Who is the man Michael Sam was kissing in the emotional few moments after he became the first openly gay man to be taken in the NFL draft?
Buzzfeed did the social-media forensic analysis and reports that it is Vito Cammisano, who, like Sam, is a former athlete at the University of Missouri. Cammisano was a member of the swim team and Sam, of course, was the SEC co-defensive player of the year before being drafted Saturday evening by the St. Louis Rams. Video of Sam breaking down in sobs as he got the news that he would join the Rams quickly morphed into video of Sam celebrating with Cammisano. The two kissed joyfully at Sam’s agent’s house in San Diego and they shared the bliss on Twitter.
A quick look at Cammisano’s timeline on Twitter and Instagram shows a number of photos of him and Sam over the last few months.
Cammisano, who attended Kansas City’s Rockhurst High School, graduated in 2013 with a communications degree from Mizzou and is a promotions intern at Cumulus Broadcasting, according to his Facebook page. He publicly came out in 2011 and swam for the Tigers from 2009-2012. “Since it’s not football or basketball,” SportsGrid notes “hardly anyone outside of Columbia noticed.”
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