“If I had it my way, I never would have done it the way I did, never would have told it the way I did,” Michael Sam tells GQ’s Andrew Corsello of his decision to come out prior to the NFL draft.
“But the recruiters
knew, and reporters knew, and they talked to each other, and it got
out. If I didn’t have the year I did, nobody would have cared. But I
have no regrets. Some people can argue that I had the potential to go
higher in the draft. But I think everything happens
for a reason. It looks good to see me in the position I’m in now,
because I can show the world how good I am and rise up the ranks. I’m at
the bottom now. I can rise up, show I’m a football player. Not anything
else. Just a football player.”
Sam tells Corsello about his difficult
childhood. “Only a handful of people really know how I was raised.
Certain family members weren’t…there. They were ghosts. My brothers were
the ones who were there. Most of the time,
that was scary. I tried to stay away as much as possible.” Despite
leaving the house at dawn and returning after dark, he still got beat up
frequently. “We called the cops on my brothers so many times I can’t
even count. Not only for hurting me. They’d abuse
my sisters. Verbally abuse my mom. My brothers were evil people. I
don’t have a relationship with them now. They’ve both written me letters
from prison. For them to dare to call themselves my brothers—I can’t live with that.”
“I needed football—it was just
something to do, an excuse to not be at home,” Sam explains. “When I
played in junior high and high school, it was a hobby. I was just
trying to get away from something. That was the only
reason I did it.” A love for the game developed eventually. “Being with
the guys on the team at Hitchcock was my real family. Mizzou was my
real family. I loved it. Football was a sense of home. A home I never
had.”
In response to the horrific NFL headlines being made off the field, Sam talks about distractions. “I’ll say this: I want to become a distraction! And what I mean is: by making big plays and doing good stuff on the field. Although
nobody would print that, because that’s not a story. Gotta keep bringing up the locker-room situation because he’s gay.”
Sam covers GQ’s annual Men of the
Year issue, honoring the biggest superstars who have undeniably left
their mark in 2014. He graces the cover along with Chris Pratt, Dave
Chappelle, Ansel Elgort, Shailene Woodley, and Steve
Carell. The December issue of GQ is available on newsstands now in New York and Los Angeles and nationally November 25.