Michael Sam announcement that he is gay touched off a national debate of talking heads, anonymous NFL sources and players questioning how the first openly homosexual player will be received in a locker room.
But the former Missouri star’s success also may depend on which locker room he lands in.
Missouri coach Gary Pinkel thinks one atmosphere in particular would be a bad match for Sam – the Dolphins locker room that produced the Richie Incognito/Jonathan Martin bullying scandal.
“I think the incident that happened down in Miami with the Dolphins — I don’t know the people involved there, and I’m not really judging them, but when you have a locker room atmosphere like that, when people are verbally being destructive to each other and you call it fun, I think there’s a fine line there,” Pinkel said Monday on ESPN radio.
Former Dolphins running back Troy Stradford told the Palm Beach Post it could go in either direction.
“That could be played out in one of two ways,” Stradford said. “Either you don’t want to deal with the tension because of what you just went through. Or you could go complete opposite and take a shot and say your locker room is secure enough and has the leadership in there to handle something like that.
Joe Barkett, one of Sam’s agents at Empire Athletics, believes the Chargers would be a “great fit” for his client, he told U-T San Diego. His reasoning is based on San Diego’s decision to select former Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o in the second round of last year’s draft. Te’o gained national notoriety when he was revealed to have been part of a hoax involving a fake girlfriend.
“I think the Chargers would be a great fit for [Sam], especially considering the way that they handled the Manti Te’o issue,” Barkett said. “It seemed to blow over very easily once the first game had happened. I think that’d be a great spot for [Sam] to land.”
An All-American defensive lineman and the co-SEC Defensive player of the year, Sam led Missouri with 11.5 sacks and 19 tackles for loss last season, helping the Tigers reach the SEC championship game. He is projected to go anywhere from the third round on down. Sam said on Sunday he doesn’t have a preference for what team picks him.
“I just want to go to the team who drafts me,” he said. “Because that team knows about me, knows that I’m gay, and also knows that I work hard. That’s the team I want to go to.”