True NFL Courage: Open Letter to the President, Commissioner and Rainbow Choir
This past Monday, sports radio erupted with the news that the NFL was about to have its first openly gay player. Michael Sam, former defensive stand out for the Missouri Tigers, had just come out of “the locker room” with the revelation that he is “gay,” and sports radio was anything but “sports” on Monday. Across the dial hosts fell over one another to say how “great,” and “courageous” this was and how “outrageous” and “bigoted” it would be to not don the rainbow glasses and genuflect in a glitter shower of approval.
From local host to syndicated show nearly every voice used the same terms, made the same points and came to the same conclusions. Michael Sam’s coming out was a great moment in American history and only a few barefoot and bucktooth Bible thumpers would not be riding the rainbow band-wagon.
ESPN covered it all day long, Mike and Mike speaking of it as if it were akin to Jackie Robinson and the civil rights victories of the sixties. Not to be outdone, Colin Cowherd welcomed it as a grand thing that only the truly bigoted would oppose. Cowherd, oft given to firing from the lip with invective and hyperbole, left no stone unturned or un-thrown at those who would not celebrate “Colin Cowherd’s coronation of connubial carnality.”
He made the statement that the NFL was the perfect league to debut “fabulous,” because it was by far the more progressive league and had many more college graduates than say, Major League Baseball. He shunned the thought of a “gay” man coming out in the MLB because baseball is made up of mostly “Hispanics” and religious types and well you know how “rigid” and stupid those groups tend to be, right? Get it? – Mexicans, Bible-bangers, machismo with no education; it is downright third world in that MLB!
A football player announcing his penchant for penis is a seminal event in our nation’s history and if anyone dare disagree, well they must be wearing a Tebow jersey under their Klan sheet as they goosestep to the Westboro Baptist’s hitlerjugend und bund deutscher.
At one point Cowherd belittled the many people who were disagreeing with him on social media, quite rigidly spewing, “Don’t tell me about your friends and family members who are ‘homosexual,’ that’s a clinical term. They’re ‘gay,’ they’re just gay.” I guess he wouldn’t want to hear about my friends Linda Jernigan and Greg Quinlan because they’re “ex-gay,” – just ex-gay.
Aren’t you tired of the sexualization of America? From six year old beauty pageant victims to an NBC Olympic announcer dressing in drag, sexuality is pushed everywhere. NBC and GM are busy in your face with their gay Olympiad and now the NFL is threatening the same.
FLOTUS proudly took time out of her busy schedule to tweet, “You’re an inspiration to all of us. We couldn’t be prouder of your courage both on and off the field.” A bit later the president chimed in with “Congratulations on leading the way. That’s real sportsmanship.”
There you have it America! A dude, proudly proclaiming to his team and then the world that he prefers ass to vagina is now a presidential moment and enough to inspire the first couple to recognize him as an “inspiring,” “courageous,” trail-blazing “sportsman?”
The NFL used to be a place we could turn to avoid politics and propaganda. When the front page and business section were Rembrandt dark we could always turn to the back section to forget, if only for the moment, controversy, catastrophe and the clash of worldviews. No more. America just got a make-over and Mapplethorpe is in, Rockwell is out. There’s not a corner in the country that is safe from the politically correct, “you’ll bow at our command,” North American man boy football lover’s association. Jane’s Addiction was right, “Nothing’s Shocking,” and therefore nothing is sacred.
The truth is that I don’t want to know what you did last night in your bedroom. And if it’s the NFL we’re talking about, I don’t want to know what the BDSM, LGBTQ, WXYZ, promiscuous fornicating, serial adulterer, pimp, mac daddy of a quarterback did last night! I want to know what he does on third down!
An NFL prospect comes forward with his predilection for virile members and gluteus maximus and the “elitists” stop to salute his “courage?” Well, President Obama, Commissioner Goodell and Colin Cowherd, let’s talk about real courage in the NFL.
Is Nigerian prince and devout Christian, Prince Amukamara an inspiring trailblazer for announcing his sexuality? He’s a virgin. I mean if you really want to keep abortions “rare,” and every child a “wanted child,” wouldn’t Prince be someone that the administration and the NFL should promote? Guys like Prince and Tebow would be great role models when you consider the epidemic of out of wedlock births to NFL players, you know, like that which was painfully expressed on your NFL sanctioned show Hard Knocks when NY Jet Antonio Cromartie struggled to remember all of his kids’ names – his seven kids, four of which are 3 years old. Yes, 2007 was a busy year for Mr. Cromartie!
If you want to tweet someone who expresses courage by his “sexuality,” then how about Philip Rivers, a devout Catholic who remained a virgin until he married in 2001. Rivers and his wife, Tiffany, have six children themselves and they run a charity that benefits orphans and foster kids. I know; that’s so Dickens, right? Nothing to see here! Moving on!
How about Martellus Bennett? In 2012, while playing for the New York Giants, the tight end had four catches for 44 yards and 15’ on “Sunday Night Football.” Oh, and that fourth catch for 15’? That was the fan that he caught who fell out of the stands. How’s that for courage “on and off the field,” Michelle?
If that’s not tweet worthy then how about Tennessee Titans rookie, Jonathan “Tig” Willard who rescued a family and its dog from a burning car or Kansas City Chiefs tight end, Leonard Pope, who earlier this year, saved a six year old boy from drowning? Did you tweet either of them, Mr. President?
True courage in the NFL is not pimping your sexual peccadillos while soliciting approbation from those with a political agenda; it’s Joe Delaney. Some thirty years ago, Joe, a star running back of the Kansas City Chiefs, dove into a pond, even though he couldn’t swim, to save three drowning boys. Two of the boys made it out although one would die later that day in an emergency room. Joe drowned trying to rescue the last child. That’s courage, Mr. President.
And how about this commissioner Goodell, would it not have been the right thing, the courageous thing to do, if you would have openly rebuked Fox Sports for firing their sportscaster Craig James over his religious beliefs? James was fired after only one day on the job when higher-ups at Fox realized he had answered a question affirming Biblical marriage in a debate for a Texas senate seat. Don’t tell me that a public rebuke from the NFL commissioner followed up by a private call saying, “We will not have this under my watch,” wouldn’t have made a difference.
And what a statement that would have been for true “tolerance,” coming from a man who himself has a “gay” brother. Of course that would require courage, objectivity and integrity, all of which are probably a bit too much to ask of this commissioner or this president.
Image: Courtesy of: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Rivers