COMING OUT PARTY
In The Face Of Shock & Praise, NBA’s Jason Collins Exudes Peace, Elation
By Jacob Wittich
AFTER EIGHT YEARS OF DATING NBA STAR JASON COLLINS, former fiancée Carolyn Moos found out the true reason he called off the wedding: her former love is gay.
“It’s very emotional for me as a woman to have invested eight years in my dream to have a husband, soul mate, and best friend in him. So this is all hard to understand,” Moos told TMZ.
“I care about [Jason] tremendously and only want the best for him. I want Jason to be happy for a lifetime and stay true to who he really is, inside and out.”
Despite breaking up with Mooz and calling of the wedding, the Washington Wizards center told Good Morning America that she still holds a place in his heart.
“Calling off the wedding was obviously a tough decision but it was the right one, because I knew I wasn’t getting married for the right reasons,” Collins said. “I still love her to this day. She’s a great person and—but as far as doing what is right for both of us, it was the right decision.”
Being the first openly gay player in one of America’s professional leagues, Collins revealed to the world Monday in Sports Illustrated that has always known he was gay and fought it for years.
“I think, I know, in my personal life, I’m ready, and I think the country is ready for supporting an openly gay basketball player,” Collins told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.
“I always knew I was gay, it’s like you know that the sky is blue but you keep telling yourself it is red,” Collins continued. “I fought it for a long time but when you finally get to the point of acceptance there is nothing more beautiful. It feels incredible.”
The announcement was met with an overwhelming amount of support praise from across the country from fans, team members and even President Barack Obama.
“I just try to live an honest, genuine life and next thing you know you have the president calling you,” Collins told GMA’s George Stephanopoulos. “He was incredibly supportive and was proud of me and said that this not only affected my life but others going forward.”
When asked what he wants from his teammates after coming out, Collins said: “I want support, because that’s what I would give to them. The team is like a family and the NBA is like a brotherhood. We support each other on the team.”
Collins’s wishes came true when the Wizards officially tweeted: “#Wizards Statement “We are extremely proud of Jason & support his decision to live his life proudly and openly.”
Washington Wizards teammate John Wall chimed in adding: “I am proud of my brother @jasoncollins34. Great teammate and mentor!”
Collins’s coming out story has also reached the hearts of NBA players from other teams across the country.
“Proud of @jasoncollins34. Don’t suffocate who u r because of the ignorance of others #courage #support #mambaarmystandup #BYOU,” tweeted Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers.
Although Collins has received great amounts of support for his decision to go public about his homosexuality, inevitably there was some backlash, some from surprising quarters: ESPN reporter Chris Broussard spoke out against Collins’s homosexuality.
“If you’re openly living in unrepentant sin, whatever it may be, not just homosexuality, adultery, fornication, premarital sex between heterosexuals, whatever it may be, I believe that’s walking in open rebellion to God and to Jesus Christ,” Broussard told ESPN.
Collins was also subject to various Twitter posts slinging anti-gay slurs, such as “God hates gays.”
In a Q&A with The New York Times, Collins agreed to disagree with critics.
“My response is, first, I am a Christian. I know other gay and lesbian members of the community, the LGBT community, who are practicing Christians. This is all about tolerance and acceptance and America is the best country in the world because we’re all entitled to our opinions and beliefs but we don’t have to agree. And obviously I don’t agree with [Broussard’s] statement.”
In addition, Collins wrote in his Sports Illustrated article that him coming out shows that the gay community cannot be stereotyped, and him coming out should hopefully help to prove that.
“I think the country is ready to support an openly gay basketball player. I’m trying to rewrite the gay stereotype and let everyone know that you can’t put people in a box,” Collins wrote.
Having already been out to his friends and family, Collins says that “a huge weight” has been lifted since coming out on his own terms.
Collins said that he first came out to his aunt, who said she had known for years that he was gay. Although, Collins’s twin brother, Jarron, who also plays in the NBA for the Portland TrailBlazers, was completely surprised when Jason came out to him early one morning.
“He was downright astounded,” Collins wrote in the SI article. “He never suspected. So much for twin telepathy. But 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.”
While on GMA, Collins admitted that after receiving the support from his family, coming out to the rest of the world became much easier.
“Once you tell your parents and their response is positive, the rest is downhill after that,” Collins said. “You know, having that support of my family. I mean my entire family has been so supportive and my friends and once you have that big talk with…whoever that is in your family and you get that [love and] support…the rest of it is kind of downhill from there.”
When asked about the message he wants to send to young gay players, Collins told ABC: “Keep working hard. It doesn’t matter that you’re gay. The key thing is that it’s about basketball.”
Jacob Wittich is pop music fanatic majoring in journalism at Columbia College Chicago. Follow him @JacobWittich on Twitter.
