I'm not afraid of who I am. I'm not afraid to tell the world who I am. I'm Michael Sam, I'm a college graduate, I'm African-American and I'm gay.

To anyone out there especially young people feeling like they don't fit in and will never be accepted, please know this, great things can happen when you have the courage to be yourself.

I wish you guys would just say, 'Michael Sam, how's the football going? How's training going?' But it is what it is. And I just wish you guys would see me as Michael Sam the football player instead of Michael Sam the gay football player.

Great things happen when you have the courage to be yourself

But I will never say anything about who they are, what teams they are on. I'm just saying there's some famous people, and I'm not the only one.

I just want to know if I'm truly not in the NFL, it's because of talent. Let it be because of my talents. But you've got to prove that I can't play this game. If you look at the film, clearly I can. So, I'll leave it at that.

It has all happened so quickly, but it's exciting, I just wanna get back to playing football you know.