A Gay Michael Sam Is the Locker Room 'Imbalance' We All Need

A Gay Michael Sam Is the Locker Room 'Imbalance' We All Need

Robbie Couch
Fellow, HuffPost Impact
Posted: 02/10/2014 1:39 pm EST

I was lying on my futon in a post-Sunday-dinner daze when I read the breaking news alert scrolling across my computer screen.

Missouri's Michael Sam Reveals He's Gay.

Both my hands shot up into the air. I let out a quick howl of excitement that probably woke my elderly neighbors. I (somewhat embarrassingly) felt my eyes well up a bit too, because this is big. This is huge.

For the first time, an NCAA Division I college football player -- and a prominent one at that -- came out as gay. And if he's drafted after becoming eligible this May, he might be the first out player in the NFL.

Michael Sam, you are a hero.

Do you know how many lives you just changed? How many protein-bar-munching, muscle-tee-wearing bros are -- as I type -- rethinking what it means to be gay? How many closeted middle- and high-school boys in football jerseys now have a trailblazer to look up to who has made their journeys a bit easier?

I wish there had been a Michael Sam a few years ago, when I was in one of those jerseys. It was a basketball jersey, just for accuracy's sake, but that hardly makes a difference.

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