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Random thoughts while wondering whether the Chicago Bulls will be overconfident Tuesday night against the visiting Atlanta Hawks after going 3-3 on their road trip that concluded with a victory Sunday against the Los Angeles Lakers:
Hooray for the red, white and blue … bikini.
* The day after University of Missouri defensive end Michael Sam said he was gay, Chicago Bears general manager Phil Emery expressed his thoughts via email Monday: “Michael stated with great poise and confidence who he is as a person and football player and I have tremendous respect for him in the way he conveyed his thoughts and the courage it took to state them publicly. Each and every player in the NFL is a unique individual, as we all are in life. We all ultimately gain respect in our jobs by how well we perform at our chosen profession and if the level in which we perform adds positively to the collective goal of success. Michael stated this and I agree with his thoughts. It is about his skill set as a football player to add positively to a team’s goals and that’s how he will be evaluated.”
* The NFL team that drafts Sam will go down in history the way the Brooklyn Dodgers did when they had Jackie Robinson break baseball’s color barrier in 1947. To be on the side of equality — racial, sexual preference, gender, etc. — is to be on the right side of history. Not to be confused with the far-right side of history.
* Rollcall.com reports former Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher received $25,000 for appearing at a November fund-raiser for Illinois Republican congressman Aaron Schock in Peoria. Anyone care to comment on fiscal responsibility?
* Foxsports.com’s Ken Rosenthal asked seven baseball executives about signing an openly gay player. All seven said they would. Included was Chicago Cubs president Theo Epstein, who said: “If the reports about his football ability and character are accurate, we would sign the baseball Michael Sam in a second and be a better organization for it.”
* White Sox president Ken Williams’ reaction: “Are you, as a leader of your organization, prepared to provide the young man the public and private support he will need along with controlling, to the extent you can, what the behavior is in the clubhouse/locker room? If the answer is yes, then you have an opportunity to use what some see as a distraction and use it as an individual and team character-building opportunity along the lines of what Branch Rickey did for Jackie Robinson. If the answer is no, then it is unfair to select him because like it or not, this will be a daily media/fan event and will need to be managed to keep everyone’s focus on the job at hand.”
* Congratulations to everyone involved with the Comcast SportsNet Sports Awards program held Monday to benefit the March of Dimes. Numerous highlights, including Chicago Bears tight end Marcellus Bennett’s acceptance speech (OK, more like a comedy performance). Among the more sobering moments of the evening was a touching tribute to the late Jim Corno, the man who ran CSN and the man responsible in large part for the success of the event.
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