Michael Sam: Golden Nugz on a Monday - 02.10.14

I want to get more Nugz up throughout the week, but these have obviously been few and far between. I'm going to lead today with a more general sports story that may be a talker now and through the NFL Draft.

Michael Sam is an SBN All-American he played DE for Missouri where he earned co-defensive player of the year and he was expected to be drafted in the upcoming NFL draft. He is also gay. SBN's Outsports has an exclusive, in-depth feature on the young man.

Sam had in fact told his team at the University of Missouri that he was gay last summer. It was prompted by a simple team-building exercise with a question from a coach: "Tell us something we don't know about you." Some of the team had already known. Some were shocked by the news. All of them embraced him. None of them told the media.

Sam played the entire 2013 season, leading the SEC in sacks and leading his team to a win in the Cotton Bowl, as a gay man out to his team and coaching staff.

CBS Sports has him as the 9th best DE in the draft and a likely 3rd round pick. To me it will be very interesting to see how NFL teams handle this information and what the future holds for Sam. Assuming he gets drafted and makes an NFL roster he would be the first openly gay man actively playing in the NFL. I assume this will be talked about this week and hats off to Outsports and their coverage of the story.

Moving on to they Gopher world.

• Gopher Wrestling notched a huge win over #1 Penn State this weekend in front of over 5,600 fans at the Sports Pavilion. The win clinched a share of the Big Ten Dual Meet Championship.
• A list of Big Ten player invited to the NFL Combine. Ra'Shede Hageman and Brock Vereen are your two Gopher representatives. I really expect that Hageman will move up draft charts after this opportunity to display his athleticism.
• Josh Parks just signed as a preferred walk-on for the Gopher Football team. His local paper with a profilestory on the kid.
• Gopher Softball has started the season 5-0 and recently on an early season tournament down at LSU. Sara Moulton is a pitcher on the team and has tied a Gopher record for career wins.
• The Big Ten has expanded the Big Ten Baseball Tournament to eight teams. Previously it was a six team tournament. The Gophers lead the Big Ten with nine tournament titles.
• Lastly, this is just priceless. I love Richard Pitino's brother...

The "chicken" everyone is noticing sitting next to Rick Pitino is his son, Ryan. BTN says he lost a bet. Unconfirmed. pic.twitter.com/wubxuKBhme

— Eric Crawford (@ericcrawford) February 9, 2014