The first active pro men’s basketball player to come out explains why. Excerpted from Inforum’s “The NBA’s Jason Collins: First Out Athlete in Major American Pro Sports,” August 11, 2014.

JASON COLLINS, Professional NBA player
In conversation with JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS, Director, Define American; Producer/Director, Documented

JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: What was it like to tell your family members that [you were] going to [come out] on the cover of Sports Illustrated? What was that conversation like?

JASON COLLINS: I have a gay uncle – he’s sort of like a mentor to me – and I remember him telling me that as a gay man, he has to come out and he has to keep coming out. It’s not like you rip the Band-Aid off. And you’ll get into certain situations. I wanted to tell my story in a vehicle that would put it out there, and then that way, we could talk about it.

It’s very rare that I actually have to come out. People just know. I have a lot of humor with it now. I remember stressing about the day I was going to tell my parents, tell my aunt, tell my grandmother.

You have to have a thick skin to be a professional athlete. I remember when Derek Jeter got booed at Yankee Stadium because he was in a batting slump. My advice to athletes is, if it can happen to Derek Jeter in Yankee stadium, then it can happen to you. I have been booed by my home crowd and there have been times that I’ve wanted to boo myself because I’ve done a bonehead play out there, but you have to
have thick skin.

I also developed a sense of humor. Actually [a funny thing] happened today when I was shopping for some lotion at a department store and the saleswoman said, “Oh, you can buy this for your wife or your girlfriend.” I was like, “You mean my boyfriend.” and she said, “Oh, okay, that too.”

VARGAS: So wait, wait, wait; you have a boyfriend?

COLLINS: Yes.

VARGAS: When I was reading the Sports Illustrated cover, what struck me was the headline, “The Gay Athlete.”

COLLINS: Yeah.

VARGAS: There’s more to [you] than being gay. But I’m curious, how do you prepare yourself for that? All of a sudden, you’re going to be the face of this?

COLLINS: I approach things as if I’m going to jump off a cliff. I seek out other people who have done that or have done something similar to that to get their advice, their expertise. I was very fortunate that my brother played with a man named John Amaechi, a former NBA basketball player who came out a couple years after he retired.

Toward the end of the regular season, when I was with the Washington Wizards, I reached out to John; my brother was able to get John’s phone number. I called him and told him that I was thinking about doing a Sports Illustrated article; “What do you think?” And John was right on board. But he was the first person to say to me, “Jason, your identity will change.” My reputation before was “the pro’s pro,” a guy who’s just a solid, professional athlete: works hard, dependable, very coachable. But he said, “All that is going to go out the window. It’s not going to change with you because you’ll always be the pro’s pro, but to the outside world and the basketball community, you’re gonna be ‘the gay one.’ Start preparing yourself for that.”

It was just great; we had great conversations and I really appreciate him just preparing me for that. Now, I’m not just the gay one; depending on the situation, I’m the tall one, or I’m the black one, and yes, also the gay one.

I never let other people make labels for me and say, “Okay, I have to stick in that box.” I’ve never been that person that sticks in one particular box.

VARGAS: So you talked about what the playbook has been: If you’re in the closet and you wanna come out, you come out after you retire. You don’t do it while you’re actively playing. So when you outed yourself in spring 2013 – President Obama was incredibly supportive of it – you didn’t get signed by the Brooklyn Nets until February 2014. That was a few months of waiting there.

COLLINS: More than a few. [Laughter.]

VARGAS: What were you thinking during that period? Were you like, “Wait up a second; everybody’s supportive, but why am I not getting signed?”

COLLINS: I never put myself in that mind frame. It goes back to preparation, and I guess that’s part of being a pro’s pro; you control what you can control, and [for me] that was how hard I worked, how hard I trained. From the end of that regular season with the Washington Wizards, I knew once the announcement was made, if I got an opportunity, a lot of eyeballs were gonna be on me and I had to be ready. I had to be in shape, so I trained very hard from May, when the announcement came out, until February.

I did an event at the White House – the State of the Union – and the day before that, I was in Los Angeles, running five and a half miles and just working my butt off [to be ready] when that opportunity came – and it actually ended up being one opportunity. The Nets were the only team that gave me a basketball tryout.

When I got on that court and went through that tryout, they weren’t going to say, “He’s out of shape, he’s lazy.” I went in there in practically the best shape of my life. I was 35 years old. I wish I was 25, because as an athlete there are things that I can’t do anymore. There’s the basketball hoop and then there’s a white box above it; I could easily touch the top of the box at one point of my life, and then slowly, my hand went down.

Now, it’s like, “Okay, we can dunk. We can still dunk!” I actually got a dunk with the Nets, and my teammates actually won a bet off of that with [teammate] Joe Johnson.

Even though I was training, I was still living my life, meeting a lot of great people – ended up meeting my boyfriend – meeting great friends and having a great time; for the first time in my life really having a true social life.

I did have one boyfriend before my current boyfriend; you know, even having the [first] experience of having your heart broken because of an ended relationship, something that most people go through in high school, I went through when I was 34 years old. So it’s an accelerated learning curve, and the Stanford student in me is saying, “Okay, we’re gonna master this.”

VARGAS: Pace yourself.

COLLINS: No. At Stanford, we don’t do that. [Laughter.]

VARGAS: I remember reading in an article that in the first month that you were with the Nets, once you were out, you were taunted by some NBA player. I think you called him a knucklehead.

COLLINS: Yeah, he’s a knucklehead. We talked about that, actually, with the young guys. This is America; everybody has their own opinions. You hope that some people will keep their opinions to themselves.

