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Burwell: It's time to let Sam play football, blend in
• By BRYAN BURWELL
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/colu...cle_92a5b6a1-7015-5605-a103-7df83194bd5f.html
Over the past few months, as his life kept evolving in front of him, Michael Sam has seen everything blur as it turned from The Secret, to The Rumor, to The Moment, to The Movement. He has seen his life create history, generate admiration, evoke hatred, spark pride and prejudice.
But now, it’s time for it all to cease and desist.
Now it’s time for all The Movement to take a back seat and allow the football player to just do his thing.
The National Football League’s first openly gay athlete will arrive at Rams Park today for his first day of work, and it will probably be something of a media circus. Since the day he told the world he was gay, Sam has grown into a national phenomenon. Since Saturday, his new Rams jersey (he still hasn’t been issued an official number) is already the No.2 seller among NFL rookies to Cleveland’s Heisman Trophy-winning celebrity quarterback Johnny Manziel. By this afternoon’s press conference, there will be an extraordinary amount of TV cameras, reporters and national correspondents here, and there’s very little that the Rams can do to stop it. They can only hope to contain it.
The organization is going to do everything in its power to limit the circus atmosphere and allow their seventh-round draft pick to step out of the spotlight and get some sense of normality back in his life.
“Obviously there will be more (media) people here than normal,” Rams general manager Les Snead said. “We’ll be prepared for that. But after all the rookie draft picks meet the press, that will be it. We’ll get back to acting normal. After (Tuesday), you do nothing different. We’ve already talked to Michael and his people and told him he’s here to play football. If the major networks, Good Morning America, the Today Show or CNN come calling, guess what? You’re not doing that.
“We told him whether you show up for those shows or not, they can do all those shows without you and they will,” said Snead. “They’re going to chat about you and this issue all day long until there’s another story to talk about. But the show goes on without you from now on. There will be some logistical issues we’ll work out for (Tuesday). But our mantra’s been, ‘Whatever you do from here on out, let’s be normal.”
The Rams aren’t expecting the world to cooperate with their plans. But they do expect Sam to. “Whatever is out of the realm of what a seventh-round pick does,” said Snead, “we made it clear: Don’t do it.”
I have already dealt with The History, The Moment, The Movement. I have known about The Secret, observed The Rumors take growth, then waited for The Truth to come out.
Starting today, I am ready to move on. Starting today, I am only concerned about the football player and what makes him tick, not The Movement.
I want Michael Sam to succeed. I believe without distractions he is talented enough to be a productive pass rusher in the NFL. I also know the only way that happens is if Sam is allowed to step away from the spotlight and blend into the comfort of his new NFL life. The good news is that Sam hasn’t moved all that far from Columbia, where he was allowed that luxury at Mizzou. The Michael Sam story is already quite familiar to the St. Louis football-loving audience. They know it intimately. They do not need any more details.
The greater good news is that Sam will be in an NFL locker room where the head coach is a hands-on, strong leadership presence who has already set the tone for how he expects the rookie to be treated. On Monday, Jeff Fisher stood in front of the Rams Park auditorium filled with his veteran players and made sure they understood what will be expected of them when Sam and the other rookies arrive. It will not be an intolerant madhouse like the Miami Dolphins’ locker room.
“That’s a little bit of what the team meeting was about,” said Snead.
Fisher made it clear that if there are any problems, any bit of discomfort, any reluctance or questions about Sam, he doesn’t want them aired on Twitter or in any other awkward social network forum where nuance and substance are lost in 140 characters or less.
“We addressed some of those issues,” said Snead. “But the awesome thing was it doesn’t seem like there was any need. We have one of the youngest teams in the league, but they seem to be quite mature.”
If you follow any Rams on Twitter, what you saw were countless tweets that congratulated Sam and welcomed his arrival.
“It was authentic emotion,” said Snead. “It was a sense of ownership and a proud moment for them that this is their thing.”
So the Rams will, beginning today, limit Sam’s media exposure, and no one seems to be worried that any regrettable intolerant or bigoted comments will be coming out of the locker room. They have also had extensive meetings preparing for every possible outlandish distraction imaginable. They will be prepared if the morons from Westboro Baptist Church show up outside their gates spewing their hateful protests. They will keep a close eye on who shows up at Tuesday’s news conference, making sure that only truly accredited journalists walk through the door.
They are even smart enough to understand that they won’t be able to think of everything that can go wrong and will keep on brainstorming and asking questions as life goes on its normal routine.
But the one thing they can’t prepare for or control are the great expectations that can come from beyond the Rams Park walls, where the gay community views Sam as a hero. He is The Movement and The Moment all wrapped into one impressive football player on the verge of making history.
Those expectations and distractions are exactly what caused Sam to show up at the NFL scouting combine in such poor shape that it damaged his draft stock and cost him millions of dollars as he fell from a third-rounder to a seventh-round pick.
“He was distracted, there’s no doubt about it ...” said Cyd Ziegler, the co-founder of OutSports.com and a close Sam adviser. “At the combine, there wasn’t a moment that went by when he wasn’t thinking about all of this. But by the time the season rolls around, all of this stuff will be gone. He’ll be focused completely on football.”
He might, but will the gay activist movement settle for that?
According to Ziegler, they have no choice. “From the very moment Howard Bragman, his publicist, and I started working, we talked to all the big gay organizations, we told them we don’t want to hear requests for him showing up at your dinners. We don’t want to hear requests asking him making statements about gay marriage. His only role in the gay movement is to be a football player. We asked them to leave him alone and so far they have. People understand that his role in this movement was to do what he did on ESPN on Saturday. His role is to show up on Sunday and play football. The pressure is not there from the gay community to be anything but a football player.”
