESPN showed something like this on national television. However, most people (including myself) were against the ignorant and the bigoted and were proud of Michael to have the courage to come out and to make it to the NFL. Congrats to him and his boyfriend on his success and hopefully he will have a long career with the Rams.
