After 18 months of not speaking to one another, Michael Sam and his father have reconnected.
Sam, who recently stepped away from professional football to focus on his mental health, announced the reconciliation via Twitter:
First time chatting with my dad since February 2014!!! #love #forgiveness #refocus #nextstop
— Michael Sam (@MichaelSam52) August 20, 2015
Sam's relationship with his father Michael Sam Sr. has been a complicated one. In a 2014 NYT background story on the Sam family, Michael Sr., who's wheelchair-bound in a nursing home in the Dallas suburb of DeSoto, reportedly reacted to his son's sexuality by saying “I don't want my grandkids raised in that kind of environment.” He added that he was “old school” and “man-and-woman type of guy.”
In subsequent interviews, Michael Sr. had seemingly come to accept that his son is gay saying “I love my son and I don't care about what he do.”
