Sometimes the toughest information comes on the finish of the day.
Late afternoon on May 12, NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced that former NBA participant and LGBTQ advocate Jason Collins had died. The 47-year-old had been battling stage 4 glioblastoma, an aggressive and sometimes terminal type of mind most cancers, for eight months.
In December, Collins opened up about his therapy and the assist he acquired from his husband, Brunson Green and his household on Instagram.
Collins made history when he got here out in 2013, changing into the primary energetic participant within the NBA – and in any of the 4 main males’s skilled sports activities leagues within the US – to come back out as homosexual.
Since his demise, tributes have poured in from league executives, activists and athletes throughout skilled sports activities.
Major League Soccer participant Collin Martin known as Collins a trailblazer and told USA Today that “without him, I don’t know if the rest of us that came out after him, if it would have been as easy.”
Chris Mosier, an eight-time Team USA competitor and the primary identified transgender man to signify the United States in worldwide competitors, described Collins as “a big brother.”
“Beyond being a great athlete and a ‘first,’ he was a dear friend, husband, brother and son,” Mosier wrote on Instagram. “His smile not only lit up a room, it stayed with your soul long after you left his presence.”
But more than a decade after this groundbreaking announcement, he stays the one energetic NBA participant to say publicly that he’s homosexual.
In 2026, the sports activities world is grappling with how and whether or not to assist LGBTQ athletes — particularly those that compete in males’s sports activities or athletes who’re transgender.
Jason Collins, NBA’s first brazenly homosexual participant, dies at 47
Jason Collins, the NBA’s first brazenly homosexual participant and a outstanding champion of inclusion, has died at 47 after battling an aggressive mind tumor, his household stated.
The night time after Collins died, Charles Barkley reflected on Collins’ choice to come back out and the broader tradition surrounding LGBTQ athletes.
“Anybody who thinks we ain’t got a bunch of gay players in all sports, they’re just stupid,” Barkley stated. “But there is such animosity toward the gay community, and that’s what’s really unfortunate.”
The feedback resonated with Hudson Taylor, a former collegiate wrestler and founding father of Athlete Ally, a nonprofit working to make sports activities more inclusive for LGBTQ athletes.
Taylor labored with Collins on a number of of the NBA’s LGBTQ inclusion efforts, together with encouraging participant participation in Pride Nights. They led trainings for incoming NBA gamers and have been a part of conversations that helped push the league to maneuver the 2017 All-Star Game out of North Carolina due to the state’s controversial, anti-trans HB2 “bathroom bill.”
“For a closeted athlete, there is a calculation going on between the risk of coming out and the reward of being your authentic self,” Taylor instructed NCS. “The risk is maybe I won’t get my contract renewed. Maybe I’ll get fewer sponsorships. Maybe my family is kind of homophobic, and they won’t love me as much.”
Taylor stated the NBA has been constant in each its public assist for the LGBTQ group and in addressing locker room tradition proactively. But he says institutional assist doesn’t routinely translate into athletes feeling safe sufficient to be open about who they’re.
For many athletes, Taylor stated, conversations round LGBTQ inclusion are formed not solely by league insurance policies, but additionally by questions round religion, household and even navigate a locker room or bathe round an out teammate. He stated Collins’ voice was useful right here.
“One of Jason’s strengths has always been to educate with a sense of humor and grace. He really just did a beautiful job helping guide them [players] through those really hard, challenging conversations.”
Still, he says, coaches, homeowners and sponsors might do more to say, “It’s okay. I love you. I accept you. I got your back.”
“I’ve been really moved to see how much support Jason has gotten since his passing,” Taylor stated. “But homophobia exists every single day. And every day we don’t address it is a day we allow that perceived risk to stay greater than the reward.”
Jason Collins: Players deal with me the identical
Ashland Johnson, a coverage lawyer and founding father of The Inclusion Playbook, agrees that athletes proceed to weigh the danger and reward of popping out. After working with Athlete Ally and the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, she now advises leagues, sports activities governing our bodies, and colleges to assist create more inclusive athletic areas.
