In today’s culture, we view professional athletes as our idols. Everyone has their favorite sport, and favorite professional player. They are the most forgiven people in our country and are treated as royalty in everyday life. I even have a poster of a player in my room. They make millions of dollars to play professional sports, and yet they are always making the front pages for not what they do on their respective fields or courts, but what they are up to in the local night club or what substance they have been abusing. With this said, us, the fans, still support them throughout it all. They may have taken Performance Enhancing Drugs, and yet we just forgive and forget and pretend like none of it ever happened. What frustrates me is the fact that people can love Ryan Braun for abusing illegal performance substances, but a man like Michael Sam is ridiculed throughout the country by people.

Professional sports players are known for having the prettiest and sexiest girlfriends and wives wrapped around their arms at all times. They are never thought of being homosexual. Tony Parker, the starting point guard of the San Antonio Spurs, had an affair on his wife. He is still loved by the sports world. People still look up to this guy. He did something that an average Joe would have been criticized for by many of his friends and family. And yet since a professional athlete did it, we all support it because well, she must have deserved because why would he do that for no reason? They think they do not have to abide by any rules. Are those the people we need to be looking up to? Maybe it’s not homosexuals that corrupt out marriage system because I think straight relationships cause more issues to the legal system. When a gay man is seen with his boyfriend, what makes what he is doing wrong? I have no issue with it, it is the same as seeing a married couple. These athletes if they were openly gay in pro sports would be the ones you’d want on your team. They would all be playing with a chip on their shoulder to prove that just because they like the same-sex, does not mean they cannot play their respective sport at an elite status.

Discrimination towards gay people has been reduced tremendously just in the past 10 years alone. They are allowed to get married in specific states, and are respected more now. The one place though that still has not changed to modern times is the professional sports world. They are still trying to catch up. Jason Collins, a professional basketball player, was the first gay athlete to play in one of the three major sports: baseball, basketball, or football. Michael Sam was next this year, and this is a much bigger deal because unlike Collins, Sam has his whole career still ahead of him. Michael Sam played Defensive End for the Missouri Tigers in the SEC last season, which is regarded as the best football conference to play in. He was voted SEC Defensive Player of the Year, but there is one problem. He was drafted in the 7th round of the NFL Draft this season. Of the 5 major College Football Conferences, none of the conferences’ respective Defensive Player of the Year winner was drafted in the 7th round in all of the past 20 years. 64 % of these players were drafted in the first or second round in the draft. This means all 32 teams did not want this young, talented athlete who was a force to be reckon with in the best College Football conference because of the attention he would receive for being gay. Not only was he insulted by being picked this late when he was voted as one of the best defensive players in the league, but that also means that he will make significantly less money in the pros when he signs his rookie contract than he would being drafted in the first or even the second round like he probably should have been.

Today’s professional world is going to have to change due to people like Michael Sam being comfortable with who he is. Sooner or later, teams will have to take on ways to accommodate players like him and other players on that team that are against this will end up looking like the villain. People like Michael Sam are the ones that create movements. They make people realize that how we have lived in the past may not be how we should live life in the future. It should not matter if you are straight or guy in professional sports at all. Sam is a heck of a football player, and isn’t that what he was drafted to do, just play football? As sports fans, I think it is our job to take a step back and realize that maybe we give professional players too much benefit of the doubt and that maybe players like Michael Sam should be who kids begin to look up for. Not because of who they like, but because they do what is right off the field, and play hard on the field because that is what they are getting paid to do.