The NBA Washington Wizards’ center Jason Collins came out as the first gay active player in a team sport. In this week’s Sports Illustrated, Collins says, “I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m black. And I’m gay.” While this is notable, because he is the first to make this admission while still playing his sport, his NBA future is questionable. He is currently a free agent, who averaged just over 1 point per game this past year.
We heard rumors recently that the time was coming that an active professional player would come out as gay, and today is the day. While this is something noteworthy, I don’t understand why it was the lead story on sports shows today. The NBA playoffs are in their first round. The NHL is just about to begin the Stanley Cup playoffs. The NFL Draft was held this past weekend. But the biggest story of the day is the sexual orientation of a player I never heard of.
Collins attended high school at Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles. He and his twin brother Jarron, won 2 California Interscholastic Federation state championships, while amassing a record of 123-10 in 4 years. Jason set a state career record of 1500 rebounds while in high school. Both of the brothers then went to Stanford, where Jason was voted to the All Pac-10 First Team, and a 3rd team All American in 2001. He finished his Stanford career with the highest field goal percentage (.608), and 5th highest number of blocked shots (89) in school history.
Collins was selected by the Houston Rockets with the 18th pick of the 2001 Draft. However, he never played for the Rockets. He was traded to the New Jersey Nets, and made it to the NBA Finals his first 2 years in the NBA in a reserve role, losing both years. Collins’ most productive season was in 2004-05 with the Nets, averaging just over 6 points and 6 rebounds per game. He played with 5 other teams, including both the Boston Celtics and the Washington Wizards this past season.
I wonder about the timing of this announcement by Collins. First, if he isn’t picked up by an NBA team for next season, then he really didn’t come out as an active player, because he won’t be playing any more games in the NBA. Second, with 6 first round NBA series still going on, his coming out at this time will be widely discussed, especially during those telecasts. Third, it will be interesting to see if this hurts or actually helps his possibility of playing next season. But how will we really know?
Since Collins has played for 12 seasons, with 6 different teams, and no one ever knew he was gay, he obviously wasn’t a distraction to his teams, and shouldn’t be in the future, if he continues to play. His twin brother was even shocked to find out his brother’s secret last summer. If a gay athlete does not disrupt his team’s unity, then his sexual preference shouldn’t be a problem or such a big story. Can we just get on with the games?
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