Former National Football League (NFL)
player Michael Sam covers Attitude magazine's All-American
issue.
The 26-year-old Sam in 2014 became the
first openly gay player to be drafted by the NFL.
“The former Montreal Alouettes
defensive end appears across an exclusive 10-page spread, in which he
discusses everything from his experience growing up gay as a
Jehovah's Witness to the racism he's been confronted with from within
the gay community itself,” Attitude editors wrote about the
interview in a blog post.
“I wouldn’t say it was a storm
because to me storms are bad,” Sam said of the media attention his
story received. “I helped a lot of people. I was so naive when I
came out. I wasn’t thinking about anybody else trying to be an
inspiration or advocate or activist, whatever, I wasn’t trying to
be anything but just to get that over with so I could stop focusing
on me.”
“Then I started reading things that
was going around, from people: emails, letters, Tweets, messages,
everything – they were more positive than negative. ‘People said
oh my god I just can’t believe you had the courage to do that’. I
said, ‘I’m just living my life.'”
He continued: “There was a friend who
told me to give his cousin a call and she had tried to commit suicide
twice. After she heard my story she promised herself she would never
do it. It’s amazing. People kill themselves because they can’t
handle that pressure and that stress. It’s very sad.”
“If by me living my life, I can save
someone, I would do it again,” he added.
Attitude's May issue is
available for immediate
download.