"Everyone knew." Michael Sam at the University Of Missouri:
Everyone knew.
His recruiting class found out quickly after moving to campus in the fall of 2009.
His teammates on the Tigers' defense found out as the years wore on.
The whole team learned in August, when Sam officially announced it to them.
The campus knew, too. What was once a rumor -- a gay football player? -- became something more substantiated. The story of Michael Sam's words to his team became common knowledge in Columbia, a college town smack-dab in the middle of a traditionally red state. The star defensive end was out, but he wasn't.
Media knew. Students knew. Fans knew. Yet no one said a word. Words were not written. Television speeches were not spoken. Everyone from student journalists to the national media to the men who spotted Sam at one of two local gay bars kept quiet, because it was Sam's story, and because they accepted it.
On Sunday night, when televisions at Campus Bar and Grill in Columbia broadcast Sam's announcement on ESPN, the place broke into applause. That was all there was to do.
"You kind of think about it for a while, but then you have to accept it," former teammate Donovan Bonner, a linebacker, said on Sunday. "He's a cool dude. He's a great football player. After a while, it's just a normal thing to everybody in our facility."
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Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/college-football/news/20140210/michael-sam-missouri-tigers-campus/#ixzz2swpz00Lb
Good on all of them! 
= new reply since forum marked as read
and my Alma Mater. 
