The Canadian Football League Montreal Alouettes hosted the Toronto Argonauts in an pre-season game Thursday night. Michael Sam wasn’t there.
Fact is, very few people know exactly where Sam is right now. He hasn’t been heard from since he bolted the Alouettes training camp last Friday.
As far as anyone knows Sam is back in his home state of Texas. That’s where he said he was going. But no one’s really all that sure.
What a difference a year makes. For the past 12 months, a lot of people knew where Michael was and most of the time.
Sam was a celebrity. Big time.
After an All-America career at the University of Missouri, Sam announced he was gay. big news in the world of football, not known for being on the progressive side of things.
Sam became an instant hero for many and very big news for no openly gay man had ever played pro football in North America.
Sam had highly-visible tryouts with the NFL St. Louis Rams and the Dallas Cowboys but failed to make either team’s active roster. Scouts and evaluators branded him “tweener,” not quite big enough at 260 pounds to play defensive end and not quite fast enough to play linebacker.
Sam then drifted to celebrity, giving lots of interviews and appearing on the hit television show “Dancing with the Stars,” all the while insisting he just wanted to play football.
After failing to get a job with another NFL team this spring, the Alouettes signed him.
At his much-attended May 26 signing press conference in Montreal, he appeared poised and ready for the challenges ahead, an articulate and intelligent man with kind, gentle eyes.
Five days later, he was at Alouettes’ training camp. Last week he was–mysteriously–gone. He was returning home, he told the Alouettes, for unspecified “personal reasons.”
The rest is silence.
Herb Zurkowsky, the long-time Alouettes beat writer for the Montreal Gazette, watched the Michael Sam Montreal saga unfold from up close.
He joined RCI by phone from his home in Montreal.
Listen
For reasons beyond our control, and for an undetermined period of time, our comment section is now closed. However, our social networks remain open to your contributions.