Michael Sam has no future in football if he chooses not to return to the Montreal Alouettes, according to the CFL team’s general manager Jim Popp. “If he doesn’t come back, I would think football’s over for him,” Popp said.
Sam, who became the first openly gay player in the NFL when he was drafted by the St Louis Rams last year, signed with the Alouettes in May, but on Friday, a day before the Alouettes’ first pre-season game, he left training camp for “personal reasons” and returned home to Texas.
The Alouettes have not disclosed the reason for Sam’s departure, but on Monday the club officially moved the defensive end to the suspended list.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he returns. I’m surprised he left. I was very surprised. If he doesn’t come back, I would think football’s over for him. He’s the one that has to face that,” Popp told the Montreal Gazette. “But I don’t think he doesn’t want to play football. That’s why he came here.”
Popp continued: “There’s nothing to tell you. He wanted to go home, and that’s what he did. I don’t know why. When a guy wants to go home, they go home. He had some personal things to take care of.”
Sam became one of the NFL’s most heavily profiled players after the Rams picked him in the seventh round of the 2014 draft. Barack Obama said at the time that he “congratulates Michael Sam, the Rams and the NFL for taking an important step forward today in our Nation’s journey” and that “[f]rom the playing field to the corporate boardroom, LGBT Americans prove everyday that you should be judged by what you do and not who you are.”
But after appearing in several pre-season games, St Louis released Sam as part of a final round of cuts to their roster. After the Rams cut him, Sam spent much of the 2014 season on the Dallas Cowboys’ practice squad, but in October, the Cowboys waived Sam to make room for linebacker Troy Davis.
He signed a two-year deal with the Alouettes last month, becoming the first openly gay player in the league’s history.
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