Jason Collins Just Became the First Openly Gay NBA Player, and the Internet Lost Its Damn Mind
You know what? It’s 2013, and I’m still waiting for the day when a professional athlete can just exist without turning into a goddamn national referendum. But no, here we are. Jason Collins, a 34-year-old journeyman center who has bounced around the league like a bad check, just decided to drop the biggest “by the way” in sports history. He’s gay. He’s out. And the collective heads of every sports talk radio host, homophobic Twitter bot, and “concerned parent” in flyover country just exploded like a Chris Berman highlight reel.
Let’s be clear about one thing: Jason Collins is not LeBron James. He’s not Kobe. He’s not even the guy you’d recognize at a grocery store unless you’re the type of degenerate who watches the Wizards at 11 PM on a Tuesday. He’s a career role player, a defensive specialist, a guy whose stat line reads like a participation trophy. But what he did on Monday, in a quiet-ass *Sports Illustrated* essay, is more impactful than any game-winning three-pointer he’ll never hit. He became the first active male athlete in any of the four major American sports leagues to say, “Yeah, I’m gay. Deal with it.”
And America, being the mature, well-adjusted society we are, immediately lost its collective shit.
The reactions are exactly what you’d expect from a country that still has arguments about whether or not gay people should be allowed to adopt. On one hand, you have the righteous choir of progressives, pumping their fists and screaming “HISTORY!” like they just found out the Constitution has a second amendment. On the other, you have the usual suspects—the “I’m not homophobic, but” crowd—who are now furiously typing comments on ESPN articles about how they “don’t care” (which, by the way, is the universal tell that you care a LOT).
Let’s break down the absolute circus that is Jason Collins’ coming out, shall we?
First, there’s the sports media. God love them, they’re having a field day. Every single segment on every single network is now dedicated to asking the same dumb question: “Can the NBA handle this?” No, you idiots, the NBA can handle it. The NBA is run by a dude who wears turtlenecks and looks like he just got out of a board meeting at a Silicon Valley startup. They’ll be fine. They’ve got dudes with neck tattoos and guys who punch each other in the groin. A gay center is the least of their problems.
Then you have the politicians, because of course you do. President Obama, who apparently has a direct line to every historic moment in sports, called Jason to congratulate him. That’s nice. That’s very “we’re all in this together.” But you know damn well that Mitt Romney or some other GOP stuffed shirt is going to come out with a statement about “traditional values” that sounds like it was written by a AI program from 1955. It’s the same script every time. They’ll say they “respect” him, then immediately pivot to how they “disagree with his lifestyle.” It’s like watching a broken robot try to apologize for stepping on your foot.
And let’s not forget the actual players. Oh, the players. You’ve got the usual suspects—Kobe Bryant, who probably said something cryptic and quasi-enlightened like, “Good for him, we’re all just trying to win.” You’ve got guys like Kevin Durant, who tweeted something supportive. And then you’ve got the anonymous quotes, because there are ALWAYS anonymous quotes. Some "high-ranking Eastern Conference executive" is probably out there right now telling reporters, “Oh, yeah, we knew. We just didn’t want the distraction in the locker room.” What distraction, dude? A guy who plays 15 minutes a game and grabs a few rebounds? If that’s your distraction threshold, you should probably check your team’s DUI record.
The real MVP of this whole thing, though, is the Twitter discourse. My god, Twitter is a cesspool of both the best and worst of humanity, and this story has brought out both in full force. You have the progressives, who are retweeting “#Brave” and “#History” like it’s a trending topic for a new Beyoncé album. And then you have the homophobes, who are finding creative new ways to say “I don’t want to see that” while simultaneously watching a sport where 7-foot dudes grab each other’s sweaty bodies for 48 minutes. The irony is so thick you could cut it with a butter knife. You’re worried about a gay guy in the locker room, but you’re fine with the fact that these dudes literally take showers together after every game? Get a grip.
But here’s the thing that’s actually kind of beautiful, and I hate to be sincere for even a second, so let me wrap this in sarcasm: Jason Collins doesn’t give a shit about your opinion. He’s 34. He’s been in the league for over a decade. He’s played for six different teams and has seen more trades than a Wall Street intern. He’s not doing this for the spotlight. He’s doing this because he was tired of hiding. And honestly, that’s the most punk rock thing you can do in a world that constantly tells you to keep your mouth shut if you want to fit in.
Now, let’s talk about the actual impact on the sport. Spoiler alert: there isn’t one. The NBA is a business. They don’t care if you’re gay, straight, or a Martian who plays defense like a maniac. All they care about is whether you can hit a jump shot and not get arrested. Jason Collins is a free agent this summer. He’s probably not getting a max contract. He’s probably
Final Thoughts
As a journalist who's covered the league long enough to see locker rooms evolve in fits and starts, I can say Collins' announcement wasn't just a headline—it was a seismic shift in the culture war. His decision to play openly, not as a martyr, but as a professional simply doing his job, forced the conversation away from abstract tolerance and onto the concrete reality of a teammate earning his paycheck. The true legacy here isn't the applause he received, but the silence that followed in the huddles and on the road trips—the proof that, in the end, the game is all that matters.