US anchor defends openly gay NFL prospect

A speech by Dallas news anchor Dale Hansen condemning the controversy over Michael Sam, potentially the NFL's first openly gay footballer, has gone viral.

In the conservative and religious state of Texas, Hansen is a household name on Dallas’s WFAA-TV channel, an ABC affiliate station.

The on-air rant stirred up plenty of controversy in the US, where the debate over the ramifications of having a homosexual player in an NFL team, rages on.

Missouri University product Michael Sam came out earlier this week, with the NFL Draft just around the corner.

“Michael Sam who would be the first openly gay NFL footballer, says he knows there will be problems and they’ve already started,” Hansen said.

“Several NFL officials telling Sports Illustrated it will hurt him on draft day because a gay player wouldn’t be welcome in an NFL locker room. It would be uncomfortable, because that’s a man’s world.”

Sam came out to his Missouri teammates before last season. The Tigers then went on to win the Cotton Bowl, and Sam was voted by his team as the most valuable player this season.

Hardly the “distraction” some of those in the NFL argue.

Hansen went one step further, calling out the hypocrisy of the NFL.

“You beat a woman and drag her down a flight of stairs, pulling her hair out by the roots, you’re the fourth guy taken in the NFL draft,” Hansen said.

“You kill people while driving drunk, that guy is welcome.

“Players caught in hotel rooms with illegal drugs and prostitutes, we know they’re welcome.

“Players accused of rape and pay the woman to go away, you lie to police, trying to cover up a murder, we’re comfortable with that.

“You love another man, now you’ve gone too far.”

Hansen went on to compare Sam’s struggle to be accepted with the civil rights movement and the difficulty of African-American players being included in the NFL in the early years.

“It wasn’t that long ago when we were being told that black players couldn’t play in our games, because it would be uncomfortable, and even when they finally could, it took several years before a black man played quarterback, because we weren’t comfortable with that either,” he said.

“I’m not always comfortable when a man tells me he’s gay, I don’t understand his world, but I do understand that he is part of mine.”