Missouri strength coach talks about handling gay slurs in the locker room

When Michael Sam announced that he was gay, one of the more refreshing aspects of the whole situation was to hear just how well the Missouri football team had handled it all, having had known about it prior to the beginning of last season and keeping it amongst themselves.

But, that doesn’t mean that it was all easy at times.

For the problems that would arise, though, Missouri strength coach Pat Ivey admitted that it was crucial they stopped all of that before it escalated. It was up to him, the rest of the coaching staff and the players to eliminate what gay slurs were being used in the locker room.

"“There was that going on. But who’s supervising the environment? Who’s educating that young freshman? ‘Hey, that’s not the right thing to say. You may have said that for your first 18 years but for the rest of your life, or at least the rest of your time at Missouri, you won’t use gay slurs. You won’t use racial slurs. You won’t use sexual innuendo. You won’t do that here,'” said Ivey, who was in Indianapolis for the NFL Scouting Combine. “That’s on Coach (Gary) Pinkel. That’s on (director of athletics) Mike Alden. That’s on me. Every day we’re talking about respect. I have to do it often. ‘Hey, pull your pants up. That’s disrespectful to show your underwear. Hey, let the lady get a nutrition bar first.’ We talk about that every day.”"

Again, all the credit in the world should be given, top to bottom, to the Missouri program and they way they handled this.

Someone should probably show this to the Miami Dolphins coaching staff.