Welcome to Edge of Sports, the podcast. This week, we speak live to football player Michael Sam.

Now, Michael Sam, I'm guessing you know who that is, but just in case you've been living under

Iraq the last five years, he is the man who attempted to become the first openly gay player in the

NFL just to have door after door slammed in his face, despite being the Southeastern Conference defensive player of the year.

But he is still trying, he's still training, and he does not want to waste his shots.

So he is still going after it in terms of trying to make the National Football League.

We're going to speak to Michael Sam, not only about his journey, but also about his alma mater,

the University of Missouri, and their strike last fall against racism and his thoughts on that.

And the reason why I say this is live, even though you're listening to a podcast, is because

we're talking to Michael Sam in front of a couple of hundred people at the

University of Colorado at Denver. And so that's going to be just, it's that amazing vibe where you're

going to hear the crowd cheering and clapping and all kinds of stuff. And I just want to give a shout

out that this absolutely could not have happened without the help of Avery Bolano, the assistant

director of student life and and Sean Lotton over

at Kepler Speakers Bureau. So without further ado, here's me and Michael Sam.

So I was born January 7, 1990, in Texas City, Texas. I am one of eight siblings. My dad also has another daughter and another son, so technically there's 10 of us, but we don't count those two.

Was there any sort of LGBT consciousness for you growing up in Texas City so no I grew up in a very

religious family my mom was a Jehovah's Witness and my dad was a Baptist how the hell that ever

happened I have no idea but but it happened and they had eight kids. So it worked.

So I did not know what gay was.

No one talked about it.

No one talked about it at school.

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