Collins: A pivotal moment for gay athletes

“I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m black. And I’m gay.” With those three sentences, said Kevin Fallon in TheDailyBeast.com, Jason Collins has become “one of the biggest trailblazers in sports history”—the first openly gay athlete currently playing in a major American team sport. In a first-person cover story in Sports Illustrated, the 7-foot-tall, 255-pound Collins said he’d grown tired of living in fear and denying his sexuality. “I wish I wasn’t the kid in the classroom raising his hand and saying, ‘I’m different,’” Collins wrote. But since no other pro athlete has done it, he said, “I’m raising my hand.” To his immense relief, Collins’s announcement brought an outpouring of support from other NBA players, said Howard Beck in The New York Times. “Proud of @jasoncollins34,” tweeted Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant. “Don’t suffocate who u r.” Added fellow Laker Steve Nash, “Maximum respect.”

“I’m already sick of hearing how ‘brave’” Collins is, said Josh Barro in Bloomberg.com. A 34-year-old free agent who has made $32 million in 12 years as a backup center, Collins waited until his career was ending—and gay rights had become a popular cause—before coming out. What took him so long? A true moral leader would have come out when his personal risks were much greater. Collins’s “awkward confession” also insults many other gays, said J. Bryan Lowder in Slate.com. He was so desperate to counteract “femme-swishy” gay stereotypes that he reminded everyone of how “butch” he’s been as a player, frequently battering and fouling opponents. In other words, he’s not “that kind of gay.” How sad that our first gay pro jock deems it necessary to assure nervous homophobes that “gay athletes won’t queen-up the game.”

Give the guy a break, said Bob Cook in Forbes.com. Collins makes his living in a world “where it gets overtly stated what manhood means,” and he’s single-handedly taken on the job of making masculinity “more inclusive” to include people like him—big, tough jocks who happen to be attracted to men. By coming out, he’ll make it far easier for other gays in pro sports, as well as high school and college athletes, to leave their own closets. In 20 years, when “it’s not a big deal to watch a gay third baseman or a gay quarterback,” we’ll look back on Collins’s announcement as the day things began to change.

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