Johnson remembers Collins as completely satisfied, humble and “the biggest hero in the room.” She says he helped to usher in an period of visibility for LGBTQ athletes and broader conversations about identification and politics in and out of doors of sports activities.
Now, she says that period seems to have come to an finish, at the very least in some locations, as the present political local weather is testing how dedicated leagues, groups and organizations really are to inclusion.
“The people who have the power,” Johnson stated, referring to leagues, homeowners, and sports activities associations, “should not put it all on the athletes to be the most courageous people in the room,” she instructed NCS.
Johnson praised the NBA for going past symbolic gestures and investing in broader LGBTQ inclusion efforts.
“They’re not just doing Pride Nights,” she stated. “They’re pushing for LGBTQ inclusion, sometimes at the legislative level. They’re doing the education. It’s more than just marketing. It’s about structural change.”
At the identical time, she factors to what she sees as a scaling back of some Pride initiatives throughout sports activities – notably amongst some NHL and NBA groups in conservative states. She additionally famous the NHL prohibited gamers from carrying Pride-themed or “specialty” warmups and Pride tape in 2023. The league later reversed its ban on Pride tape.
“It’s like an ‘all were welcome in sports’ night,” she stated. “We’ve seen people pulling back because of the political pressure, and it’s not just in the sports space, it’s in every space.”
The NHL instructed NCS it stays dedicated and pleased with its LGBTQ inclusion efforts, which vary from Pride Night video games to donations to LGBTQ+ organizations. A supply with data of the league’s inside issues stated the choice to discontinue specialty warmup jerseys was about inside consistency, not political strain. (The supply spoke on the situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t licensed to talk on behalf of the league.)
After a handful of gamers declined to put on Pride-themed jerseys — citing spiritual or private beliefs — the league opted for uniformity: no themed warmup jerseys for any problem, for anybody. The supply added that you may’t pressure folks to do one thing they don’t wish to do.
Both the NBA and NHL prohibit homophobic language and might self-discipline gamers for anti-gay slurs, whereas leaving selections about Pride Nights and associated initiatives to particular person groups.
But stress persists. Of the hundreds of athletes who’ve performed within the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB, solely two energetic male gamers have come out as homosexual.
In 2021, Carl Nassib turned the NFL’s first energetic brazenly homosexual participant after spending 5 seasons within the league earlier than his announcement. That similar 12 months, Luke Prokop turned the primary participant underneath an NHL contract to come back out as homosexual, although he has but to seem in a regular-season sport.
And whereas Michael Sam was out when he was drafted by the then-St. Louis Rams in 2014, he was lower months later and by no means performed in a common season NFL sport.
Today, the political local weather has grown more and more hostile towards LGBTQ visibility and transgender rights, and leagues, gamers and advocates are still wrestling with LGBTQ inclusion: what occurs when efforts to advertise inclusion collide with gamers who don’t wish to take part in them? What occurs to the group dynamic if participation is optionally available? And how far are leagues prepared to go to match phrases of inclusion with motion?
ESPN’s Andscape columnist William C. Rhoden has coated athlete activism for many years. He known as Collins brave for popping out – then and now.
“Jason was a good player. He wasn’t a superstar, but he was a good player and had a solid career,” Rhoden instructed NCS. The announcement modified how Collins was considered by the press and the general public, he stated.
“He stepped out of the ordinary. The idea of a male player coming out as gay was and still is significant news,” he stated. “I guess the question is, when will it stop becoming news?”
“We thought that maybe when Jason Collins came out, it would begin a deluge of openness and more players coming out. But it has not.”
Collins first came out to family and friends in 2012, whereas taking part in for the Celtics. Same-sex marriage had been banned by the Defense of Marriage Act, and in lots of industries, it was thought of very dangerous for a public individual to reveal their sexuality in the event that they have been something different than straight.
“I didn’t want to be first,” Collins recalled throughout a 2019 WorldPride occasion. “The first person through the wall is usually bloodied, and I don’t really want to be bloodied.”
