Without any fanfare Raiders defensive lineman Carl Nassib came out publically as a homosexual on Monday.
The response from his teammates, the league and public was overwhelmingly positive and while it did make headlines, it didn’t dominate the news cycle.
Now imagine back in 2014 when potential NFL Draft pick Micheal Sam, a defensive end out of Missouri announced he was gay before the draft.
His announcement dominated the headlines for days and while Sam was drafted to the then St. Louis Rams in the 7th round, he never played in a regular season game.
A lot has changed for the better since 2014, which is not that long ago. Support for Nassib is encouraging and it also shows how we continue to grow as a society.
While Nassib is the first active openly gay player in the NFL, he isn’t the first homosexual in the league.
Former Steelers linebacker Arthur Moats (who appears with the PM Team weekly and has his only solo show on weekends) says it’s nothing new.
Moats, who also played for Buffalo and went to college at James Madison, says that he has played on teams with gay players since at least college.
Moats says one was even openly out in the locker room but it was not made public.
While the perception from some may be that an NFL locker room is an unforgiving, masculine, testosterone-filled area, Moats says football players have feelings and emotions too and are humans like you and me.
Moats says the desire to win is greater than any differences player may have and through that strong, life-long friendships can be formed.
If you can play the game at a high level, we’re more concerned about your level of play than anything else,” said Moats. “All have the common goal of wanting to win.”
While an overwhelming majority of players didn’t care one way or the other about a teammates sexual orientation, “one or two guys would make a sly remark” from time to time, said Moats.
With Sam and now, Nassib’s announcement, Moats believes that we will see more players coming out publically if that is what they want to do.
At the end of the day a player’s personal life is their own business and the public has no right to it.
So while Nassib may be the first, don’t believe for a minute he isn’t the first gay player to play in the NFL, they’ve been playing for decades, it’s just we’re finally coming around as a society, but there’s still plenty of work to do.
Related
