ESPN’s Herbstreit: Story of Gay Princeton Football Player What America ‘Needed to Hear’

During ESPN’s Saturday broadcast of “College Gameday,” host Rece Davis featured the story of Princeton University offensive lineman Mason Darrow.

The segment highlighted Darrow coming out to a teammate and the acceptance from fellow teammates in the locker room. Ex-Missouri defensive lineman Michael Sam did not announce his homosexuality until after his college career, making Darrow college football’s first openly gay player to play in a game.

As the segment was coming to a close, ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit likened Darrow’s situation to Sam’s, saying that it what America needs to hear.

“I was thinking back to Michael Sam and what Michael Sam went through and how tough it was for him to come out and talk about this. What stood out to me was the acceptance from his teammates, from inside that locker room here with Mason and Michael with Missouri. I think for America, that’s what you need to hear, that’s the message that we all need to hear. Whether it’s race, religion sexual orientation, politics, whatever it is, when you get in the locker room that’s the one thing that people on the outside that haven’t been in the locker room don’t understand, you have knocked down all the walls and people accept you for whatever your background might be. This is another example of that.”