“I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m black. And I’m gay.” With these three short sentences in this week’s issue of Sports Illustrated, Jason Collins, with the help of writer Franz Lidz, told the sports world two things it already knew, and one that it didn’t, and in doing so has made history, becoming the first active male player in any of the big four of American sports leagues—baseball, hockey, basketball, and football—to come out as gay.You may not have heard of Jason Collins before today. Even dedicated basketball fans might have confused him with his twin brother, Jarron, who is about an inch shorter, and who played with Jason at Stanford and also had a long career in the pros. Jason played for the Boston Celtics this year, before being traded to the Washington Wizards. He is a free agent this summer, and is nearing the end of his years in the league, but he says he hopes to get picked up by another team next season. If he does, he may be the only openly gay player, but as he notes at the end of the piece, he will surely not be the only gay player: “Pro basketball is a family. And pretty much every family I know has a brother, sister or cousin who’s gay. In the brotherhood of the NBA, I just happen to be the one who’s out.”
Family, and its different manifestations, runs through this story. It is about Jason’s own family: his parents, who, he writes, taught Sunday school and “instilled Christian values” in their children. And about an aunt, Teri, a judge in San Francisco, whom he first came out to; and an uncle, Mark, who is gay and is in a long-term relationship, and to whom Jason spoke about his sexuality last summer. It is about his maternal grandmother, who grew up in Louisiana and who, before and during the civil-rights movement, “saw great bravery play out amid the ugliest aspects of humanity.” And it is about Jason’s twin brother, Jarron, to whom he came out a year ago. Despite years spent in each other’s shadows on and off the basketball court, Jarron was “downright astounded”—but, as Jason adds, “by dinner that night, he was full of brotherly love. For the first time in our lives, he wanted to step in and protect me.”
And then there is the N.B.A., the brotherhood to which Collins refers. This morning, the league offered a statement on its official Twitter account: “We have known the Collins family since Jason and Jarron joined the NBA in 2001 and they have been exemplary members of the NBA family. Jason has been a widely respected player and teammate throughout his career and we are proud he has assumed the leadership mantle on this very important issue.” The series of tweets ends with the hashtag #NBAFamily.
In a way, this kind of coming out, on the cover of a national magazine, seems anachronistic. It was, like many forms of social evolution, somehow unimaginable—until it happened and then, a moment later, one wonders how it took this long. But, for years, male pro sports appeared to be one of the great holdouts against progress: a place where big-money machismo ruled over the variations of human sexuality. Locker rooms were said to be dangerous places, and silence was the only option. This was a common trope, perhaps even perpetuated out of a kind of ignorance. Its repitition even started to rub some athletes the wrong way. In 2011, Charles Barkley, a man known for his common sense but never for his tact, said plainly that he was sure that “every player has played with gay guys,” and went on: “It bothers me when I hear these reporters and jocks get on TV and say: ‘Oh, no guy can come out in a team sport. These guys would go crazy.’ First of all, quit telling me what I think. I’d rather have a gay guy who can play than a straight guy who can’t play.”
Still, the fact remained: no current player had come out. And despite whispers and hopes, and mounting signs of support from all four leagues and from many current players, it was not obvious that an announcement would be met with widespread acceptance. Collins has done something truly brave. When the center John Amaechi came out in 2007, three years after he had retired from the league, the former All-Star Tim Hardaway said, “First of all, I wouldn’t want him on my team. Second of all, if he was on my team I would really distance myself from him because I don’t think that’s right and I don’t think he should be in the locker room when we’re in the locker room.” Hardaway later apologized, and it is hard to imagine such comments being made or finding much public support today, but they surely hung over Collins’s announcement—and will continue to do so for other male athletes that follow his footsteps.
The announcement also echoes a statement made last week in Nevada, when state senator Kelvin Atkinson came out during a floor debate on a same-sex-marriage bill: “I’m forty-four years old. I have a daughter. I’m black. I’m gay.” The same order of the statement is notable—and it tells us something not just about the ways in which racial and sexual identity remain complicated issues but about the historic continuity many see in the struggle for civil rights in America. This is another step on a long path forward.
Gender matters, too. Brittney Griner, who may turn out to be the best woman ever to play basketball, came out a couple of weeks ago, and few people managed even a shrug. There is a longer record of high-profile female athletes being gay—Martina Navratilova came out in 1981—and, in a way, the lack of publicity was refreshing, a sign of where we’d already arrived. Griner is more interesting because she can dunk than because she is a lesbian. Still, just because Griner didn’t turn the sports world on its ear—her story is no less one of courage and pride. She is at the pinacle of her sport; she was just selected No. 1 in the W.N.B.A. draft, and signed a high-profile endorsement deal with Nike. If Collins is a hero, then so is Brittney Griner.
“I’m glad I’m coming out in 2013 rather than 2003,” Collins writes, because of the way public opinion has shifted. Ten years ago, he might not have had politicians and other players, from Bill Clinton to Kobe Bryant, responding with statements of support. But that silence cost him, too: “No one wants to live in fear. I’ve always been scared of saying the wrong thing. I don’t sleep well. I never have. But each time I tell another person, I feel stronger and sleep a little more soundly.”
Collins’s statement is as much a call to arms as a personal confession: “I didn’t set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport. But since I am, I’m happy to start the conversation.” That conversation has already started, and will be fascinating to follow in the coming hours and days. Who will support him? Who will criticize him? And who might be next to follow his example?
Original Article
Source: newyorker.com
Author: Ian Crouch
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