THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY FEBRUARY 10, 2014
PAGE 7B
MASON FROM PAGE1B
have his game figured out on Saturday. No getting lost in the zone, no pulling up for shots like he did in a loss to Texas. There was no need to when he was able to get his spacing and cause chaos in the paint.
"I tried to get into the lane, get contact and get to the line." Wiggins said, admitting he'd rather shoot.
The aforementioned Embiid, who couldn't get away from foul calls, still managed a double-double 11 points and 12 assists in just 17 minutes of playing time. Not even Self could get upset with the reason he sat on the bench.
"A lot of time when he fouls it's not his man, it's when he goes to help," Self said. "If big guys play hard they're going to foul."
No, these were mistakes made the right way as far as Self was concerned. This was an example of a team using past adversity to solve a progressing problem.
When the Mountaineers cut a double-digit Kansas lead to four late in the second half there wasn't a sense of doubt. There was Mason, who led the team with five assists, doing pushups on the sideline, readying himself for the opportunity to guide the Jayhawks to another victory.
After the game Self would continue talking about the league race being wide open, he would talk about needing to put on blinders to go face a Kansas State team in Manhattan that just devoured the same Texas team that took down the Jayhawks.
That was only a few minutes after Black declared otherwise, announcing what Kansas fans already know.
"We've been in some hostile situations," Black said. "We've been war tested."
Edited by Amber Kasselman
Star defensive end for Missouri announces he is gay
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KANSAS CITY, Mo., University of Missouri senior defensive end Michael Sam on Sunday became one of the few active male athletes on the major U.S. sports scene to announce that he's gay and is poised to become the NFL's first openly gay player.
His decision at last to do so, and how to do it, came in the last few weeks as Sam almost simultaneously told his story to ESPN and The New York Times on Sunday.
The 2013 defensive player of the year in the Southeastern Conference, the nation's roughest and best, was a gay man, and it's sure hard to reconcile that with the enduring and mean-spirited myth of sissification.
His declaration to two national media outlets Sunday night was a bold contradiction of stereotypes and possibly stakes new ground in what might be termed the civil rights issue of our time.
But his right to privacy was honored by multiple media outlets, including The Kansas City Star, as a simple matter of his choice to publicly discuss it or not.
Sam's announcement surely was no surprise for Missouri football teammates or coaches, to whom he had come out, and others around campus.
"Once I became official to my teammates, I knew who I was," Sam told The Times. "I knew that I was gay. And I knew that I was Michael Sam, who a Mizzou football player who happens to be gay. I was so proud of myself and I just didn't care who knew. If
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Missouri senior defensive lineman Michael Sam speaks during an NCAA college football news conference in Irving, Texas. Sam says he is gay, and he could become the first openly homosexual player in the NFL.
someone on the street would have asked me, 'Hey, Mike, I heard you were gay; is that true?' I would have said yes." Sam's decision to go public makes him potentially a pioneering face and force in the gathering movement for equality at a time when acceptance of gay rights is emerging legally and socially but intolerance still rages.
like this is becom-
MICHAEL SAM
Missouri football player
"Once I became official to my teammates, I knew who I was. I knew that I was guy."
"You've got 32 different entities, 32 different teams," he said. "Everybody drafts players differently. Now, with that being said, we're now in a new era . . . of football where stuff
Even if his impetus to do so may have been less about taking a courageous step for gays than it might have been as a necessary pre-emptive maneuver regarding his NFL prospects, the risk and prospective impact and fallout are the same.
of Hitchcock, Texas, or at MU, there's likely to be a new frontier of resistance in the form of the macho NFL locker room and perhaps in the eyes of fretful executives.
As a projected third-or-fourth-round, NFL pick (though one some consider an in-between size for a pro defensive end at 6 feet 2 and 255 pounds) Sam figures to be in a visible position going forward.
While he likely will be targeted by some groups, Sam's stature also might stand as a further example and hope for those who are bullied for
utive, speaking in generalities, told The Star.
While he's obviously not the first gay man about to get a chance in the NFL, he's certainly the first whose orientation has been publicly stated beforehand.
"Our policy is not one of just tolerance but acceptance," NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said at a meeting with sports editors in New York last year.
But as much as that may be true philosophically in the ivory tower, it's hard to know what that means in the trenches.
And there's probably never been a test of that "policy" quite like this.
That means that no matter how self-assured, no matter what ways he was supported or ostracized in his hometown
"The bottom line is, can the guy still play? I think history has shown that if you can play and contribute, depending on the locker room, it will be ac-
being different or suffer in silence rather than risk the consequences of bigotry.
ing part of the fabric of society.
Just what it might mean in the most practical sense _ his budding NFL career _ is an unknown, as one AFC exec-
And it triggers anew broader questions about the pace of routine acceptance of gays and lesbians.
Although he's not yet formally in the NFL pool, Sam's proclamation harkens to perhaps the most similar previous case among male athletes in the so-called big four sports (MLB, NBA, NFL and NHL).
He added, "We're at a cross-roads with regards to these types of players."
cepted."
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