• By BRYAN BURWELL
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/colu...cle_92a5b6a1-7015-5605-a103-7df83194bd5f.html
Over the past few months, as his life kept evolving in front of him, Michael Sam has seen everything blur as it turned from The Secret, to The Rumor, to The Moment, to The Movement. He has seen his life create history, generate admiration, evoke hatred, spark pride and prejudice.
But now, it’s time for it all to cease and desist.
Now it’s time for all The Movement to take a back seat and allow the football player to just do his thing.
The National Football League’s first openly gay athlete will arrive at Rams Park today for his first day of work, and it will probably be something of a media circus. Since the day he told the world he was gay, Sam has grown into a national phenomenon. Since Saturday, his new Rams jersey (he still hasn’t been issued an official number) is already the No.2 seller among NFL rookies to Cleveland’s Heisman Trophy-winning celebrity quarterback Johnny Manziel. By this afternoon’s press conference, there will be an extraordinary amount of TV cameras, reporters and national correspondents here, and there’s very little that the Rams can do to stop it. They can only hope to contain it.
The organization is going to do everything in its power to limit the circus atmosphere and allow their seventh-round draft pick to step out of the spotlight and get some sense of normality back in his life.
“Obviously there will be more (media) people here than normal,” Rams general manager Les Snead said. “We’ll be prepared for that. But after all the rookie draft picks meet the press, that will be it. We’ll get back to acting normal. After (Tuesday), you do nothing different. We’ve already talked to Michael and his people and told him he’s here to play football. If the major networks, Good Morning America, the Today Show or CNN come calling, guess what? You’re not doing that.
“We told him whether you show up for those shows or not, they can do all those shows without you and they will,” said Snead. “They’re going to chat about you and this issue all day long until there’s another story to talk about. But the show goes on without you from now on. There will be some logistical issues we’ll work out for (Tuesday). But our mantra’s been, ‘Whatever you do from here on out, let’s be normal.”
The Rams aren’t expecting the world to cooperate with their plans. But they do expect Sam to. “Whatever is out of the realm of what a seventh-round pick does,” said Snead, “we made it clear: Don’t do it.”
I have already dealt with The History, The Moment, The Movement. I have known about The Secret, observed The Rumors take growth, then waited for The Truth to come out.
Starting today, I am ready to move on. Starting today, I am only concerned about the football player and what makes him tick, not The Movement.
I want Michael Sam to succeed. I believe without distractions he is talented enough to be a productive pass rusher in the NFL. I also know the only way that happens is if Sam is allowed to step away from the spotlight and blend into the comfort of his new NFL life. The good news is that Sam hasn’t moved all that far from Columbia, where he was allowed that luxury at Mizzou. The Michael Sam story is already quite familiar to the St. Louis football-loving audience. They know it intimately. They do not need any more details.
The greater good news is that Sam will be in an NFL locker room where the head coach is a hands-on, strong leadership presence who has already set the tone for how he expects the rookie to be treated. On Monday, Jeff Fisher stood in front of the Rams Park auditorium filled with his veteran players and made sure they understood what will be expected of them when Sam and the other rookies arrive. It will not be an intolerant madhouse like the Miami Dolphins’ locker room.
“That’s a little bit of what the team meeting was about,” said Snead.
Fisher made it clear that if there are any problems, any bit of discomfort, any reluctance or questions about Sam, he doesn’t want them aired on Twitter or in any other awkward social network forum where nuance and substance are lost in 140 characters or less.
“We addressed some of those issues,” said Snead. “But the awesome thing was it doesn’t seem like there was any need. We have one of the youngest teams in the league, but they seem to be quite mature.”
If you follow any Rams on Twitter, what you saw were countless tweets that congratulated Sam and welcomed his arrival.
“It was authentic emotion,” said Snead. “It was a sense of ownership and a proud moment for them that this is their thing.”
So the Rams will, beginning today, limit Sam’s media exposure, and no one seems to be worried that any regrettable intolerant or bigoted comments will be coming out of the locker room. They have also had extensive meetings preparing for every possible outlandish distraction imaginable. They will be prepared if the morons from Westboro Baptist Church show up outside their gates spewing their hateful protests. They will keep a close eye on who shows up at Tuesday’s news conference, making sure that only truly accredited journalists walk through the door.
They are even smart enough to understand that they won’t be able to think of everything that can go wrong and will keep on brainstorming and asking questions as life goes on its normal routine.
But the one thing they can’t prepare for or control are the great expectations that can come from beyond the Rams Park walls, where the gay community views Sam as a hero. He is The Movement and The Moment all wrapped into one impressive football player on the verge of making history.
Those expectations and distractions are exactly what caused Sam to show up at the NFL scouting combine in such poor shape that it damaged his draft stock and cost him millions of dollars as he fell from a third-rounder to a seventh-round pick.
“He was distracted, there’s no doubt about it ...” said Cyd Ziegler, the co-founder of OutSports.com and a close Sam adviser. “At the combine, there wasn’t a moment that went by when he wasn’t thinking about all of this. But by the time the season rolls around, all of this stuff will be gone. He’ll be focused completely on football.”
He might, but will the gay activist movement settle for that?
According to Ziegler, they have no choice. “From the very moment Howard Bragman, his publicist, and I started working, we talked to all the big gay organizations, we told them we don’t want to hear requests for him showing up at your dinners. We don’t want to hear requests asking him making statements about gay marriage. His only role in the gay movement is to be a football player. We asked them to leave him alone and so far they have. People understand that his role in this movement was to do what he did on ESPN on Saturday. His role is to show up on Sunday and play football. The pressure is not there from the gay community to be anything but a football player.”