I suspect this is the Lisa Olson they are talking about.The only Lisa Olson I know is someone I work with. I suspect you guys aren't talking about her.
Sportswriter Lisa Olson Calls the New England Patriots Out of Bounds for Sexual Harassment
I suspect this is the Lisa Olson they are talking about.The only Lisa Olson I know is someone I work with. I suspect you guys aren't talking about her.
This truly appears to be a football decision, having nothing to do with his sexuality. He clearly has talent, but it looks like the Rams already have lots of talent at that position.sam got cut today when the rams had to get down to their final 53.
if not picked up by another team off the waiver wire, he will likely be offered a spot on the rams practice squad.
http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2014/08/30/michael-sam-cut-by-rams/
That's not bad money. If only I were gay.the patriots could use the depth there.
but even if he merely lands on a practice squad, he's an starting-player-injury away from a roster spot, not to mention a weekly paycheck of over $6k.
...No one gives a crap, hence some people do walk around naked, or in a towel, or etc., and some people do not, because they choose to be clothed. No one cares who does which.
Athletes at a level even close to this have been in communal shower and locker rooms since, in many cases, before they were even in school. They're used to it...
I feel not wanting to shower with anyone at all in public is a fundamentally different position than refusing to shower with a specific subgroup of people based on your personal biases.
If you're not comfortable showering with others because you're shy, then that's very different than homophobia.
I was wondering the same thing.With all the money spent on professional football, would it be so difficult to have cubicles so each footballer can have a bit of privacy?
And yet, if the gay player didn't shower with the rest of them to "give them their space" etc., that suggests that it is an issue. In certain circumstances, anyway.
I went to a university where they have special classes just for the football players, and where they built a multimillion dollar athletic center just for them. But they can't have individual shower stalls and dressing kiosks in the locker room?
Not even in the pros?
But if that happened, how would the straight players engage in their non-threatening homoerotic towel-snapping bonding activities?
I was wondering the same thing.
I went to a university where they have special classes just for the football players, and where they built a multimillion dollar athletic center just for them. But they can't have individual shower stalls and dressing kiosks in the locker room?
Not even in the pros?
And anyway, why are big, strong, grown men so uptight about this? I've had friends I've known were lesbian or bisexual since I was in college at least. Actually earlier, now that I think about it. I've never thought twice about sharing rooms, locker rooms, or dorm showering facilities with them, even when they had common dressing areas.
And they have co-ed bathrooms in a lot of college dorms these days.
Well, I've never been a jock, so I'll take your word for it. I figured with all the money pro sports teams have, they could give their players pretty cushy (and private) dressing facilities, and heck, even personal lackeys to help them get their gear on, if it were really important to them, because they were really shy little flowers who were worried that one of their team mates might be ogling them while they dressed or showered. The coach could come in and do the pep talk after they dressed.
After all, once they started having female sports journalists, they found a way to get those locker room interviews without embarrassment (in spite of early claims that this was going to ruin everything).
Anyway, I've never worried whether other women I've had to dress or shower in front of were gay or not. Seems strange that men supposedly spend so much time stressing over this when they're supposed to be the least modest of the genders.
So yeah, it seems more like something the media likes to project on players than something that's necessarily a real thing.
Meh, I really haven't got a clue about the intricacies of sweaty, bulgy athletic men's shower rooms. I'll leave it to the men to 'splain.
Go on then. Tell us all about it.
This truly appears to be a football decision, having nothing to do with his sexuality. He clearly has talent, but it looks like the Rams already have lots of talent at that position.
It seems likely there is a team out there who can use him and I'm guessing he will end up on an NFL roster somewhere else.
the patriots could use the depth there.
but even if he merely lands on a practice squad, he's an starting-player-injury away from a roster spot, not to mention a weekly paycheck of over $6k.
Seems fair to me.EARTH CITY, Mo. -- The first thing that sticks out about St. Louis Rams defensive lineman Ethan Westbrooks is the tattoo adorning his face. Westbrooks has plenty of tattoos, but the one on his left cheek, not far below his eye that reads, "Laugh now, Cry later" with a picture of a happy and sad face, is impossible to ignore.
As explanations for facial tattoos go, Westbrooks at least offers something relatively easy to digest. The story goes that Westbrooks was working at a Toys "R" Us in Sacramento while playing football and going to school at Sacramento City Junior College. He didn't like the job and decided when he quit that he had no intention of working a normal job again. So he went searching for a way to push himself to attain that goal. Somehow, he decided there was no better way to do that than to have a reminder staring him in the face every time he looked in the mirror.
"I was just like I might as well go ahead and get it on the face because if nothing else, it will help motivate me to either be a guy that has a tattoo on his face looking for another job or hopefully I make it in the NFL and don’t have to work too hard to do something (else)," Westbrooks said. "I don’t feel it’s a bad thing now. I don’t regret it. It speaks for itself."
While Sam's play has leveled off a bit since the opening days of camp, Westbrooks could be primed to make a statement in the next few weeks. For what it's worth, Westbrooks is well aware that he's standing in the way of one of the league's most compelling stories.
