Comments sad, but not surprising
Tony Dungy hasn’t coached in the NFL since the 2008 season.
But if he were still coaching, he said he wouldn’t have drafted Michael Sam. Sam became the NFL’s first openly gay player when the St. Louis Rams selected him in the seventh round in May.
“I wouldn’t have taken him,” Dungy told The Tampa Tribune. “Not because I don’t believe Michael Sam should have a chance to play, but I wouldn’t want to deal with all of it. It’s not going to be totally smooth. … things will happen.”
While there have been views expressed anonymously about Sam’s lifestyle by some coaches and general managers, Dungy is the most high-profile NFL figure to put his name to his opinion.
“It doesn’t surprise me that Tony Dungy said he wouldn’t draft openly gay NFL player Michael Sam because it would be a distraction,” said Bob Kravitz of The Indianapolis Star, who covered Dungy while he was with the Indianapolis Colts in 2002-2008. “Given Dungy’s religious nature, his Indiana Family Institute affiliation and his expressed opposition to gay marriage, I wouldn’t expect Dungy to open the door too widely to a gay athlete. “It is, however, disappointing. “Dungy talks about the distraction, how things could possibly go awry with a gay player in the locker room, but I tend to think this has less to do with distractions and everything to do with his personal disapproval of Sam’s sexuality. “Let’s talk about distractions. “You think Jackie Robinson, or the first black NFL player, constituted a distraction? If Dungy believed Johnny Manziel was the next Joe Montana, would he refuse to draft him because he created a distraction? How many misbehaving players, who create their own sorts of distractions, has Dungy drafted or supported over the years when he was a head coach?”
There’s a chance
Two months after golfer Rory McIlroy broke off his engagement with Danish tennis player Caroline Wozniacki, Russian tennis player Maria Kirilenko said she has called off her planned wedding to three-time NHL MVP Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals.
The two had been together since 2011 and became engaged in December 2012.
Kirilenko said in a release distributed by the Russian Tennis Federation that there were “a lot of reasons” behind her decision.
“Our relationship is over, but I respect Sasha [Ovechkin] as a person and as an athlete and I respectfully wish him further sporting success.”
McIlroy won the British Open on Sunday, so maybe there’s hope yet for Ovechkin, who is looking to win his first Stanley Cup.
They said it
From columnist Brad Dickson of the Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald: “The heat index is predicted to soar into the low 100s. It’s so hot that an Omaha TV station interrupted its 24-hour-per-day Doug McDermott-in-the-NBA Summer League coverage to give a brief weather report.”
From the satirical news website The Onion.com: “Texans confident they have right pieces in place to make deep preseason run”