Flint Expatriate Howard Bragman, shown here in front of his childhood home on Sheffield Avenue, is the public relations expert who oversaw Missouri football player Michael Sam's coming out before the NFL draft. Blake Thorne has a profile of Bragman in today's Flint Journal that touches on his Vehicle City roots and his approach to working with Sam:
Bragman's philosophy — one the agents and Sam were on board with — was that Sam needed to tell his story, on his terms, and quickly get back to focusing on football. The announcement came with just a few high profile interviews: ESPN and The New York Times. Sam would not be making public appearances or marching in parades or making the talk show rounds. He needed to show future teams, the league and the rest of the world that his priority is football.
“I just want to make sure I could tell my story the way I want to tell it,” Sam said in the Times. “I just want to own my truth.”
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Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.