I’ll never say his name, but to his credit, he didn’t use a curse word and he didn’t use a derogatory name. He just used his words wisely, and it was obviously a negative, but at the same time, you know, “Okay, so what? You’re an opponent, and guess what? On the other end, I’m gonna foul you very hard.” I’m a physical player to start with, so you really don’t want to rattle that cage.

VARGAS: This is why I’m very careful about my questions.

COLLINS: No, no; off the court I’m great. As a professional athlete, I think the most insulting thing you can call a professional athlete, especially in football, basketball, hockey, when it’s really [about] contact, is “soft.”

For so long, I had to break that. I always equated getting these ideals of masculinity and all that stuff and just coming to terms with, “Look, I’m one of the most physical basketball players in the league and yes, I’m gay.” So it’s breaking a stereotype here or breaking some people’s misconceptions of what it means to be gay, because we all come in all different shades, all different colors.

VARGAS: Especially now, in the age of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, there’s a lot of name calling, a lot of bullying. What advice would you give to young people who are taunted?

COLLINS: It starts with that one person that you can talk to. The first person I told was my friend Keith, and then my aunt and then my parents. But you [need] that safe space whether you are talking to kids – maybe it might not be a parent; it might be a friend, or it might be a teacher. That’s why I think organizations like [the straight-gay student group] GLSEN are so important and amazing.

It goes back to what my grandmother taught me: There’s always strength in numbers, don’t feel that you have to carry the weight of something by yourself. I would [advise people] to reach out to that one person, and then your community – your support system – will grow from there. [Use that] to try to navigate through whatever turmoil you’re going through.

VARGAS: No one was asking you to do this. Do you think prominent public people have a responsibility to come out?

COLLINS: That’s a tough one, because I am [very much] for telling people, “You’re an adult, you have your own path in life to live.” I want to tell them that if they do choose to come out, the community is waiting for them, [and] the support will be there for them.

Then again, it goes back to not having that stress and really being proud of everything that makes you unique. So when it comes to people who have some prominence in the community, I would love it. Deep down, yes, I would love it if they all came out, because then as a wave we would just change people’s minds and continue that conversation.
But you don’t ever want to force people because if they’re not ready they can do more harm to not only themselves, but also their communities. You just try to be very supportive and tell them again that there’s nothing more powerful than living your authentic life. Their lives will just be so much better for it.

VARGAS: I think people like us owe a great deal of gratitude to people like Harvey Milk [and] to a lot of athletes who never came out. I’m curious what would you say if you could have a conversation with those [people.]

COLLINS: Well, I’ve had conversations with Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King – I come from a sports world. I’m a jock, but I did go to Stanford so... [I spoke] with Martina Navratilova and Billie Jean King and then other gay athletes, gay male athletes – Dave Kopay, Esera Tuaolo, John Amaechi. Everybody does their part to make it easier and better for the next generation.

I think that’s one of the main things that’s really cool about my experiences, just having that realization that my ac¬ions will make it easier for someone else to have a better life. That’s important for all of us in this room, to have a positive impact on someone else’s life. You know, we’re all trying to live our journey and clear the road. So I have members of the LGBT community to thank for that and also members from the civil rights era in the 1960s. Being an African American, I just spoke on a panel discussion for CBS, “CBS News: 50 Years Later, Civil Rights.”

I’ve heard of a lot of the stories from my family members. I had a conversation with my aunt and my mom and my grandmother. My grandmother grew up in upstate Louisiana [in] segregation. You know, just hearing those stories about how the country has changed in her lifetime – that’s what I want when I’m her age. I won’t give away how old she is but hopefully I’ll live [to see] what the country will be like when I am her age. I don’t have children yet, but my brother has three children, and what kind of world do I want them to be in?

VARGAS: This is a really, really good question from the audience from a guy named Stewart – went to Stanford. Question is: Knowing what you know today, what would you have told your 20-year-old Stanford student self?

COLLINS: Wow. You don’t have to live the lie. You’re gonna, for over a decade, have horrible sleep. It will weigh on you. It will weigh on your soul, because you’re fighting yourself, and you don’t have to have that fight. So that’s what I would tell my 20-year-old self.

VARGAS: Have you experienced greater expectations and pressures as a gay man who is also African American?

COLLINS: I’ve always kind of put high expectations on myself. I went to a very challenging, demanding high school, went to a very challenging, demanding college. When you’re at these institutions, sometimes there are fewer of us minorities in the room; again, it goes back to my family instilling that pride in me: Just be proud of who you are and always keep your head held high.

With regard to extra pressure, extra expectation, I guess I’m used to [the fact that] when I walk into a room, the heads [are] always going to turn because I am a seven-foot African American. Whether they’re turning because of that or they’re turning because I’m gay, I don’t know. I don’t enter into someone else’s mind. I’m going into legal terminology right now where you can’t enter into someone else’s mind.

I’m proud of who I am. Now I’m 35, but it took me a long time to get to that point to truly be proud of everything that makes me who I am, and just go from there.

VARGAS: So how did you feel when your jersey sales [got so high], after coming out?

COLLINS: Yeah, it was the number-one seller for a while. Thanks [to] everyone here who bought one.

More important, I talked about donating proceeds from the jersey sales to the Matthew Shepard Foundation and GLSEN [Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network], two great organizations that do a lot for society, and just making sure that something even better can come of the money coming in.

VARGAS: [Another comment from the audience]: You have to go play for the Warriors.

COLLINS: They already have one Collins on the team; my brother is an assistant coach on the team, so you can at least cheer for my brother.