It’s hard to completely understand the intensity with which the United States loves American Football. Soccer in the UK, of course, is hugely popular but in the US, football runs through the DNA of mainstream American family culture like nothing else. Every year for the Super Bowl, families crowd round, throw parties, grown men weep as the nation’s best singers sing the national anthem and at half time, the likes of Madonna, Beyoncé and Michael Jackson play second fiddle to the sport. Everything stops. It is as if American Football is the beating heart of modern-day America.
MICHAEL WEARS TOP AND JEANS BOTH BY DIESEL
Photography: Leigh Keily / Fashion: Joseph Kocharian
On 9 February 2014 the-then 24-yearold defensive end, Michael Sam, from the University of Missouri’s much-respected college team, the Missouri Tigers, gave interviews to entertainment and sports channel ESPN and The New York Times, announcing that he was a “proud gay man”. Within moments it became headline news across North American and rippled out across the world, that this man could become the National Football League’s first openly gay player.