[Mick]

2. I had thought Stanford would be the first school to have an openly gay player.  Then again maybe there have been some and those of us outside the locker room just don't know.  And it wouldn't have been as ground breaking because it's Stanford.  Missouri is in the SEC and a former member of the Big-12, and in the Midwest.

To me that's the single most interesting aspect, that it wasn't an athlete at Stanford or Cal or UCLA, but a player at a school with (most likely) more than its fair share of redneck fans.  IMHO, it's more important for social mainstream acceptance that he come from a football factory rather than a comparatively liberal, left coast school

[Mick]

2. I had thought Stanford would be the first school to have an openly gay player.  Then again maybe there have been some and those of us outside the locker room just don't know.  And it wouldn't have been as ground breaking because it's Stanford.  Missouri is in the SEC and a former member of the Big-12, and in the Midwest.

To me that's the single most interesting aspect, that it wasn't an athlete at Stanford or Cal or UCLA, but a player at a school with (most likely) more than its fair share of redneck fans.  IMHO, it's more important for social mainstream acceptance that he come from a football factory rather than a comparatively liberal, left coast school