But with a 3-year-old daughter and family to provide for, Westbrooks knows what must be done.
"The whole me-and-Michael Sam thing, I wish him nothing but the best in his endeavors on the football field," Westbrooks said. "He has a competitive spirit, I have a competitive spirit -- what better way to really just boost one another or see what one another is really made of, to have that (competition).
That's not bad money. If only I were gay.
I fully expect Michael Sam to end up on some team's developmental squad. Sam has shown flashes, but just not enough to compensate for the limits in his game that would have relegated him to the last round in the NFL draft even if he hadn't come out and become second only to Johnny Manziel in media scrutiny.
at least he got to sack manziel.
sam's quick and plays with a lot of fire, but he's undersized and that will be a battle he continues to fight.
Michael Sam, the first openly gay player drafted in the NFL, was cut by the Rams on Saturday and passed over by all 31 other teams on waivers on Sunday, and so far he hasn’t even been able to land a spot on a practice squad. So are NFL teams avoiding Sam because he’s gay?
According to one NFL player, the answer to that question is yes — but not because teams are homophobic. Bills center Eric Wood says teams are avoiding Sam because they don’t want the ESPN hype that would come with having Sam, the only openly gay player in football, on the team. In response to a question from Ross Tucker about Sam’s lack of practice squad offers, Wood said ESPN is to blame.
(See Tweets here)
Last week ESPN apologized for a report that quoted an unnamed Rams player as saying that Sam hadn’t showered with teammates in training camp. But even aside from that report, Wood’s view is the most sensible explanation for why Sam remains out of work: NFL teams just don’t like seeing one player singled out for any reason other than his play on the field.
Although there were some questions before this year’s draft about whether Sam would be a good fit in any NFL defense, Sam played well enough in the Rams’ scheme during his four preseason games that it’s surprising the Rams haven’t added him to their practice squad. It’s even more surprising that no other team has picked Sam up. It would be nice if some team had the guts to give Sam the chance he deserves, but Wood may be right that Sam is paying the price for teams being scared of distractions.
I'd ask for a link to back up this assertion, but, well, no.Male football players use the locker room primarily as a socially acceptable venue for surreptitiously comparing penises, which makes it possible to carve out intra-team dominance hierarchies. "Leadership qualities" has long been regarded as empty sportswriter-speak — as in "Suchnsuch McFootball-Player really displays strong leadership qualities" — but it's really a euphemism for penis size.
In fairness, both the MSNBC and CNN websites have Sam stories at the top of their home pages right now, as well. FoxNews seems more concerned with Tony Stewart.Fox News has Benghazi. MSNBC has Chris Christie's "Bridgegate." CNN has the missing Malaysian flight. ESPN has Sam and Manziel and neither is as big a deal as they've made it to be. ESPN may be contributing to Sam's continued unemployment as none of the 32 teams in the NFL are giving him the time of day.
In fairness, both the MSNBC and CNN websites have Sam stories at the top of their home pages right now, as well. FoxNews seems more concerned with Tony Stewart.
Oh, I agree with you completely. Sam needs to be allowed to go about his business. He's just one of many cut players now looking for an opportunity to play somewhere else. And ESPN is running down "stories" about him for no real good reason, whatsoever.What I meant was the propensity of networks to fixate to the point of obsession on certain stories and personalities and then provide saturation coverage of it as if nothing else matters. ESPN has become the clearinghouse for All Things Michael Sam and its become a detriment to his stated mission of trying to make an NFL roster.
Sam was only one of hundreds of young men whose summer job in the NFL ended last Saturday. Yes, he's a gay man, but that doesn't make him the only game in town. Many of those other cut players have stories to tell as compelling as Sam and doubtlessly, some of them were gay men too.
Whether he intended it or not, Sam has become a distraction and despite playing relatively well for the Rams, none of the other 31 teams seem interested in his services. That's odd and it may even be discriminatory, but when you have ESPN trolling your locker room for the down n' dirty details of Sam's shower habits, who needs that bullshit?
The Cowboys plan to bring in Sam for a physical and sign him to the practice squad if he passes, according to Adam Schefter of ESPN. Ian Rapoport of NFL Network reports that the Cowboys spent time today calling players to gauge their reaction to signing Sam. Apparently the reaction was what it should have been: If he can help the team, he should be signed. The Cowboys think having Sam on the practice squad could help.
There’s been much talk since the Rams cut Sam that teams are avoiding him because they don’t want the attention of having the NFL’s first openly gay player on their roster. But in the case of the Cowboys — where owner Jerry Jones thinks there’s no such thing as bad publicity — if anything Sam’s status as the NFL’s highest-profile practice-squad player may be a bonus.
A seventh-round draft pick out of Missouri who was the SEC’s defensive player of the year last year, Sam had a good preseason but wasn’t able to crack the 53-man roster in St. Louis. In Dallas, where the Cowboys are in desperate need of help on defense, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him eventually get added to the active roster. Dallas looks like a good fit for Sam.