Collins introduced he was homosexual in a 2013 essay for Sports Illustrated, which started: “I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m black. And I’m gay.” It was revealed about 10 days after now-WNBA star, Brittney Griner publicly got here out through the WNBA Draft, which earned her a lot reward however little fanfare.
Collins acquired support from NBA management and a few gamers, together with Kobe Bryant, who tweeted: “Proud of @jasoncollins34. Don’t suffocate who u r because of the ignorance of others #courage #support #mambaarmystandup #BYOU.”
But not all reactions have been optimistic. Notably, Larry Johnson, then basketball and enterprise operations consultant for the Knicks tweeted: “I don’t Jason Collins personally but he seems like a great guy. Me personally gay men in the locked room would make me uncomfortable.”
When somebody replied to that assertion by saying “there’s no place in the NBA for gay players,” Johnson responded, “I agree.”
After Collins’ retirement, NBA Cares named Collins an envoy for the league’s social accountability program, the place he continued advocating for LGBTQ inclusion in sports activities.
He designed “Pride socks,” praised the WNBA’s embrace of LGBTQ gamers and stated one among his desires was “to see every single team in every single sports league, at a minimum, have a Pride Night game.”
Collins additionally shared he was deeply involved concerning the therapy of transgender athletes.
“A lot of young athletes, especially trans athletes, are leaving sports because they don’t feel safe,” he stated in 2019. “All of us know what it’s like to walk into a room and feel uneasy, and in that moment, we wanted to feel welcome. So, if you have an opportunity to feel welcome or to bring them in, please do that.”
At the time, a number of main sports activities governing our bodies, together with the International Olympic Committee and NCAA, subjected athletes to strict and contested testosterone-level testing.
In the years since, these restrictions have turn out to be more stringent, notably for trans girls competing in skilled and amateur-level girls’s sports activities. In some instances — together with the Olympics and a few worldwide swimming and track and field occasions — trans girls are barred from elite girls’s competitors.
“For a transgender athlete, this is not a welcoming environment,” stated Rhoden, who has written about trans athletes and Title IX, “You know, this is a fairly regressive environment. I think we’ve taken five steps forward and four steps back,” he stated, including that the media itself is still determining cowl trans athletes.
One of the final instances Chris Mosier noticed Jason Collins was in 2024, on the Stonewall National Monument in New York City throughout Pride. The three-time World Championship duathlon competitor realized about Jason’s demise on social media.
“It has just been such a tumultuous time to be a queer person in sports. And I think Jason’s loss is gonna be something that our community is dealing with for a long time,” he instructed NCS.
Mosier described Collins as each household and a collaborator within the LGBTQ sports activities inclusion motion.
“I think at the core of every interaction that he had, he wanted to make the world a better place,” Mosier stated. “Whether it was simply through how he acknowledged and acknowledged you with such heat and loving vitality, or the way in which he was so extremely considerate about his advocacy.
He pointed to Collins selecting No. 98 on his jersey in honor of Matthew Shepard as one instance. Shepard, a 21-year-old scholar, was tortured and killed as a result of he was homosexual in 1998.
The rise of Mosier’s profession as a skilled triathlete and trans activist coincided with Collins’ emergence as one of the seen LGBTQ advocates in skilled sports activities.
“We had a lot of overlap in the fact that we were both firsts and that we were both trailblazers in our different lanes, and we were always able to connect over that.”
Mosier says he and Jason have been on the identical web page about making sports activities welcoming to trans athletes and anybody else who needs to play, and on utilizing sports activities as a software for social change.
But he says the extent of visibility that comes with that strategy is expensive.
“I feel a sense of obligation and desire to continue to show up and fight every day. And at the same time, it is exhausting,” he stated. “I long for the day where I am not on such high alert for my own personal safety, for my digital safety, for the safety of those who I love around me.”
Despite the dangers or the setbacks, Mosier stated Collins confirmed him the ability of staying open and beneficiant.
“The fact that he was able to consistently show up with a smile on his face, with great energy, with warmth and love for every person he interacted with … I was taking notes,” Mosier stated. “If Jason taught us anything, it was really the power of…in-person interactions and seeing people as full humans worthy of the same rights and dignity and respect that I think I deserve.”