As I got to my office tonight to make my Sunday night recruiting calls, I started by logging into my email and Twitter, as always, just to get caught up and to make a plan for the evening. Tonight, the talk on Twitter has caused me to change my plans.
Many of you have seen by now, or will see by the morning, that Michael Sam, the all-american and SEC defensive player of the year from Missouri has announced that he is gay. The announcement comes weeks prior to the NFL combine and about two months before the draft. Many have given their thoughts about whether this will or won't effect his draft status, but that is not of much concern to me. Sam's announcement does bring up an important discussion, and one that is happening with much greater frequency.
This is an issue that has come to light several times recently. In mid-January, NFL Films released a special about Jerry Smith, the late tight end that played for the Washington Redskins from the mid-60's through the late '70's. Smith had played his entire career without coming out to his teammates, or to anyone in the NFL. Also in late January, Conner Mertens, a member of the Willammette College football team came out publicly as bisexual. One article I read quotes outsports.com as saying Mertens is the first college football player to come out publicly while still playing.
Here at Grinnell we are part of an accepting environment. Our College tries to foster an environment where students, faculty and staff all learn from each other, and often times just as much is learned outside the classroom as in it. We have tried to create an environment full of diversity of all kinds, and this most certainly includes a diversity of sexual orientations. With students from across the globe we obviously have students with a wide variety of beliefs entering Grinnell. Just as with any issue, we do not have 100% agreement, but we don't side-step difficult issues, we tackle them head on in a respectful manner. As members of other student-groups on campus, football players have helped bring in renowned speakers to address sexism and harassment of women in athletics (Katie Hnida, former Colorado Buffalo and New Mexico University) and to address what it's like to be a gay football player (Esera Tuaolo, former NFL player who came out after retiring from the sport). Both talks were well attended across campus, but I believe they had a profound affect within our team.
I guess what I'm trying to say in all of this is that I commend both Michael Sam and Conner Mertens in their announcements, and I wish for
Smith that he had lived at a time when he could have been more
comfortable with who he was, but none of these guys are unique. They're not outliers. I have been associated with Grinnell College Football since 1998, and I have not played with or coached an openly gay player (I have been told there was at least one in the mid-90's). However, I'm sure I played alongside more than one gay teammate during my time. I'm also sure that I have coached, and am currently coaching, student-athletes who are gay (as an assistant coach for the track and field team, I know I am coaching several openly gay student-athletes). I don't expect that a gay student-athlete would have to come out to me, just as I don't expect that a straight student-athlete would have to tell me who he is dating. But I certainly hope he would feel comfortable in telling me if he wanted to, just as I know a straight student-athlete would. I hope that I have the trust of my players, and that they trust their teammates enough, that it wouldn't be a big deal. I hope that coming out to me wouldn't feel like a confession or an admission, that would have potential ramifications, but rather that it would just come up as part of everyday conversation. We pride ourselves in fielding a team of 50 different guys with 50 different stories, and this would just be one more story.
